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Experiment 8: Backpacking and Studying in South America

I’m back!

You may have noticed a little less activity on social media and generally on Financially Mint in the last few months. Reason: the author (yes me) went a little crazy, decided to go travelling and never come back (and now I’m back). It was an amazing 3 months: I started in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and went all the way through to Santiago, Chile, up to Peru and then over to Bolivia. 4 countries, one backpack and an intrigued solo traveller. Of course, it was amazing; I did things I had never dreamt of doing (touching dinosaur footprints) and met people I didn’t know could exist (a horse psychologist??).

But I also learnt a lot. Not just about myself, but about the world, and people. I learnt a lot and it wasn’t until I had been back for 2 weeks and had was back in a routine that I realised how much I had learnt. So, of course, I’m writing a post about it: 5 things I learnt backpacking round South America.

1. You can study and travel

This trip was an experiment; I wanted to see if I could study, work and travel at the same time. I study online at The Open University (post on that coming soon) and I work as a digital marketing freelancer on the side. Throughout the travels I had to keep studying, turning in assignments on time and keeping up to date. With the freelancing, I dropped most of my clients and told them I’d be back in a few months.

So did it work? Kind of. I was able to study and turn in my assignments, but any attempts to work went out the window. I answered emails and did admin, but proper work was pretty much impossible. Sleeping in hostels and with couchsurfers meant I hardly ever had some quiet time and couldn’t really concentrate. But that was fine, because I was ready – I had 3 months of blog posts written and not much freelancing to do.

I study maybe 3/4 hours a week with the OU, and what’s cool with travelling alone is that I could rearrange my day around getting my studying done – study in the morning, tourist in the afternoon. A pretty cool arrangement (which was completely shattered the minute my friend from the US came to do Peru with me, since it was harder to manage my time). I also must mention that I am half Spanish and therefore could communicate easily with locals – a great advantage, I realised during the trp.

So you say: ‘Great! Studying and travelling sounds amazing! I’d love to do that too, but how on baby’s Earth do I finance it? I’m already broke as a student, where would I get the money to travel around South America???’.

Well my dear student friends, let me tell you something: those three months cost me around £3,000, excluding the plane ticket. £3,000. Think about it. Is it really that much?

If you got a job, even a student job, applied the 15% rule and budgeted correctly, you’d get to that number in no time. Next thing you know you’re getting a degree and travelling! I’m not saying you have to do it, I’m saying is that it’s possible.

2. Travelling doesn’t have to be expensive

Moving on from the last point: my trip cost me £3,500 in total, this time including all plane tickets, accommodation, food, trips, tours and souvenir llama jumpers. At first it may seem like a lot, but the budget was £1,000 of expenses a month, which ain’t too bad if you ask me.

Related: Mastering the art of travelling on a student budget

So why was it so cheap? Mostly because I did quite a lot of couchsurfing, did a 2 week workaway, hostel home cooking and also the fact that South America is a cheaper continent (yay!). But the most interesting part is that I know I could have done this trip on an even lower budget. Think of all these options: working in hostels, doing workaways, au pairing, etc. When I told other travellers my budget was £1,000 a month, they were surprised; most people travel on way lower budgets. Once again… all I’m saying is that it’s possible.

3. Travelling is one of the best forms of education

Why am I so supportive of the whole travel and study idea? Because travelling is one of the best kinds of education you can find. Just as important as a degree (or even more…).

Think about it: you throw yourself into an unknown world, alone and ready to learn. You have to figure out how to get from X to Y without internet, you have to communicate with locals and understand their culture, you get to meet other travellers and make friends. All that is education, because you learn how to be independent, how to relate to others and also you get to know a little more of yourself – something universities don’t really offer.

I’ve done quite a bit of travelling in my short lifetime, but what was different about this trip was the people I met. Some of them inspired me, some intrigued me, and some became my very good friends.

I met this guy in a little town in the south of the wine province in Argentina (Mendoza) called San Rafael. It’s famous for having tons of nature activities and is great for family outings. This friend I made was living in this little town and worked as a rafter on the river. He loved the water and his job was to guide people down the river and save lives. But he was taking it a step further; after seeing how underdeveloped and disorganised tourist information was, he joined up with a developer and was started building an app. This app would help families figure out which cool activity to do, how much it would cost and where it was. I loved it. By day he was a rafter, and on the side he was an app developer – in this little town in the middle of the Mendoza desert. I simply found it inspiring.

You learn so much from the people you meet, it’s quite unbelievable. You learn about their culture, their way of living, their day to day activities (sacrificing a llama fetus before each starting a construction project – Bolivia). And it’s fascinating.

