About a year into it, I wrote a bit about how I unexpectedly came into this full-time traveling thing. I’m working on year three now, and I’m still loving it, though this is probably the last of it. I finished my Economics degree this past fall, and Computer Science will be done this Spring. So, after a little summer break, it’ll be time to settle back in one spot.
Speaking of which, because nobody’s ever heard of a “full-time traveling student,” there are always a lot of questions. The usual one is: “How do you afford it?” Even my grandmother joked that she’s waiting for a call from the FBI telling her that I’ve been robbing banks this whole time.
The simple version is that I live off my savings, and I usually make some kind of joke about how I’m stealing from future Nicholai. To be fair, I didn’t start with some ridiculous amount of savings, and I don’t just buy anything I want all the time. I do travel a lot, but I earn lots of points and miles through my credit card hobby, and that makes my flights cost relatively very, very little.
I also (legally) take advantage of many aspects of the financial system, such as taking out loans at 3% instead of spending my savings right way, since they earn way more 3% interest. When people think it’s almost unbelievable that I’ve been able to live off savings for so long (over 3.5 years since I stopped working back in September 2020), I like to think of this line from Ocean’s Twelve:
“What? You think the stock market is some great mystery beyond the realm of human understanding?”
I’m far from a stock market genius. Maybe 7-8 years ago, I got really into the stock market, especially options trading. But after a while of wins and losses, I came to agree with the data that suggest that people are not better than chance. Since then, and though I was tempted by cryptocurrency, all of my investing has been through index funds. My fund of choice is VTSAX, which basically follows the entire stock market.
Do you know what VTSAX was 5 years ago? Just about $70. What is it now? About $120.
I’m not earning more from interest than I’m spending to live, but these are some of the financial choices that have let me keep going longer than I otherwise might’ve been able to.
One flight, two flight, red flight, blue flight
A few months ago, I found out about a website that lets you track your flight history, and I thought it would be fun to enter in as many of mine as possible. Here’s a few of the stats from (I think) every flight I’ve taken since 2013:
It’s possible that I missed a few, but I’m a bit of an email hoarder, so this should be pretty much all of them. The list does include every individual flight segment, so 217 flights doesn’t mean 217 “trips.” For example, I’d consider my route from Ukraine to the US to be a single “trip” since I didn’t spend the night anywhere along the way, but the itinerary was Kiev -> Istanbul -> Brussels -> Washington DC -> LA, which was 4 separate flights.
I know that I’ve already flown more than most people will in their entire lives, so it’s crazy to know that there are lots of people out there (who aren’t pilots or flight attendants) whose miles flown are well into the millions. Anyways, once I got all my flights entered, I realized there was something else fun I could do with the data – figure out much time I’ve spent in various places.
The “Where has Nicholai lived?” menu
For this, I decided to only look at time spent in countries since I moved to Japan in November 2020, and I put the top spots into a graph:
or ones where all I did was wake up and fly out, but take them with a grain of salt
I say “lived,” but I’m not exactly sure how many of these places I count as having lived in, to be honest. There’s part of me that feels like I’ve only truly lived in the US and Japan since they’re the only two countries that I’ve had to do “living” things in. In Japan, I had a resident card, signed an apartment lease, had bills in my name, bought and registered a car, etc. Everywhere else, I stayed in Airbnbs or hotels and never had to do any of the bureaucratic things true residents typically have to do.
But there’s also intention and experience. At least for me, something that sets South Korea, Vietnam, Spain, and Singapore apart from the rest were my reasons for being there and my lifestyle while I was there. I definitely did my share of touristy things, but spending that much time in those countries over the past two years was mainly to isolate myself and focus on school. Most of the time, I had a local routine, doing things like studying in coffee shops and going grocery shopping. I even had a weekly soccer night in Singapore.
Also also, I think if you’ve spent enough time in a place that you just feel like you’ve lived there, then you’ve probably lived there. I think that “feel” breaks down to an understanding of the societal norms and values, and general everyday life in that place. For me, a good example of this is Vietnam. You can see on the graph that I’ve spent over three months there total, but my longest single stay was only 16 days. Still, I feel like I have pretty good first-hand experience of what my life would be like if I was there for an extended period of time.
Ultimately, if I knew I was being asked expecting a short and sweet answer, I’d probably say something like: “Mostly the US, with a year in Japan, but a good amount of time in South Korea, Vietnam, Spain, and Singapore.”
Otherwise, they’d get the TED Talk I just gave you.
P.S. For anyone curious, the Philippines was the next country down the list at 15 days.