Intro
Being a full-time traveler was a dream come true for us. Another dream we'd had for a long time was to have kids. We kept postponing it because we didn't have a "real" house — we were always on the move. We thought having a home was important for children, and now that we have one, we've learned how to keep our travel lifestyle alive while still giving our daughter that stability.
No house-swapping, no living off savings, no side hustles — just actual freedom to travel the world on your own terms, on a modest income, while still saving money.
No house-swapping, no living off savings, no side hustles — just actual freedom to travel the world on your own terms, on a modest income, while still saving money.
People picture "travelers" as those who won the lottery or earn tens of thousands from passive income. We'd beg to differ.
We've traveled the world for almost 7 years now. Honestly, that was only possible without a home or kids. But now that we have both, let us explain how we still manage 4 months of travel a year — while holding down a job, a mortgage, and a social life.
How do we travel a minimum of 4 months per year?
Our family isn't one of those with passive income or a lottery win. Marc has a "normal" job as a freelance graphic designer, and Debby doesn't have a job at all. Yet we still travel a minimum of 4 months a year, while our home base in the Netherlands waits for us whenever we come back. It starts with a few basic ingredients, in order of difficulty:
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How much do you need?
Here's our situation, briefly. First, we calculated what we NEED to earn to cover the basics. Then we set a target: around €12,000 a year left over to travel 4 months, meaning a travel budget of roughly €3,000 a month including flights. To get there, we started from the top of the pyramid.
Intro
Being a full-time traveler was a dream come true for us. Another dream we'd had for a long time was to have kids. We kept postponing it because we didn't have a "real" house — we were always on the move. We thought having a home was important for children, and now that we have one, we've learned how to keep our travel lifestyle alive while still giving our daughter that stability.
No house-swapping, no living off savings, no side hustles — just actual freedom to travel the world on your own terms, on a modest income, while still saving money.
People picture "travelers" as those who won the lottery or earn tens of thousands from passive income. We'd beg to differ.
We've traveled the world for almost 7 years now. Honestly, that was only possible without a home or kids. But now that we have both, let us explain how we still manage 4 months of travel a year — while holding down a job, a mortgage, and a social life.
How do we travel a minimum of 4 months per year?
Our family isn't one of those with passive income or a lottery win. Marc has a "normal" job as a freelance graphic designer, and Debby doesn't have a job at all. Yet we still travel a minimum of 4 months a year, while our home base in the Netherlands waits for us whenever we come back. It starts with a few basic ingredients, in order of difficulty:
- Having an accurate insight into your spending and income — this is crucial. Skip this step and the whole system risks falling apart.
- Being willing to make sacrifices in comfort or material ownership. We own almost nothing beyond our furniture, our baby's things, and what fits in our backpacks.
- An income source you can do fully remote — freelance work, a flexible job, passive income, or simply quitting your job and traveling on savings, like we did in 2019.
How much do you need?
Here's our situation, briefly. First, we calculated what we NEED to earn to cover the basics. Then we set a target: around €12,000 a year left over to travel 4 months, meaning a travel budget of roughly €3,000 a month including flights. To get there, we started from the top of the pyramid.
Our yearly numbers, step by step
Gross income
Marc's freelance income before taxes
€50.000
Net income
After taxes and pension deductions
€33.000
Fixed expenses (year round)
Rent, insurance, utilities, subscriptions
− €17.904
Variable costs at home
Groceries, date nights, misc.
− €8.400
Yearly savings
Untouched, set aside regardless
− €6.000
Left to travel with
€691
A lot of people would give up right here. You've halved your subscriptions, stopped eating out — and gained almost nothing? Not quite. This is where the real earning starts.
How to "win" your savings back
The real question is: how do you save more without actually saving more? Start with something anyone can do, wherever you are and whatever your situation.
Replace a few months of that €8,400 in variable expenses with travel months, and turn that into actual savings. Travel 4 months a year, and that's €700/month × 4 = €2,800 you "earn back" simply by not being home. Pause your utility bills too and you might save another €800 — but let's leave that out and treat it as a bonus. Our €12,000 travel budget target is now reduced to €9,200.
The complicated part
Now — how do we earn an additional €9,200 without working more? It depends on where you live, so we've split it into two groups.
IF YOU'RE FROM THE NETHERLANDS
Subletting your home legally is very difficult here, so that's off the table. Instead, look closely at your taxes and government surcharges (toeslagen). With a child, you may be eligible for child support (kinderbijslag), child-related budget, healthcare allowance (zorgtoeslag), and rental allowance (huurtoeslag).
At an income similar to ours, total surcharges can add up to more than €7,500 a year. That leaves just €1,700 more to find — a much smaller gap.
To keep things simple, you could stop right there and use the roughly €10,300 you've freed up to start your trip. That's already more than 4 months of travel in Asia with a baby, at around €80/day using our core travel principles. Want to push further toward the full €12,000+ budget? That's where things like tax-efficient freelance structures come in — a topic for another article.
IF YOU'RE NOT FROM THE NETHERLANDS (OR WANT EVEN MORE)
- Sublet your home. Most countries are far less strict about this than the Netherlands — around €2,300/month for 4 months covers the full €9,200 gap.
- Move to a vacation or tiny home. A one-time investment of roughly €40,000 buys a fully furnished home you can live in 8 months a year, and legally sublet the rest. Even conservatively — a €4,800/year land lease and 2 months sublet at €80/night — that's over €7,200 saved plus €4,800 earned, just from that property.
Want us to run these numbers for your situation?
Book a Travel-Like-Us™ planning session and we'll map your own travel budget.
Are you still with us?
By this point you've already earned back €10,300 — without touching surcharges, without working a single extra hour, and while still covering every fixed cost, your pension, groceries, and €6,000 in yearly savings. That's a normal lifestyle running alongside the travel lifestyle, without any guilt about your spending or your choices.
Follow this guide and finding an additional €12,000 without paying extra income tax is genuinely doable. Combine every tip in here, and the number gets even bigger — but that's a story for another day.