Another important lesson I learnt was how lucky I am to have grown up in a Western country. Peru and Bolivia are lovely places with lovely people, but seeing what corruption, poverty and inflation does to people is heartbreaking. Yes, we’ve got our crazy politicians, fake news and are addicted to technology, but it’s nothing compared to what I saw in some places of SA. Thanks to our society, I am able to travel, earn my own money, get an education, have my own thoughts and express my own opinions. And now I realise, that’s a lot.

4. Travelling alone is LIT

I did the entire of SA alone apart from Peru, where I had planned to meet my friend from California and do the country together. Most were surprised that I would venture into the wild alone – but I was looking for real adventure, and I knew the craziest ones are the ones you do alone.

Travelling alone means meeting a ton of people wherever you go, and it forces you to be sociable. When I travelled with my friend, we stuck together and enjoyed each other’s company – I couldn’t be asked to talk to others. His lack of Spanish meant it wasn’t easy to talk to locals – so we mostly stuck together. It was nice to mix it up with a friend (thanks Ryan), but I was still happy to be overall backpacking by myself.

So I was able to meet a lot of people and go where and when I wanted. After doing a canyon trip in Mendoza, Argentina, I fell in love with the place and wanted to go back and stay some nights there (San Rafael). And guess what? I did exactly that. Boo yeah.

It also meant I could work/study when I wanted to, and that I didn’t have to organise stuff every five seconds for those who didn’t speak Spanish (*cough cough Ryan ;)). So overall, pretty amazing. You should try it.

5. I wasn’t productive

Of course, everything is not always unicorn and rainbows. The trip was awesome, amazing, life-changing. But there was one negative side: I wasn’t productive AT ALL.

Ok yes I did manage to keep up with the studying and some reading, and I did learn a lot from the people and the countries. But I wasn’t making any money, I wasn’t advancing with my career or my ambitions. It may seem frivolous or obvious to someone else, but it wasn’t to me.

So the 3 months were more of a holiday than anything else – which is great, of course, but I felt a slight frustration that I couldn’t get on with my career ambitions, because the constant changes and lack of wifi made it pretty much impossible.

Financially Mint was updated once a week from my stock of pre-written articles. But pageviews considerably decreased due to the lack of marketing, social media activity and interaction with others. Oops.

So yeah, for three months I didn’t do any work, really. And since I’m someone who likes to keep busy and work on my ‘goals’, those hours without wifi stuck waiting for a bus were a little frustrating. I wasn’t challenging myself professionally, something I only realised I missed when I got back to work; that feeling of progress, of reaching goals.

I’m not complaining – I’m simply observing. The the lesson here is: backpacking = holidays. You can’t work online and keep moving about every 3 days. Now I know.

What’s the next trip?

So I’m pretty much done with backpacking – I want to get some real work done and start growing the FM community. Next time I go travelling, it’ll be for 6 months+, something called slow travel. I’m moving from Edinburgh to Barcelona for 4 months, where I’ll be doing an internship (my first 9-5!). And after that… who knows?

What are the plans for Financially Mint?

I put the website growth on pause for 3 months, which meant there was a lot of catching up to do when I got back. But my head is cleared and I feel focused. After an awesome FI meetup in London and talking to other people working on similar projects, I created some new goals and tasks for FM. This website is my baby, I ain’t giving up now.

So what are some of those goals?

Coaching: I want to try helping other students face-to-face or on Skype. Free of charge, just talking. Contact me if you’re interested in being part of the trial run.

Courses: Apart from the 6 day email course, I haven’t created anything else. In the process of creating budgeting, investing, saving courses. Step-by-step and actionable.

Community: Once I start the courses and coaching, I want to create a community of students – a place where we can all ask questions and learn from each other (Facebook or Slack?)

Social media: As much as I dislike checking my phone every 5 min, I’ve decided to take on a bigger presence on social media. Check FM out on Instagram and LinkedIn!

Projects: I love the topic of Financial Independence, I love how it changes people, gives them hope and teaches them how to enjoy life. We started a podcast with 2 other friends called Financial Independence Europe (yes very original) where we interview people who have reached FI in Europe, figuring out the best countries to work, retire and invest in. Also on track to organising more FI meetups and events in the UK and Spain – Contact me if you’re interested in helping spread the word and make it happen.

So there you go! A little update on Financially Mint and myself, and some interesting lessons on travel. Hope you’ve learnt something and would be interested in hearing people’s thoughts!