The Traveling Savage

Keith Savage, in his own words, “had an amazing vacuum of spirit.” He realized that there was more to life than his 9 to 5 job and set out to travel. I recently had the opportunity to find out more about his plans and motivations.

In order to make it work, he and his wife saved a lot of money in order to afford to live without an income for a year. Unlike many travelers, instead of selling their house, they are keeping it. Keith will be spending one month out of every three or four to travel the world over the next two years. When I asked him more about his motivations for their life change, he said the following:

My trip to Argentina coincides with me leaving my job of seven years. I just realized the job was not going to be what fulfills me. In fact, I realized that many years ago, but I didn’t have a good reason to leave. It was only in the last year that I put two and two together and decided to travel and write. It’s going to be a difficult path, however, because I’m married and my wife works at the same place I’m leaving. She’s been a huge supporter of this dream and it wouldn’t have a chance to live without her.

While most long-term travelers put all of their stuff in storage, pack a bag, and leave everything behind, Keith and his wife are taking a different approach. They are proving that life changes are possible even when not following the norm.

When I asked Keith about his itinerary, he responded:

I am heading to Argentina late this fall for one month in Salta. I spent a long time thinking about where in Argentina I would go, and after doing some research and talking with other travelers, Salta rose to the top. I’m intrigued by its culture and geography. After Salta it’s anyone guess. I’ve been thinking about Cape Town, Budapest, Istanbul, and Scotland.

Those all sound like great choices to me. Istanbul is one of my personal favorites. Just like I always do, I asked Keith about his travel budget. He replied:

Our budget was very complicated because not only were we trying to make my dream a reality, we were also budgeting for a venture my wife is interested in. Couple that with a mortgage payment and an uncertain financial future and it all looks very scary. Most people will stop at this point. I have in the past. But I felt like there was no turning back this time. The first thing we did was start calculating our income and expenses in Excel. We saw immediately that we could were spending a lot of fluff cash each month and that we could be saving a lot more. Next we started to estimate how much money we’d need for my travel plans, her venture, enough money to cover a year of us both being unemployed. After we arrived at that number, we forecasted into the future the number of months we needed to save. Currently, we’re able to save my entire salary every month and we’ve already saved around $50,000 this year.

Thanks Keith, it’s always great to hear about people who are following their dreams in a different way. You can follow Keith’s journey and enjoy his travel stories at Traveling-Savage.com. He’s also on Facebook and Twitter at @travelingsavage.