Stonehenge — England

In February my fiancee and I quit our jobs, sold everything we owned, bought backpacks and backpacked through Europe. We spent 5 months traveling through 11 countries, traveling well over 3000 miles.

Over the course of our travels, I have learned a lot about myself and a lot about what really matters in life. My fiancee worked as a registered nurse in the operating room at a children’s hospital while I worked as a software test engineer for the largest discount website.

Here are the top 5 things I have learned since traveling:

5 : Traveling the world is not a short term project

Pula, Croatia

I knew the world was large, I was raised in the Fiji Islands. I’ve always wanted to spend time traveling but society drew me to the idea that I needed to graduate school, get a job, work until retirement and then follow my dreams. To see the world, you can’t spend 2 weeks every year and expect to be able to see the world. The world is a whole lot larger than you’ll ever imagine. You could spend an entire lifetime traveling the world and still be amazed at the new things, culture and people you’ll meet.

4: Traveling at a slower pace lets you enjoy life & experience local life

Ninth Fort — Lithuania— Memorial for over 30,000 murdered at this site during the Holocaust

We love seeing new cities and new countries, however, spending a day or two in each city/town or country is no where near enough to experience how locals live. Traveling at a slower pace not only lets you get in tune with the local life, but it lets you, as a person, unwind, and become less stressed. It means you don’t have to see all the sights and all the spots in a short period of time as well.

3: Airbnb allows you to live in luxury while saving money

Our beautiful 1 bedroom top floor apartment in Kaunas, Lithuania for $36/night!

Traveling Europe is known for staying in hostels. If you have more than one person traveling, splitting the cost between the group of people on Airbnb will significantly save you money. Not only can you save on the cost of lodging, but your food bill can be significantly decreased by eating meals in. — Shameless plug — If you aren’t signed up for Airbnb, please use my link as it will give you $40 of travel credit.

2: Research. Research. Research — It’s important

Me doing a bit of work with breakfast. Only photo we got of either one of us “working” — Zagreb, Croatia

I was fortunate enough to have my wonderful fiancee. She did the brunt of this when it came for things to do in each place we were at. One of the most common things we would do was free walking tours. This was the baseline for all cities. The next best thing we found was finding a place to go through TripAdvisor, or from the free walking tour guide, and walking to the destination. This allowed us to see a lot more of the city than taking public transport, plus it saves a fair amount of money!

1: Life is too short to be anything but happy

Stress was inevitable. Traveling always has it’s stresses. But you must remember that stressing wont solve the problem and can get you or your travel partner to become grumpy. Missing a bus, missing a plane, missing a train, all suck. Plan ahead, waiting an extra hour at a bus, train or plane station really isn’t the end of the world. Take time to watch the locals, take time to read that book you’ve been wanting to read, take time to enjoy life. Traveling the world, experiencing new cultures and lifestyles isn’t about being stressed out.

Over the last 5 months, we have learned not only how to live our life to the fullest, but we have learned how to experience life the way we enjoy it, we have learned how to pack lightly, travel on an extreme budget and many more. I will be continuing to publish articles about our past, present and future.

Stay tuned for the next article on our top 10 packing tips, tricks and methods for the budget minded, lightweight carry-on traveler.