FAQ szn

Richard Noack

Richard Noack

— 7 min read
FAQ szn

A few days ago I came across this Ask Me Anything on Reddit:

I quit my job to solo travel internationally for one year, and I spent under $15,000. AMA

Not too far off from my past few years and I've gotten many of the same questions. Figured I'll add my $0.02 to some of them here. Note: I'm still sifting through more data for some of this.

You must have stayed in the cheapest available hostels and apartments. Were you ever concerned for your safety?

My default accommodation choice is still a hostel, however, I've gotta say that my hostel/hotel mix has probably shifted from 80/20 to 60/40 or even 50/50 over the years. The main reason for that is just that I'm a bit older now and would take a budget hotel over a hostel if the price difference is under 2.5x. On top of that some places I've been to more recently aren't as popular with backpackers and therefore lack good hostels to begin with.

Safety has mainly been OK and not something that's been top of mind. Brazil was probably the diciest but even there I went to a game at the Maracana on my own and came out fine on the other side. The only hostel I've ever left early was also in Brazil. It was at the entrance to a favela but also had plastic tarps as bed sheets. Not great. Almost all places have areas that are safer than others. A little research in advance will go a long way.

My three golden rules (for guys) are still to avoid the 3Ds: dating, drugs, and drunkenness. Talk to people who've had bad experiences and they usually involved at least one of those three. You can still get unlucky, for no reason, at any time, any place, but that's true anywhere.

Southeast Asia and Central/South America are often debated as competing trip itineraries and, at least when it comes to safety, I've got to say that Southeast Asia is infinitely safer than the latter.

How long did you stay in each city/country?

This has shifted dramatically this year due to my standby flight pass – that naturally leads to more hopping around since 99% of flights from A to B will have to pass through the US, with the exception of fifth freedom routes like Tokyo-Ulaanbaatar. Previously I'd spend anywhere from 2-5 days in one place. Admittedly that's a lot of go-go-go and not really slow travel at all. Even on long-distance skating journeys my rest stops were rarely longer than a week. The cities I've spent the most time in are probably Buenos Aires, Florianopolis, Seoul and Danang. And Pai, but that's only because of the excellent RoadRann skate hostel. Gonna export my Polarsteps data to see how much of the above tracks.

Would you recommend this to anyone who wants the same type of excitement out of life, but feels held back by external factors such as their job and the universal need to maintain a steady work/life balance until retirement? That “first step” seems like a huge leap to take and how did you approach getting over that hump.

The tl;dr here boils down to a flavor of "try before you buy":

Walking away from all the comfort I had in 2021 was one of the best decisions I've ever made. It's not that I'm uncomfortable now by any means, but rather that I've sought out many experiences that are much easier on your body while you're young. Whether that's skating 8 hours a day for weeks, sleeping in cramped train bunk beds, or just ruining yourself on a long night out. Rather now than later.

Some time in 2021 I realized that I had three things going for me, that may never align in the same way again. I was young, healthy, financially secure, and without major personal responsibilities/commitments. The latter isn't as self-explanatory but essentially it boils down to me being single, not owning many things (sold the car + never owned much else), and my immediate family being healthy and taking care of themselves as well. It's so so so rare to be in that spot at 27 and I figured it was worth the risk. It was and still is.

That said, there were a lot of smaller experiments in the years leading up to that. I spent a lot of time "researching" destinations, reading travel blogs, and talking to many people in similar spots that had already quit their jobs. The final push was the crowd at Wanderlust District hostel in CDMX during October 2021. The threeish weeks working from there and all the late night talks on the rooftop were life-changing, in hindsight, and not just for me; s/o to Hugo+Claudia for being unbelievable hosts. Even that trip was already an experiment in itself – will I go crazy spending a month in a hostel? Will I get tired of the food? Can you just go without plans most of the time? Can you rent a car abroad? (also s/o to the girl that was sincerely convinced we would not survive the drive from Oaxaca to Puerto Escondido) etc etc etc. Even on the skating front it didn't go from 0-100, the first overnight skatepacking trip I ever did was from Chicago to Milwaukee during a covid weekend with my roommate Alec. Oh and so, so, so many YouTube videos in the background during lockdown. It's hard to name all of the most influential ones but some favorites were Karl Watson's HK2NY, The Budgeteers, Ed Pratt, Vagrant Holiday (lol), Kara and Nate, and many more.

In your opinion, could you make this into a cheap retirement?

Oh man, I don't understand the obsession with retirement. It's one of those things that everyone makes out to be entirely a 1 or 0 thing, with no territory in between. Retirement is a relatively novel concept from the early 1900's and I'd argue that it's already losing it's original meaning as lifespans get longer, pensions disappear, and more people simply do things. Aside from not wanting to label myself with any one term, simply being unemployed, yet financially secure, does not make one retired. We can recognize that work takes up a large chunk of our waking hours for a large chunk of our lives and that abruptly going from full-time work to no work is a significant change.

That's not the case for me to though, never mind that I've also taken on consulting projects in the past years. Anyhow, assuming you have hobbies, you'll be shocked at how quickly you can fill your time. Assuming you're from the US, aka one of the most expensive places to live on earth, you'll be surprised how cheap the rest of the world is. So I suppose the one word answer to the original question is, yes (if you really wanted to). For me that isn't and never was the goal, it's about making memories and experiencing things that'll compound for the rest of my life.

What are your top three tips for frugal travel?

Follow the pareto rule here, 80/20 – try to cut expenses on the big ticket items and don't drive yourself crazy sweating the small stuff. Most of your budget on the road will probably go towards transport and accommodation. Otherwise be flexible and try to drink less (or don't, but alcohol costs add up, even outside of Singapore).

If you're in the US, go look at the incredibly over-engineered credit card churning flowchart here, apply for one of the travel cards, and hit the sign up bonus. That's usually a few flights sorted. Use sites like pointsyeah to get the best bang for your point redemption later.

Accommodation wise it's just hostels or budget hotels. Double-check recent reviews across multiple sources before booking. I've gotten burned by simply trusting just one of Google Maps/Booking/Agoda/(c)Trip/Hostelworld. Sometimes I transfer Chase points to Hyatt if I'm feeling fancy or drained.

give us a good idea of what things you brought, including which bags. a pic is even better

I actually took a pic of all my stuff back in 2022:

I've since kicked out the speaker, my laptop, a packing cube, adapter, and a few other things

I've since reduced my pack size to 30L, mainly by kicking out my laptop, the meal shake (that was a one-off), and reducing my clothing overall by switching to more merino blends.

Gregory Miwok 42, Gregory Zulu 30, and Deuter Trail 28SL

Unfortunately the frame of my original red Miwok 42 broke. The company was unable to fix it and it's no longer sold anywhere. Otherwise I would have never even thought about replacing it. It's genuinely perfect. If you find one of those in the wild, please let me know ASAP 'cause I'll buy it immediately.

Some other good or unusual items worth calling out:

what did you eat during the travel? I assume, restaurants and even fast food places would take more money than what you spent?

95% street food and fast casual places. That said, skating, averaging 15,000 steps per day, and the occasional gym visit all help minimize the downsides of that diet.

Ohhh this is so interesting. How many countries did you visit in total? Where did you stay the longest for? And which was your favourite and why?

waiting for the polarsteps data export. TBD soon

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