Mr. Nomad Numbers

We are a couple who travel the world and want to inspire people to think differently about the life they can design for themselves through our journey.

Year 1 Nomad Travel Spend Report – Traveling the world for half of the cost of staying home

When we decided to get married and sell everything to travel the world, we knew that this new lifestyle was going to be fun, exciting but also cheaper than staying at home. What we did not know was how much cheaper it was going to be to live a very high quality of life where we would enjoy the local food scene, cook amazing meals, take regular getaway trips, spend time in nature, attend local shows/festivals and everything else you get the freedom to do when you decide to travel the world slowly.

As we are closing our first year of nomadic travel, I am digging into our finances to answer this question and the results are pretty exciting. In a nutshell in the last 12 months, we slow traveled to 10 locations in 5 countries for about half the cost of living in San Francisco. But more than reducing our spending, geo-arbitrage let us rebalance our expenses towards activities that we enjoy the most, spending more time with our respective families, living a less stressful life and exploring new places in the world.

So let’s dig into our spending report for our first year of nomadic living!

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By Mr. Nomad Numbers, ago

Finding a GPS to help you navigate towards your ultimate journey

This is a pretty dense lifestyle article, which is a follow up on our origin story. If you aren’t into lifestyle design, feel free to skip and check out one of our destination report instead!

One of the benefit of slow travel for me can be quantified by the number books I’ve been able to read since we embarked on our nomadic journey. I recently discovered Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, a thought-provoking odyssey through human history. While I won’t go too much into the book in this post, the author go in length to explains how humans see the world is mostly defined by the stories we create for ourselves. This reminded me about the Hero’s Journey that Vicki Robin (author of New York Times Bestseller Your Money or Your Life) introduced to us when we met her at the Chautauqua Retreat in Ecuador (back in 2017). It is a wonderful self transformation template that can be used by anyone looking to design their best life so I felt like it was worth sharing. Are you ready to follow your bliss?

(author of New York Times Bestseller Your Money or Your Life) introduced to us when we met her at the Chautauqua Retreat in Ecuador (back in 2017). It is a wonderful self transformation template that can be used by anyone looking to design their best life so I felt like it was worth sharing. Are you ready to follow your bliss?

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By Mr. Nomad Numbers, ago

Our origin story: how we decided to become nomads

If you’ve been following us for a while, you know that we are aspiring minimalists that have decided to sell most of our possessions in 2018 to make the world our home and nomadic travel our new lifestyle. As part of our journey, we became big proponents of the slow movement and have incorporated it into our lives beyond slow travel by embracing slow food and slow living which have made our lives more meaningful and fulfilling.

In this article, let’s slow down (pun intended) and take a step back to talk more about our origin story. Where do we come from individually, what brought us together, what led us to decide to leave most of our possessions behind us to become perpetual nomads and where do we see this new lifestyle leading us.

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By Mr. Nomad Numbers, ago

What our $3,700 California wedding looks like: a budget breakdown

It is the early morning exactly one year ago. I’m standing up front, surrounded by magnificent and giant redwood trees that have been living here for thousands of years. On my left side, I see close friends and family members. On my right side, our wedding officiant is reminding everyone to be present and absorb the energy of such a unique nature setting in this very special moment. Holding my hands and standing in front of me is the love of my life (Mrs. Nomad Numbers). She is wearing a stunning dress that is competing with the early sunlight that is illuminating the entire grove we are gathered in. As I look into her eyes, I can feel the love radiating around her. This was one of the highlights on the best day of my life that took place exactly one year ago.

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By Mr. Nomad Numbers, ago

International phone plan options for travel – Google FI Review

As we embarked on long-term nomadic travel, we had to figure out a lot of logistics and choosing an international phone plan is a big one because we rely on it everyday. We ultimately decided on Google FI and will share with you our comprehensive review of the Google FI phone plan.

We will be going over the reason why we believe it is critical to have connectivity while traveling long term, why we chose Google FI has the phone plan we’ve been using since we started our journey, what are the alternatives and which option we recommend whether you want to travel the world long-term or simply stay in the US.

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By Mr. Nomad Numbers, ago

The paradox (or love/hate relationship) between time & money

For most people, it takes time to make money and, traditionally, it took more time to make more money (think overtime for example). The paradox is that we don’t have time to actually enjoy the money we’re making and are instead just running on the human hamster wheel. So let’s talk about the paradox of time and money, how too much of one affect the other and check if you might need to change your current mix.

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By Mr. Nomad Numbers, ago

Weekend Guide – Superbloom, California

As we came back to California to spend some quality time with family and friends, we decided to chase the rare superbloom which typically occurs once every 10 years or so. Due to a persistent drought in California, this year’s was particularly abundant which made for a unique and wonderful show we did not want to miss. In this post, we are sharing our itinerary as well as how much we spent! If you are in California and haven’t seen the superbloom, you still have a couple of weeks to catch up before it starts fading away!

By Mr. Nomad Numbers, ago

Detailed Guide + Cost of living in Aruba: Nomads in Paradise

Staying for a month in paradise on a Caribbean island costs tens of thousands of dollars right? We assumed it can only be affordable for 5 days or 10 days max unless you are a gazillionaire and it’s probably only worth it for a special occasion like a honeymoon. We never heard of any digital nomads or slow travelers going there, so it must not be practical. Well we have some good news for you, it is very doable and can be cheaper than staying at home! Are you ready to go explore Aruba?

By Mr. Nomad Numbers, ago

How we spend our money

As both aspiring minimalists and slow travelers, we like to control our spending since we have limited space on what we can carry and are traveling quite extensively. We have developed a process to help us decide what to spend money on and how much money we feel comfortable spending.

By Mr. Nomad Numbers, ago