if you're a native English speaker, you can start doing this next week.
every month you teach english generally results in 2 to 3 months of savings.
this post was submitted on 31 May 2025
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My friend spent a few years in Taiwan and Thailand this way, no need to be a teacher by trade either.
it's a great job.
teach as little or much as you want, save as much money as you want, go pretty much wherever you want, and then chill out the rest of the time.
I taught for several years and am still traveling on the savings a decade later.
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This gets a lot easier if you have somewhere reliable and preferably free to stay when you need to start working again. Even if you have paid off your own place or been given a place for free you have bills to pay on it. I guess you can rent it out while you are away, but that seems less than ideal to me as how do you keep it maintained if you aren't in the country? It just ends up being another cost.
I would have loved to have done this but the housing situation has always put me off.
Nothing new.
Honey, that was a lifestyle boomers actually lived once. Though it's more of a silent generation lifestyle
So many people talk about doing this but few actually do.
I've done something similar involving working holidays. I'm tired now and Covid fucked up my plans and my career is going to be hell to get back into, but I want to change anyway. Just hope I got enough experience and education and brains to climb up the ladder, I just don't know where yet.
I'm glad I did it but it isn't for most.
This is what my old housemate did, starting in the 90s. Worked out quite well for him. My dad used went round the world with the navy in the 50s and used to talk about how some other cultures did stuff like this.
I kinda love it and kinda hate it
[off topic]
I am a fan of the Travis McGee novels by John D. MacDonald. Introduced to them in childhood and still worth a re-read.
Travis was a 'salvage consultant' who would rob loot back from criminals, and then retire for as long as the money lasted.
What's funny is I just typed a comment trying to analyze what types of jobs would allow for this, and one category was the "discrete projects that have a defined beginning and end" type jobs, and it did cross my mind that movie-style heists tend to have this kind of arrangement.
As someone with kids, that's not happening. Then again, my sibling did this and went on a year-long trip with their kids, and it worked out for them.
How does that work when you don't live with your parents?
Rents are extremely expensive and would slow down the "build a safety net" part of the cycle.
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This is literally the route I took in my life. Entered the workforce in the early 2000s in IT as helpdesk. Worked till I had a resume good enough for the next level up. Lived below my means. Take several months off to do whatever. Apply for a higher level position. Rinse and repeat every couple years until I was in my 40s at a company I intend to retire with.
I always lived in a smaller place than what I could afford. Never owned a new car. My current vehicle is a 2001 pickup truck, purchased in like 2018. So, gotta trade one luxury for another.
2 caveats: IT as a career was not in the state its in now. Much easier to move up and around. I'm also now in my late 40s and looking to buy my first home, since I wasn't building a nest egg my whole life, and that's no fun.
Also, it was really important to have some significant achievements on the resume as I left each place to show growth professionally so I could always jump up in role/salary with each move.
My career is solid and I make a great salary for my age, but homes are just insane. My brother is 6 years younger and took a more traditional route and started a family, he was able to score a good home before COVID.
Still, I wouldn't trade anything material for the life I took and the places I went.