FAQs for The Professional Hobo

All these questions below – and more – are answered in detail in my FREE series. Sign up here: 

How to Travel Full-Time in a Financially Sustainable Way


How did I become The Professional Hobo?

My journey to becoming The Professional Hobo was quite a trip unto itself. Here’s the full scoop:

How I Became The Professional Hobo (Part I: The Dream, The Decision)

How I Became The Professional Hobo (Part II: The Logistics)

What is Financially Sustainable Travel?

I kind of coined the term, so it stands to reason that there’s some confusion about it.

Financially sustainable travel is NOT synonymous with budget travel. Instead, it’s about working with and making the most of what you have. There are three distinct components to traveling full-time in a financially sustainable way: 

  • Earning Money Successfully
  • Spending Money Wisely
  • Balancing the two so you can travel as long as you wish

If you’re making a lot of money, then you can spend it differently from somebody who is making less. It’s about being sustainable; balancing these three elements to create the life and lifestyle you desire. 

Using these three pillars, I teach people how to earn money, spend it, and manage all the pesky logistics of a long-term or full-time travel lifestyle

How do I make money on the road?

I make money on the road as a blogger, vlogger, and freelance writer. The term I like to use for this kind of work is “digital content creator”, because it’s about creating, editing, publishing, marketing, managing, and sooooooo much more than meets the eye. 

I write for both online and print publications, however my “break” into the industry was through the online medium. This is ideal for travel, as I can make a living with an internet connection anywhere in the world. This is called location independent living. Check out my Writing and Publicity page to see who I’ve written for. 

How much does full-time travel cost?

Full-time travel can cost as much or as little as you’d like it to. Because I travel slowly and often volunteer in trade for free accommodation, my cost of living on the road has generally been considerably less than the cost to live in one place.

Here are the basics of financially sustainable travel, and how to create your own budget. 

Curious about the numbers behind my income and expenses? I walk the talk, and for almost 10 years I published detailed annual income reports and expense reports. You can find them here 

Where to next?

I traveled full-time for 12 years before returning to my home town of Toronto to establish a home base. But that doesn’t mean I’ve hung up  my traveling shoes; I continue to travel for about half of every year. My “where” is always changing. 

I tend to follow my nose, and have learned that making travel plans too far in advance can mean forsaking a sometimes better opportunity that arises by virtue of simply keeping my eyes and ears open…and traveling.

How did I get into writing/blogging? (And in turn, how can you)?

I’m asked this question a lot.
I even got an email from a reader once, who said she was planning a six-month trip around the world with her friends, and was hoping to start a blog to subsidize the trip. She wanted some tips. Oh yeah – and she was leaving in a month.

Please don’t be this reader.

Writing – including blogging – is a career, and a tough one at that. There is a lot of competition, and you’ve got to dedicate yourself to the process for a long time before you can make a full-time living out of it. Oh yes, and it helps to actually be good at manipulating the English language.

Here’s are some comprehensive resources on the subject if you’re still interested:

Want to Make Money Blogging? This is For You!

How to Make Money While Traveling

How can you do what I’m doing?

This is the biggest question I get. People contact me and say that they love what I do, and ask how they can do it themselves. The question is often as simple as that, rarely with any additional information about the person asking the question.

Before you become the next person in this ever-growing statistic, please think about the nature of your question for just a minute. How exactly am I supposed to answer it?! Not unlike the super-computer in Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, I feel compelled to reply with “42” to this question, as if it is a question about the secret to life, the universe, and everything.

This website is full of lessons learned since I embraced this lifestyle in late 2006 and sold everything I owned. It is an evolving process, as I have made a few mistakes along the way (okay, maybe more than a few), and in turn had my own share of successes. My situation is not what yours will be, nor the next person’s.

My free email series on Financially Sustainable Travel is designed to enable more people to achieve this with ease and grace. In the meantime:

Check out my Travel Tips & Resources page for links to some very useful articles to get you started! 

I Don’t Accept Submissions For this Site.

So please, don’t ask. 

But if you travel or live abroad full-time, you might want to contribute to my popular financial case studies series, profiling the various careers and lifestyles that enable people to live and travel abroad. If you fit the bill and would like to be interviewed and featured, please contact me and I’ll send you the questions.