How do I manage to travel a lot with a full time job?

Abhi, are you a full-time traveller? Right now, I am not, I work in a software company. So how do I manage to travel a lot with a full-time job? You know, it’s all about priorities and for me, it’s travelling and exploring new places. Aren’t you lying to yourself if you say that you don’t get time to travel? Nothing is impossible if you really want to do it.

Jaipur (2018,2019)

You might have heard about people who quit their jobs to travel the world. It’s incredible!! However, the reality is that not everybody can do that.  It’s not that easy to quit your 9-5 job and go travel, at the end everyone wants stability and security. But does working full time stops you from seeing the world. It’s hard to travel while working full time, however, it is possible, there are ways that you can travel more without leaving your job. I’ve become known at work for being the guy who is always on a holiday😛. But that’s not the reality, I am somehow managing both together.

Everest Base Camp Trek (2016)

Recently I have been asked quite a lot that how do I manage to travel so much with a full-time job. Do I take off from my office with a loss of pay? Do I compromise on visiting hometown so that I can travel? How do I afford to travel with a basic salary? From last year or so, I have been answering to all these questions a lot.

To be frank, I was getting bored and bit irritated answering to same sets of questions every time. 😟 I thought it would be much better if I can write a post answering to all these common questions. And here I am, sitting at my office desk and writing up this as I am already done with my office work 😛 (Ps: That’s one way how I manage to keep this blog up and running).

Goa(2012,2014,2017,2018,2019)

Let me take up the above questions one by one.

So how do I manage to travel a lot with a full-time job?

Does having a full-time job mean that you will be working for 365 days in a year? No, right? Let me just have a quick count on how many days do I have off from office in a year.

• 52 weekends – 104 days
• National Holidays – 10 days
• Earned leaves – 20 days

So that totals to 134/365 days i.e. more than 1/3rd of the total. You are kidding me if you say that’s not good enough to explore. What I generally do is travel over weekends to nearby places, leaving on Friday night after work and getting back home on Sunday night/Monday morning. 2 days, 3 nights – the perfect amount of time to explore.

Pondicherry (2014)

Sometimes I combine the weekends with national holidays and take a day or two off from the office. So that’s like 4-5 days which is good enough to explore places which are at some distance.

(P.S. – Being based in Pune, I am a bit lucky as there are a lot of weekend getaways from the town)

So still what I am left is 15-16 earned leaves in a year. Combing these earned leaves with 2 weekends makes it 9 days. So that’s like 3 long trips (9 days each) in a year. Also, try to plan the long trip around public holiday which would add that extra day. Isn’t that a decent amount of holidays to travel? I know most of you would be wondering what about visiting hometown as you end up spending all your holidays visiting your loved ones?

Munsiyari Uttarakhand (2018)

Do I compromise on visiting hometown so that I can travel?

I know there is nothing much satisfying than visiting the people whom you love the most. And yes I know most of you who stay far away from home end up using all your earned leaves visiting your hometown (twice or thrice in a year). Firstly, let me make it clear that my hometown (Udaipur) is also far away from my work location Pune (16-17 hours of road journey at least).

Auli Uttarakhand (2018)

So what I generally do is combine the national holidays with weekends and take a day or two off from the office, i.e. like 4-5 days of visit to my hometown (3-4 times a year). I do have work from home option so I do use it sometimes for visiting my hometown 😛 (a bit lucky on that part). I know I may end up spending less time at home, but that is how it is. My parents do understand my life goals!!

Also, if you are visiting hometown for long period, you can plan a trip to places near to your hometown. Also, you can take your parents along with you. So that you can spend your time with time and also fulfil travelling goals.

Andharaban jungle near Pune(2017,2018)

How do I afford to travel with a basic salary?

I don’t come from a rich family, my parents don’t pay for my travels, I don’t have a huge salary and yes, I didn’t win a lottery. The only way I afford to travel so much with a basic salary is that I travel cheaply. Travel doesn’t have to be expensive. When I am not travelling, I am always looking to save that extra penny which I can use to fund my travels. Rather than going into details now, I should someday write a new article on this.

Torna Fort Pune (2017)

While I am travelling, I am always looking for that cheapest thing, whether it be the accommodation, food, transport or whatever… I can easily stay in the hostel, eat roadside food, walk or take public transport to explore a town. Availability of internet helps a lot in the cause.

For a month trip to North East India, I ended up spending 21,000 INR (Pune to Pune), and for a 16-day trip to Uttarakhand, I spent around 15,000 INR (Pune to Pune). Isn’t that affordable?

Lachung North Sikkim (2016)

How do I manage office work and blog at the same time?

Actually balancing work and travel isn’t that tough. But add travel blogging to it and that’s when it gets very tricky. Let me tell you, just going through a post would hardly take 5 minutes or so, but the efforts behind publishing it are tremendous. Mostly I end up working continuously for 12-15 hours just to post a single article on the blog. Content writing with keeping SEO in mind, gathering details of that particular place, selecting photos, editing them and providing the name, arranging all these in WordPress, promoting the post and so many other things, it takes a hell lot of time.

Ziro valley Arunachal Pradesh

Believe me, I had sleepless nights just working on the blog. Whenever I get free time, I try to work on my blog, even when I am travelling. I could hardly remember the last movie/TV series I watched!!

But I can proudly say this blog is one of the best things that I’ve ever done. The blog brought so many amazing people like you to my life. You people are the reason which keeps me motivated all the time to keep this blog up and running. I just can’t imagine my life without “Onacheaptrip”.

I have currently on an average of 1000 visitors to the blog daily😊!!!

Majuli Assam (2017)

When you make travel as your priority, it’s easier to focus on what you need to do to reach your travel goals. So with a full-time job if I can afford to travel so much, so can you. If you also have a full-time job and love travelling, I’d love to hear how you make it work! Let me know in the comments below. Also if you are still having queries on how to manage travel with a fulltime job, don’t hesitate to comment, let us sort out things together for you.

I will be so disappointed if I don’t see you planning a trip very soon!!

Gokarana(2018)

Do follow me on Instagram as I am regularly posting travel posts and stories over there. Also, you can message me on Instagram if you want to join me on my next trip.

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