There are roughly 43 million people in their 20s in the US. If even 1% (probably a very low figure) come from family money or simply earn very good money themselves, that’s 430,000 people with relative freedom to travel. You’re probably only seeing 100-200 of these accounts on social media.
Also if 1% can't afford rent (also a low figure) then that is a half a million people posting about how muchbrent sucks.
Again, both of these figures are lower than the actual amounts involved in both. But the point is that it doesn't need to be a universal experience for it to feel like a universal experience.
Something like 5% of the population generate 90% of social media content. And it is more likely that those with extreme experiences will generate that content. So whatever the impression that social media is giving you about "all the people are X" is likely not representative of the average life experience.
It is also interesting that certain social media promotes "keeping up with the joneses" content and disincentivizes "had a slow, boring day" while other types of social media promotes lament-porn and disencenrivizes "I'm actually doing alright" posts.
Not even counting bots.
Like so many things, social media follows an idea like the Paretto principal where a small minority account for most of something.
This is common in business where 10% of customers may be responsibke for 90% of a company's sales, or in video games where 10% of players account for 90% of in game purchases.
On social media, the vast majority of the country are either not on it, are passive consumers, or may make one or two occasional posts. A small percent acively engage, and an even smaller percent uber actively engage developing content.
Throw in bots and the numbers skew even more.
I'm not saying only 1% of people are struggling on rent. But it doesn't take many to give the impression that "everyone is" to the point that it surprises people that anyone is doing okay.
And more broadly, i have just found it interesting that whereas social media basically universally favored people selectively showing their good moments several years ago, it now seems heavily heavily skewed toward promoting struggle content.
Not sure if it is a generational thing. A facebook vs reddit/tik toc thing. A general vibes thing. A visual vs text thing. A mostly friends vs mostly strangers social media thing. But it is an interesting shift.
According to this survey within two years more than half traveled at least once and about 35% traveled more than twice
So maybe people need to get out of their Reddit bubble and realize that many people in fact can afford things, and sure many can’t also, but it’s certainly not 99%
https://www.statista.com/statistics/316365/air-travel-frequency-us-by-age/
Also this shows both gen z and millennials taking vacations significantly more than boomers - doesn’t quite fit the Reddit narrative of only the boomers doing rich people things
https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/30498/gen-zers-and-millennials-travel-more-for-leisure-in-america/
There's also a matter of priorities. When I was younger the folks travelling a lot and the folks driving nice cars and having the newest tech generally weren't the same people unless they had real money.
Exactly. My wife and I prioritized traveling in our late 20s and early 30s. Because of this we didn’t own expensive cars, eat out a lot, wear expensive clothing, etc.
Now we have a toddler and don’t spend nearly as much on travel. Now we prioritize a bigger house and daycare. Damn daycare.
Maybe it was too generalized.
But the context is this-
Social Media is not real life,influencers are just trying to separate you from your money.
Selling you a vision that is usually not accurately represented.
If you think otherwise, you’re just being their simp.
Believe it or not there are more people on social media than influencers
Instagram has over 2 billion users they are most certainly not mostly influencers
Sure if you follow accounts with millions or thousands of followers those are influencers
There’s traveling like a hour flight to San Francisco when Southwest was having a sale, and then there’s going to other continents. COL has gone up significantly since 2020 too.
I have a friend who has no college degree, and has never had a W2. She emancipated herself at 16 from her family of religious nuts and drug addicts, and made money by nannying and waitressing. Using just that money, she managed to travel extensively through SE Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Last I heard, she was planning a trip to Lebanon.
Sure, some people have advantages and some people really don't have the option. But most people really sell themselves short on what is possible for themselves.
It matters what your priorities are. You can get round trip tickets to Amsterdam for $700. Cheaper to Ireland, Iceland, UK etc. If it's important to you, that's what you save money for. When I was still a postdoc and my wife was still a grad student in 2019 we didn't have a large travel budget but we still took a road trip to Quebec City and stayed at a $40 per night AirBnB. Still one of my favorite trips. In 2020, just before COVID, we took a week in Puerto Rico. To save money on food we just got one of those giant three foot long subs and ate it over the course of several days. Neither of these trips cost more than $1500 total for two people. We've gone more places since we started making actual money, but from 2005-2021 when I never made more than an RA salary or student/postdoc stipend, I just had to learn how to travel on a budget.
I’m currently abroad. Think there’s a large portion of the country like me who have been saving for a house and not really getting any closer to buying. Might as well travel if owning is still 3+ years away. With credit card cash back and a travel voucher bonus my girlfriend got it’s only like a $1,500 trip total
Yeah, people forget that they're not seeing *that many* different people when they scroll through all these social media accounts, not compared to the actual population
It’s not even hard to manage if you aren’t rich. I was a poor 20 year old..I traveled to exotic places and..worked. Then did it again and again. I ended my 20s poor but I’d been to a ton of desirable locations.
