If you live in a western country, you may be surprised when you hear I say that traveling the world actually saves money. I got this conclusion after learning from my friends who have travelled the world, and more importantly, according to my own experience, I know it’s true.
- When you go to another country, live like a local residentrather than a tourist.
In their book Quit Like a Millionaire: No Gimmicks, Luck, Or Trust Fund Required, Bryce Leung and Kristy Shen point out that they literally save money by traveling the world. Here is why: When they go to countries like Thailand, they don’t live like tourists. Instead, they live like local residents. Since the cost of living is much lower in those countries, they actually save a lot of money by traveling overseas.
Besides, when you go to places such as Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe, you will realize that people in western countries are indeed extremely lucky. Since the West has been financially successful for a very long time, there is a potential danger for the western society – according to Al Ries and Jack Trout, success oftentimes leads to arrogance, and arrogance to failure.
Yes, ego is the enemy of success. Objectivity is what’s needed. Sadly, when people become successful, they usually become less objective: they tend to substitute their personal judgment for what the society / the market wants.
Robert Maxwell and Donald Trump are two examples of people blinded by early success. When that happens, it’s difficult to focus.
Truthfully, ego is helpful to some degree because it can be a powerful driving force in building a career or a business. What really hurts is injecting your ego in the marketing / promotion process.
- When you travel the world, you are less stressed, so you can manage your finances better.
Lara Briden claims that stress has a big impact on an individual’s overall health. First of all, stress affects your hypothalamus directly, which is your brain’s hormone command center. Under stress, a person’s hypothalamus reduces its signals to the pituitary. And the issue of stress doesn’t stop there. Furthermore, stress increases cortisol as well, which is the stress hormone made by the adrenal glands. Basically, cortisol is a fight-or-flight, life-saving hormone which gets people through huge challenges like danger or infection. Cortisol can change your physiology in various ways that improve short-term survival, e.g. raising blood pressure and increasing heart rate. It also makes you more alert while increasing your blood sugar to give your muscles more energy. Short-term activation of cortisol is good.
But chronic, long-term activation of cortisol is not good. When cortisol stays high all the time, it takes protein away from muscles and reduces your sensitivity to insulin. Worse still, it weakens the immune system. And it negatively affects the hippocampus which is the part of the brain that calms the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. Consequently, long-term stress may lead to dysfunction or dysregulation of your hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis.
Interestingly, when you change your environment regularly, you can regulate your hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. That explains why traveling the world is a healthy lifestyle choice. From my experience, whenever I’m traveling, I always sleep like a baby, especially when I finish a trip! Experts argue that joy and rest are the best treatments for your hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. In the pursuit of good health, you should have the permission to take some time away from work and other commitments or duties so that you can spend some time doing things you enjoy, including traveling the world.
Make time to smell the roses and enjoy life now – this is very important to your health and wellbeing. When you feel better physically, mentally and emotionally, you are able to make more money and manage your personal finances more effectively as well.
The ultimate asset that you have is your own health.
“Traveling the world never fails to uplift me and literally generates nitric oxide, too!”
