- Haley and Shane Mahabadi left company jobs and a six-figure wage to journey full time.
- The married couple deliberate and saved for years earlier than heading to Southeast Asia.
- They’re residing on financial savings and a few freelance work whereas exploring totally different earnings streams.
This as-told-to essay is predicated on a dialog with Haley and Shane Mahabadi, a married couple of their late 20s who lived in Denver till August once they began touring full-time in Southeast Asia. Haley left her company job in 2023 and Shane left his this 12 months so they may journey.
Haley: After graduating faculty in 2019, we did a two-and-a-half month-long backpacking journey by means of Southeast Asia. It was extraordinarily life-changing and impactful.
However after all, we had that tug of duty that introduced us again to working and doing what everybody else was doing. We began working in company America 9-to-5, 5 days every week, no flexibility, no freedom, simply feeling chained to the desk. And I simply puzzled, “Is that this what the following 40 years is?”
We began questioning, “What if we might make touring full time work?” After 5 years of daydreaming, planning, and saving, we made it occur this 12 months.
We have been touring round Southeast Asia for over three months. We had been in Indonesia for a month, Thailand for month, Vietnam for just a few weeks, then the Philippines.
We have had among the most unbelievable adventures. We have met actually attention-grabbing folks. We have gotten to fulfill locals and check out native delicacies and do all these items that we at all times had been daydreaming about. So it is sort of a “pinch me” that we’re truly out right here.
I simply thought, if we by no means take this leap, I’m wondering if, once we’re in our fifties and we’ll look again and say, “Why did not we try this?”
We sort of joke that we’re pulling a 12 months ahead from retirement and touring now whereas we’re younger and ready.
Leaving a job with a six-figure wage was exhausting
Haley: In 2023, I used to be working as a artistic director at a advertising company, and I simply discovered myself sad and feeling slightly bit unfulfilled. I made a decision to stop my job to freelance and work my very own hours.
I’m nonetheless capable of work whereas touring. For shoppers, I do social media administration in addition to images and video creation.
Shane took an enormous leap as a result of he was getting a high-paying six-figure job in company America.
Haley and Shane Mahabadi
Shane: It was positively scary to take the leap as a result of I used to be doing properly in my profession and shifting up, however we would been fantasizing about it for 5 years.
I used to be working as a supervisor of technique and analytics at Dish Community, the place I would labored for about 4 years.
I actually preferred the position. I liked my staff, liked the division I labored in. I assume the draw back was it was similar to an old-school job — 5 days every week within the workplace, not a lot flexibility. I wished one thing that might permit me to journey extra or work from different locations. I assumed if I do not do that now, earlier than we in all probability begin a household, it may be primarily inconceivable to do it then.
Folks at work had been unhappy to see me go however they had been supportive. My boss provided to jot down a letter of advice and to assist me once I need to reenter the workforce. That was an enormous aid to know that I’ve folks on my facet who can vouch for me that I used to be a very good employee and I am not only a loopy man touring the world with out plan.
After I come again, it would take slightly little bit of time, however I feel I am going to be capable to discover one thing finally.
Our objective is to journey for a 12 months. We’re paying for it with financial savings, after which Haley’s constant stream of earnings. If one thing loopy occurs and we’re capable of make a bunch of different streams of earnings which are doing rather well, we might doubtlessly prolong it.
After we had been planning I made a spreadsheet with roughly what I assumed we might spend per day on lodges, meals, actions, flights, and jotted it out from there.
We additionally saved our bank card miles for the previous few years, so we actually have not needed to spend cash on any of the massive worldwide flights.
The price of residing is a lot decrease right here in Southeast Asia that you do not want fairly as a lot saved or you do not must be making as a lot to increase your time and journey for longer.
We hope we are able to maintain this flexibility without end
Haley: We do not plan to journey without end. We miss our households and neighborhood again house. However now I am questioning how we are able to we make this flexibility work without end.
Our important precedence proper now’s touring, however we’re additionally attempting various things in our free time and seeing if we are able to create a number of streams of earnings, as a result of even once we return to the states, it might be superb to proceed to have a extra versatile life-style.
We have been attempting all these items that we in all probability would not have if we did not have all this free time. We have been mountaineering, swimming, snorkeling, scuba diving.
We did the Ha Giang Loop in Northern Vietnam. You motorcycle for 3 days by means of essentially the most unbelievable panorama you’ve got ever seen. Simply driving on the again of the motorbikes with the information, wind in your hair, down winding mountain roads. You simply felt such as you had been residing.
I feel in that second I felt so glad we did this. There was not even a query in my physique of remorse.
Shane: Deciding to do that was exhausting, however one of many issues that mentally helped me was saying, “What is the worst that may occur?”
The worst that may occur is we will lose out on some sum of money, however we’ll have traveled the world for a 12 months.
That is not that unhealthy of a worst-case situation.
