In February 2008, Nick Wharton and Dariece Swift returned home to Canada from an all-inclusive vacation in Mexico.
"We felt like we got a taste of the tropics, living the dream," Swift remembers. "We did a day trip and took these ATVs out and went through the jungle and the local villages. and it was so different from home that it kind of triggered something."
That something came to a head about a month later. "Nick had a brutal day at work and said, 'That's it,'" Swift recalls. When he asked where she'd go if she could travel for a year, she was quick to answer: Southeast Asia.
Only nine months later, they sold their house, car, and most of their possessions, set off for Southeast Asia, and have been figuring out how to support their adventures as they travel ever since.
Now 30-year-old Wharton and 31-year-old Swift detail their adventures on their website, Goats on the Road, and here, they explain how they make it work.
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Once they decided to leave Canada, Wharton and Swift spent the next nine months saving up about $30,000 to finance their year in Asia. Wharton, who was working as a printing press operator and on the Canadian oil rigs, and Swift, who was a real estate paralegal, were earning over $100,000 CAD a year, combined.
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They stayed in Southeast Asia for 13 months, traveling through 11 countries including Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Loas, Malaysia, Borneo, and Indonesia. They then returned to Canada for a year, working 80-hour weeks to shore up their savings for another trip abroad.
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"Our mindset had changed," says Wharton. "We weren't making money, we were making travel experiences. I would work an hour and think, 'This hour is buying me a day in Thailand.'"
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See the rest of the story at Business Insider