It seems like just yesterday that I founded Living the Dream.During one of the many days of being burned out in graduate school I decided it would be fun to take a long-term trip after graduation. With no real plans, the only thing I knew was that I wanted to share my experiences for all those who were interested. So a few weeks later I opened up a blog, put together a pretty poor design, and started writing into the ether.
With absolutely no one reading, Living the Dream was born.
That was 5 years ago today.
Where Has The Time Gone?
Five years in the blogging universe is a very long time.
For travel blogging, it is an eternity.
I remember the very first time I found another blog dedicated to a long-term trip. My only thought was "holy crap, someone else!" because the number of long-term travel blogs at that time were so few and far between. Many have been around before this, of course, but compared to today's standards there were few and "discovering" one on a search engine was not an easy task.
Since my long-term trip was 2 years down the road, I was in the awkward place of being able to read other travel blogger's sites before they left for their trip, while they were on their trip, and after they returned home; all before I left for my own journey. Through reading other's experiences, I planned, and planned, and planned some more.
It is during this period that I focused on making Living the Dream the best planning resource for long-term travel, because for the first two years of our existence that is all I did.
It was also in this period that I learned the difficult lesson that without a plan for the future and focus to our content, Living the Dream was destined to fail as soon as the trip ended. So while I planned for the large trip that was ahead of me, I had to look past that and consider what Living the Dream would become once it was all over.
From looking at other blogs that came and went before us, a trend emerged. Continuing to write after a trip is a very difficult thing for most bloggers.
Travel Blogging Isn't Self-Sustaining
The point we made above that five years in the travel blogging universe is an eternity is important because travel blogging by itself is not self-sustaining. Many good blogs have been lost over the years because the authors have been unable to keep up with their ability to produce content.
In nearly every case, it comes down to money.
To write about first-hand experiences around the world, we have to travel. To travel, we typically have to spend money. In many cases, a lot of money.
When it comes down to it, unless the author of the site is either:
- Working in a side career as a digital nomad.
- Only traveling on press trips with no real purpose.
- Making a home base in a very budget friendly country.
- Mooching on the generosity of others.
Rich from previous business ventures.
In all of these categories, one common theme of travel is true: someone is paying for the trip. With no income, or a 3rd party paying for every single experience, the blog focused on long-term travel dies with the depleted travel budget. Unlike other topics, this problem is somewhat unique to travel bloggers, and many do not know how to overcome it.
In the past five years we've seen blogs pop up with the goal of covering long-term travel. The owners go off to their trip, make a lot of fans and readers, run out of money, go home, and forget about their sites 6 months down the road.
This sequence of events happened a few times before I even left for the first trip, and I knew I did not want to fall into that category. So even after the first trip ended in early 2011, I kept to it. It would have been very easy to close up, leave the site as it was, and become yet another disregarded site in the travel blogging universe, but I had bigger plans going on in the background. The goal had not yet been realized.
After five years, publishing 728 posts, enduring some interesting detours to the goal, celebrating the subsequent marriage that went with it, and working full-time at two separate jobs for four of those years, Living the Dream has finally reached the point I was striving for when I founded the site back in 2008. The one goal that I had in mind from the moment we went public with our first post:
But even then, we're not self-sustaining. And we're perfectly okay with that.
What About the Future?
So you may be wondering about our future. If we're traveling full-time, not self-sustaining in terms of income, and draining our bank account like everyone else who goes on a long-term trip, what are we going to do when it runs out?
The answer to that is simple: this trip will end. But Living the Dream will not.
The problem I have with travel blogging today is that most sites fall into the same predictable mold. One scenario is when the traveler opens a blog to share their trip experiences, their journey ends, and they stop writing. For a select few, they manage to fall into one of the categories we outlined above and will travel "perpetually."
With the sites that disappear, the internet may lose a great writer or two. With the sites that continue on, things become a bit more obscure. The author managed to make enough income, contacts, or a side business to travel forever, and their one-year trip magically turned into two, three, or more. One day they are talking about trip length, goals, and deadlines and the next it disappears into a constant rush of press trips, comped stays, and a never ending journey still advertised as a long-term trip.
To put it simply, those that stick around fall into a very predictable cycle, and the original intent of the site is lost with the "success". This is great for the writer, no doubt, but often much is to be desired from those reading who are looking to do the same.
For us, we'd like to think that there needs to be a third category for travel bloggers who are facing the end to their long-term trip: starting a new story.
Whether we have the capacity to travel forever by the time this trip is over is one thing. The only certainty we can say for now is that this trip will end as we planned it. This journey, upwards of a year and a half on our planned itinerary, was designed to have an end point. It may get extended ever-so-slightly because of our little advertising income and partnerships, but it will end regardless. That is the story we're on, and the ending is the most important part. Because for you, a non-blogging traveler, will also have to end your trip one day.
If we cannot be bold enough to end ours as well, how can we claim to be the best resource for those looking to take a career break, gap year, or sabbatical to travel?
We can't.
It would be impossible for us to continue giving advice for future long-term travelers if our means of traveling perpetually are through business sources that you may never obtain. We cannot tell you how to make business contacts for your blog (if you even have one). We cannot tell you how to write a successful book that will sell thousands of copies. We cannot tell you how to make enough external income to travel forever. Those are things we're working on, naturally, but none of those are controlling how we are traveling on the present trip.
What we can tell you is how to plan for a trip based on the money you have, how to minimize your spending while on the road, and how to get the most out of that once-in-a-lifetime trip you always wanted to take. These are the struggles that we face every single day, no matter if we become successful in the goals we mentioned above.
The second we stop following our own advice and pursue a travel method you cannot easily obtain yourself, the purpose of this site is lost like many of the other long-term travel blogs that fill the internet today.
And we don't want that.
So when this trip ends, so does our current story of long-term travel. That doesn't mean that Living the Dream will disappear with it, because as one story ends, a new one will begin.
Living the Dream's Best Years Are Ahead
For now, you don't have to worry about our long-term trip ending anytime soon. Unlike the first trip covered on this site, we have no secret intentions of ending early for other life goals (...oops). It took a long time to get to this point, but Year 6 is going to be the first full year of traveling we've covered on this site!
Unfortunately, because the end of our trip and our next great idea we've been alluding to in this post is for Year 7, we won't be talking about it yet. You'll just have to come back on September 14th, 2014 to find out about that one. Although, we'd like it if you stuck around until then too! By the end of this trip we'll have covered over 80 countries from around the world, on hopefully 6 continents, and over 700 days of travel in a six year period (not bad by anyone's standards), and we're still just getting started.
So whether you've joined us today just for this post, or been with us since the beginning, we want to thank you for coming with us on this wonderful journey. But just following along is not what we intended for this site. We want you to take the leap into the world of long-term travel. It is a wild ride to be sure, and we want to help you get out on the road on your dream trip. Start with our planning resources in our menu at the the top of this page, perhaps check out our first book, The Long-Term Traveler's Guide, begin saving as much as you can, and you'll be well on your way to your own adventure.
If we can get you to do that, Living the Dream will continue to be a success in our minds.
But if you have any questions, requests, comments, or just want to say hello, we always reply to every email we receive at:
[email protected]
And we're more than happy to help in any way we can. Thanks for reading!
