Welcome to our September interview featuring Ashly and Carlos from Happy Nomad Couple. Their blog talks about their life after quitting their full time jobs to travel the world on a budget. They love sharing their travel budgeting tips, backpacking treks, and their experience traveling as a couple.
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DITS: Who is the Happy Nomad Couple? Tell us about your blog and yourself.
Ashly & Carlos: Happy Nomad Couple is a blog by Ashly Ryan and Carlos Ibarguen, a world traveling couple from Las Vegas, USA. In 2017, we quit our jobs to embark on a 9.5 month trip around the world to 22 countries on 5 continents, and we did it while documenting every single expense. We created a comprehensive budget before taking off on our trip and compared our actual spending with what we budgeted beforehand (we came in under budget!!). We love traveling on the cheap and wanted to help other young couples experience the freedom, adventure, and serendipity of traveling (without breaking the bank) too!
DITS: We see you went backpacking across the world in 2017. Tell us how you saved money in order to take that trip and how long did it take you to save up that money in order to go?
Ashly & Carlos: We have always been big savers and both graduated college with finance degrees. We saved money for years, not knowing exactly what we were saving for. We already owned a house, so by the time we had a sizable savings, we had to choose between using it as a down payment on an investment house or going on an epic Round the World trip. We ultimately decided to put in our resignations and go on the trip! We officially decided on the RTW trip in December 2016, and took off on April 4, 2017, so there wasn’t a whole lot of time in between. But in those last three months, we went into ultra savings mode. We stopped eating out, stopped buying unnecessary things, got a renter in our house, sold stuff we didn’t need on websites like Poshmark, Decluttr, and ThredUp, and got as financially ready as we could to take off!
DITS: Our readers love to hear budget tips while traveling. How did you stay under budget when taking such a huge trip like that?
Ashly & Carlos: We think the main thing to save money while traveling long term is to be flexible. We changed our plans to sometimes take buses instead of planes, flew into cheaper cities, changed dates, etc. Sometimes changing your travel plans to get there one day later or earlier can change the price a lot! We went to more countries that had no visa fees for us, and we went in an order that made our transportation somewhat cheap by trying not to travel too far of distances if we could avoid it. We also got a credit card that charged no foreign transaction fees (Chase Sapphire) which saved us hundreds of dollars. We opened a bank account with Charles Schwab to get a debit card that refunded all ATM fees at the end of the month. This really helped because not only was it free for us to get money out of any ATM, but it also saved us on the currency exchange rate (it’s usually cheaper getting money from an ATM), and it also allowed us to get small amounts of money from ATMs more frequently. This means we weren’t left with a lot of leftover currency to convert upon leaving a country. Lastly, we got comfortable with being a little uncomfortable. We took a lot of overnight trains and overnight buses that were dirt cheap instead of taking short flights because a) they were the cheaper option, b) we saved money by not having to pay for accommodations for the night, and c) just for the experience and the opportunity to meet locals. It’s not always the most comfortable option, but some of our most memorable nights came from these buses and trains. Above all, we always tried to remain flexible and just took the options that make the most financial sense that went along with our desires at the time.
DITS: What was your biggest struggle when you went backpacking?
Ashly & Carlos: Our biggest struggle was planning our travels while we moved so quickly. We were constantly having to book accommodations, transportation, look up visas, research destinations, what there is to do, the cheapest way to get there, etc. It was a lot, especially considering we made it to 75 cities in a 9 month span. It became exhausting to keep up with. But we didn’t want to limit ourselves by pre-planning too much because we liked listening to locals’ and other travelers’ recommendations of where to head next if we could. It also allowed us to pivot quickly to avoid bad weather and expensive holiday times in certain countries.
DITS: What did you take with you when you backpacked? What was your most important items?
Ashly & Carlos: Ashly tends to overplan and over prepare, so we took off with a lot of stuff to be ready for as many situations as we could think of. We each had a big 65L backpack that carried our clothes and shoes for a variety of climates and our toiletries and 20L daypack that carried our laptops, cameras, external battery chargers, medications, mosquito net, first aid kit, travel documents, etc. Our most important items we took were probably our cell phones and the external battery charger. Our phones helped us so much by being our map, our translator, and our connection to our families. Luckily, we had phone service in all but 2 countries. If you would like to see exactly what we packed, you can see our RTW Packing List here.
DITS: Out of all the places you’ve traveled to, if you had to pick just one – where would you go back to again?
Ashly & Carlos: Definitely South Africa. We went in the winter, so we want to go back in the summer someday. We did some pretty epic stuff there even if it was a little chilly. We started in Capetown and loved everything about it so much. Then we rented a car and drove the beautiful Garden Route, saw whales and dolphins from the cliffs on the coast in Hermanus Bay, went to the southernmost tip of Africa where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet, drove up to Johannesburg to learn more of South Africa’s history, then continued on to self-drive through Kruger Park. Going on safari was one of the most amazing experiences of our lives, and we would love to do it again!
DITS: What was your most recent trip?
Ashly & Carlos: After we got home from our Round the World trip, we bought a pop-up camper so most of our recent trips have been roadtrips near home with our camper. Most recently, we took our camper to Joshua Tree National Park!
DITS: What has been your worst travel experience?
Ashly & Carlos: Our worst travel experience had to be when an already barely tolerable 24 hour bus journey turned into a 38 hour bus journey from Hanoi, Vietnam to Luang Prabang, Laos. The bus that was booked for us went to the wrong city so we had to spend two nights in a row on an overnight bus. We are normally totally ok with overnight buses, but 38 hours on them is a bit too much. But a close second worst travel experience would be when a meat cleaver was pulled on Carlos when he tried to break up a fight between a tourist and a hotel worker in Vietnam.
DITS: How do you decide where to travel? Do you have a goal in mind?
Ashly & Carlos: We both wanted to reach 30 countries by 30 (Carlos made it, Ashly needs one more country by April and we have 3 new countries planned before then). But when we did our Round the World trip, we planned a route that made sense so we didn’t have to backtrack. We chose where to go based on budget, proximity to other destinations, and on recommendations from other people as we went (which is highly recommended!). We also have goals of seeing all 7 continents (only 1 left!) and all 7 Wonders of the World (after this year only 1 left!).
DITS: We love what you’re doing and sharing with the world on your blog, tell us how we can support you!
Ashly & Carlos: Thank you! Visit our website at www.happynomadcouple.com! We have plans for more budget couple travel content, including gap year and round the world travel. We have a budget on our website that has helped lots of other couples plan their RTW trips. We also have our YouTube channel, Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. And lastly, Ashly is starting SPLICE clothing, a clothing line to help female travelers (especially nomads or long-term travelers) pack light and adventure easy with reversible and multi-functional styles. You can find more information at www.spliceclothing.com. The line will be officially launching in 2020, so sign up for our email newsletter to get the latest updates!