30-Day Travel Challenge: How to Make Your Travel Dreams a Reality
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Kaila Yu and Kiki Wong 30-Day Travel Challenge How to Make Your Travel Dreams a Reality Copyright © 2019 by Kaila Yu and Kiki Wong All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission. Kaila Yu and Kiki Wong has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book. First edition This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy Find out more at reedsy.com Contents Introduction I. WEEK 1: SETTING THE FOUNDATION Day 1: Let’s get started! Day 2: Journaling Day 3: Meditation Day 4: Work through your limiting travel beliefs Day 5: Decide where you want to go next Day 6: Be a local tourist Day 7: Rest II. WEEK 2: FINDING INSPIRATION Day 8: Reading Day 9: Watch an inspirational travel movie Day 10: Join a community Day 11: Start a travel fund Day 12: Attend a travel conference Day 13: Connect with a traveler Day 14: REST III. WEEK 3: TAKING ACTIONABLE STEPS Day 15: Do your research Day 16: Set up a budget Day 17: Kickstart your travel fund Day 18: Set goals Day 19: Learn about travel hacking Day 20: Sign up for a travel credit card Day 21: REST IV. WEEK 4: CROSSING THE FINISH LINE Day 22: Write a bucket list Day 23: Explore vagabonding Day 24: Think outside of the box Day 25: Explore alternative accommodations Day 26: How to find cheap flights Day 27: Explore a travel career Day 28: Reflection Day 29: Plan a weekend getaway Day 30: Create a travel vision board Conclusion Interviews About the Author Introduction Wanderlust—a term that’s been resonating throughout the current social lingo and media outlets. It’s the ultimate desire held by many, but followed through and experienced by few. So many people worldwide share this dream of travel, but most people have no knowledge or resources to make their dreams come to life. However, the amount of Americans leaving the US is now booming. In 2016, a total of 66,960,943 U.S. citizens explored the world beyond our borders. That’s a whopping 8% increase from the previous year! Social media outlets have been saturated with eye-catching and jaw-dropping images of bloggers on their glorious destinations abroad, making it even more tantalizing to those with a serious case of the travel bug. But, many suffer from beliefs that are holding them back: Traveling is too expensive … Traveling is too difficult … Traveling is too confusing … So, how exactly do THEY do it? JOIN THE 30-DAY TRAVEL CHALLENGE! We are Kaila and Kiki. We are frequent travelers. With a combined social media reach of 2.5 million+, we’ve been fortunate enough to share our travel experiences with fellow travel enthusiasts, and even get paid to travel the world. Neither of us are trust fund babies. We don’t have millions of dollars. We are not flight attendants. All we had was the undying feeling of wanderlust, and we had to do something to appease it. As small children, we both were lucky enough to have travel infused in our lives at an early age, from each of our families. Kaila’s parents are from Taipei, Taiwan, so she frequently traveled back to Taipei every few years to visit all of our relatives. Her family would also often take road trips within driving distance from Kiki’s home in Southern California while growing up. Kiki’s family instilled the value of travel and building experiences like an engraving in stone. Her parents insisted that money should be spent on extraordinary adventures and life experiences, rather than materialistic values. This led to a healthy resume of travels, and a passionate desire to travel more. As we both reached adulthood, we both found careers in our early twenties that allowed plenty of travel. However, those careers ended rather abruptly and we went through a period where we could no longer afford to travel, because we were dirt broke! While working hard to build another thriving career, we followed bloggers and travel writers who were living out our dreams. Living vicariously through these professional travelers, we soaked up everything that we could possibly learn and reinvented ourselves in a new career as a travel writers/bloggers. You don’t need to become a travel writer to travel more, but you can definitely incorporate many of the tips and tricks that travel bloggers and writers regularly use to enable you to travel much more frequently. One of the greatest and most humbling things about being in the public eye on social media is the comments and feedback from our followers. Most of the time, people say, “You have a dream job,” and “I wish that I could travel as much as you do!” While interacting with our readers, we’ve found so many people believe that travel is unattainable and entirely cost- prohibitive. This is simply not true. And so, we wanted to write this book and create this challenge to show you that travel IS possible. Most importantly, we want to provide an actionable, step-by-step program to unveil more travel experiences into your life. So, why should you travel? Exploring the world gives you a new perspective on life. It allows people to experience, first-hand, new cultures, customs, and worlds other than their own. Seeing the world helps you break out of your daily routine, what you know best, those clockwork days. Also, getting to know people outside of your immediate circles can help expand the way you think and elevate your creativity. Travel also challenges you. It gets you out of your comfort zone and exercises skills that you would have never developed just by sitting at home. Whether you are testing your culinary skills in a cooking class in the south of France or exploring the magnificent ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru, these new experiences will often instill an indescribable change in you that will give you ultimate fulfillment. Are you in? Good! Brace yourself, because you are going to embark on an exciting journey this month! For these next 30 days, travel will be the main focus of your life, something that you’ve probably never done before. It will be a time of great self-reflection, stepping beyond the boundaries of your comfort zone, and kickstarting some serious electrical signals to parts of your brain that may have been dormant. Basically, we’ll be kicking your brain’s butt in the best way possible! You WILL achieve more travel this next year, as long as you fully commit to this challenge. Without further ado, let’s GO! How does it work? In this challenge, we’ll be working together as a team to finish this 30-day course. In the first week, we’ll start off by assessing where you are in your travel beliefs and current traveling status—you may be surprised to discover the subconscious thoughts that might be holding you back from your travel dreams. We’ll set a foundation of healthy practices to help supercharge this challenge by exploring tools such as meditation and journaling. We’ll end the week with some motivationally stimulating activities, such as deciding where you want to travel to next and exploring your hometown. We’re going to get you traveling immediately—don’t worry! (Traveling locally in your hometown counts). Here’s what we’ve got planned for you: Week 1: Setting the foundation We will tackle the deep process of self-reflection and exploration. We’ll introduce several actions which you might enjoy enough to incorporate them as permanent, daily practices in your life. During this first week, we’ll also explore some of your dream destinations and pick at least one of these that you would like to visit next. Week 2: Finding inspiration Inspiration can be found almost anywhere. We’ll go step-by- step and discover the ways in which you can motivate yourself to take the necessary steps towards traveling more. You’ll reach out to other travelers and build your own travel community. We’ll even guide you on how to start a travel fund, allowing you to see more places beyond your imagined budget. Week 3: Taking actionable steps By now, you’ll have set the foundation in Week 1 and received tons of inspiration in Week 2. Now that you’re at the halfway point of the challenge, we’re going to actually plan your dream trip, and set up a working budget and a savings plan. We’ll even explore ideas on how to kickstart your travel fund, set achievable goals, learn all about travel-hacking, and explore travel credit cards. We weren’t kidding about the actionable steps this week; you’ll be a giant step closer to your dream trip! Week 4: Crossing the finish line By now, you’ll be a travel-planning superstar! In Week 4, we have some fun activities; like creating your bucket list and planning a weekend getaway (or staycation).