When we first started discussing Financial Independence several years ago one of the biggest concerns that was expressed was the idea that we were going to have to sacrifice doing anything enjoyable for a long time in order to save as much as possible as quickly as possible. This was problematic because neither of us wanted to give up everything just for the potential that we might be able to do a lot more things in the future. Luckily we quickly realized (thanks to a few books and blogs) that this was not an approach we had to follow. Instead we had control over the priorities in our life and could reorganize our finances to spend on the things that we loved and valued while cutting back on everything else that did not meet this criteria. Once we started to think this way it changed our outlook on the whole process.

One of the biggest priorities in our life, outside of family that I have discussed in prior posts, is our love to travel. We decided early on that both of us wanted to travel the world to see and do things that might be harder when we get older. We also want to do this with our kids and take them with us so that we get to experience all of this as a family. We have had discussions that if we had to choose between traveling now or later in life, we would rather do all of our traveling now, rather than when we are older, although hopefully we can do both. We benefit from having significant flexibility in our careers that allows us to travel while we continue to work which is a huge benefit and privilege. When I say we like to travel, I am not simply stating this as an idea, but something we put into practice. So far in 2019 we have spent 91 nights away from home (all out of state) traveling, and this does not include my personal travel (FinCon and CentsPositive), or one solo work trip. By the end of the year we will have traveled well over 100 days and we expect this will continue for the next several years. During this year we have traveled to England, Spain, France, Portugal, Mexico, Aruba, the Azores, as well as several states including multiple trips to California and Florida. Since I plan to start posting highlights of some of our trips on this blog (including the financial aspects) I thought it would be a good idea to talk about how we are able to travel so much and not completely derail our plans for financial independence…
[Read more…] about The Joy of Travel – Making it a Priority