How I Met Ryk
We’re high school sweethearts. We first met in high school 15 years ago. Back then, I (Johanes) never had any interest in traveling.
When we were in college, Ryk thought it was a good idea to go camping in one of the nearby mountains. After inviting a few friends, we went camping. From then on, camping became our thing. It was affordable, especially for us as broke students.
When we started working, we tried snorkeling and fell in love with it. Growing up in the cold, mountainous area of the Philippines, we craved warm, sunny beaches. We made our way to Cebu, Bohol, Boracay, and Palawan. Now, we have plans to go around the country, exploring one island at a time.
How We Decide Our Destinations & Our Bucket List
We love beach towns, so we always plan our trips around islands with lots of snorkeling destinations and pretty beaches. Other times, we just take a look at the top destinations in the country that we haven’t visited and decide on one.
Once we’ve decided on a location, we start booking accommodations, and tours, and planning our itinerary.
So far, we’ve only been traveling around the country. As much as possible, we want to experience everything the Philippines has to offer before traveling abroad. When it comes to our bucket list, we'd like to visit Japan, eat at ramen shops, try wagyu, and soak in an onsen.
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Places We Have Traveled Together
As mentioned above, we’ve only traveled around the Philippines. One of our coolest travel experiences was our snorkeling trip to Apo Island.
Apo Island is well known for its abundant marine life and colorful corals. It was the best snorkeling experience we’ve ever had. We booked our tour from one of the resorts on Siquijor Island and went on a day trip to Apo Island. There, we saw several turtles, a sea snake, and the most beautiful coral reef.
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What Inspired Us To Start Blogging
Johanes started the website back in July 2017. She read about making money through blogs. And since she and her friends travel every weekend to destress from their full-time jobs, she thought it would be fun to write about the places they’ve visited.
The mission of our blog is to help people plan their trips and create itineraries. We mainly provide free travel guides, hotel recommendations, and tips.
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Costs We've Had To Bear To Get Started On Our Dream Of World-wide Nomadism
It wasn’t that difficult. We were mostly traveling on a budget, and we got money from freelancing online here and there. We can work anywhere and mainly splurge on food, so budgeting isn’t a problem.
Our major sacrifice would be our furbabies. It’s hard to leave our pets behind to go traveling. At the moment, we’ve temporarily settled down to spend time with our dogs and cat. We’re also planning on taking them on the road, so we don’t have to keep worrying about them whenever we leave.
How We Manage Our Work & Travel
We only accept work that allows for flexible time and is result-based. We don’t do hourly-paid work. As a result, we can work at any time of day or week as long as we can show results.
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GAFFL For Travelers
We think GAFFL helps people on budget travel more and meet like-minded people. It’s a great app, especially for solo travelers.
Some other helpful travel apps we use are Agoda or Airbnb for booking accommodations, Klook or KKday for booking tours, and PackPoint for our packing list.
How We Manage Our Travel Costs
We manage our costs by making a budget for each category - food, accommodation, transportation, etc. We crunch the numbers and make sure to stay within the budget.
For this, we use a small pouch with several compartments. Each compartment represents a category. So before our trip, we set a budget and put money into each compartment. This helps us stick to our budget.
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How We Avoid Scams
We’ve mainly encountered scams in the most touristy areas. We haven’t been scammed yet, but we’ve seen how they do it. Boracay, for example, people would come up to you to buy this expensive item. You’ll find out soon enough, after roaming around the markets, that the item is way overpriced.
The biggest challenge we’ve faced so far is avoiding the crowd. Either you choose the expensive private tour option or visit at a certain time of the day or day of the year.
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Advice We Can Share
Always have a flexible schedule. There are times when things don’t go the way you planned. You might get sick while traveling, or there could be a typhoon coming in. By not overstuffing your itinerary, you have enough wiggle room to adjust your plans in case something happens.
It's also a good idea to stay somewhere for at least three days. This gives you enough time to go around exploring.
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Things We Wish We’d Known When We First Started Traveling
We wish we had learned how to ride a motorcycle earlier. Most of the places we visited had motorbike rentals. Now that Ryk knows how to drive one, we can easily go from one place to another without being too dependent on tours and scheduled buses. It’s also cheaper.
Overall, we discovered that traveling on a budget is not a problem. You don’t need to have a lot of money. There’s always a cheaper option.
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