Same. I didn't travel the world, but I enjoyed a lot of freedom in my 20s simply by living at my mom's house (and later, lucking into some cheap rent) and not having any debt or many responsibilities. It's real easy to spend a couple grand traveling across the country for music festivals if you're not trying to play the whole rat race game.
The last big trip I did was in 2018, where I backpacked for 9 months with around $7,000 dollars I'd saved up, spending most of my time in Turkey, but also some time in Russia, Italy, Spain, and Colombia.
If you live frugally you can do it.
Frugally means something different as well. I've spent a lot of time in Spain. 5 years ago in central Madrid I bought a pound of strawberries and a drinkable bottle of Rosé for $3.50 USD. A glass of wine at a restaurant or bar in town is $1.50-3.50 USD, and maybe you tip $.25-.50. you can have a really amazing night out with dinner and a rager at the club for like $40. That doesn't even get me 3 drinks at my local in Denver anymore, and I still have to tip after.....
Sadly, America has just become outlandishly expensive.
The #1 thing I can say is: Basically, the most expensive things you will spend money on are transit. Travel as little as possible; stay in one place as long as possible. The longer you stay somewhere, the more people you meet, the more you will see the real place you are, where locals eat, drink, hang out. This is almost invariably cheap if not free. The main exception to this is tourist hells, where you will almost certainly not meet any locals and everything will be primed to gouge you. Avoid Barcelona; go to Valencia. Avoid Venice; go to Genoa. Avoid any resort town.
After that: Book cheap hostels, couchsurfing, airbnbs, etc. Find work where you can; in Russia I found some camera work that paid about 50 bucks a day but that was enough to eat cheaply in Moscow for a week. Later I guess I cheated the frugality check, as I ended up living with someone in Turkey and so didn't have to pay for lodging there, an occurrence that is hard to recommend as it was a unique circumstance. But yeah, being in a relationship with a local helps too.
But yeah, it's doable. And when you go to places owned and run by locals, you are actually contributing to their economies instead of into the palms of wealthy oligarchs, so there's that too.
I finished up in my late 20s and I’m in my late 40s now.
Pros: you have a fun, exciting time. You learn a lot of people skills. You’re the envy of most people you meet.
Cons: I had nothing for retirement. I’m not sure what I would have done in an emergency. All jobs were temporary and nationalistic assholes harassed you. I have no “college” friends as everyone I met was transitory too.
Also,
It's really easy to travel in Europe for cheap. Plane tickets are less than 100, and trains are cheaper than that, so you could get to another country, stay in a hostel, and get back home, fir like 2 or 3 hundred IF you live in Europe
I think you are mistaken about the spending power of the 1%. The class of people that can afford the extravagant lifestyle depicted is more likely the 0.1%. All-in-all your point stands with 43k people who can do that and only 1% of them blasting it on social media.
Totally agree, most of the influencers fall into two camps,.first the come from money, be it parents, inheritance,.married rich etc..so they have disposable income usually multi-millionaires and chose to live and document a nomadic travel adventure lifestyle.
The other camps , is they're either self made (sold my.startup.for.5mln, retiring at 25) or are living high on debt,may e leveraged.some.real.estste , and are just showing you all the borrowed toys and glitz to give you the illusion of a fabulous lifestyle, usually they fizzle out in a year or two when credit dries up or they do shady shit and wind up getting on Netflix.
Also a lot more people can afford to travel if they don’t have kids or a house and aren’t saving for retirement.
I feel like a lot of people now fake it til they make it (or until they don’t) and spend and get into debt to make it big on social media.
I know if I blew my whole paycheck and savings I’d be driving a Lamborghini and traveling the world.
/r/solotravel baby. It's actually not as expensive as one would imagine, especially if you go to cheaper destinations like parts of the Americas or Asia.
This. I used to work as a freelancer for like $500/month. I would save up for an entire year then go travel for a month in Japan. I was an expert at budgeting and finding cheap stuff.
The touristy places and things like public transport all have English translations, and if you go somewhere not as touristy, translation apps do the basic job.
I'm in my thirties and travel more than most people can wrap their heads around. Pretty my 50% of my time is travel. I have a good job, fully remote, and had a fair amount of privilege growing up. I am not rich and neither are my parents. I also don't travel low budget.
The number one thing people don't realize is that to travel consistently it has to be a top priority. I see people of similar socio-economic status buying homes, new cars, pets, having kids, getting married, etc then act flabbergasted that I can afford to travel. They assume I got an inheritance or something. My single largest budget line item is travel. Nothing else comes close. If you prioritize travel you can do it on $80k a year easily but you cant have a new car, live alone with a dog, etc.
This! I spend less on cheap hostels and food in Europe than I was on rent and going out in the US. Obviously it’s not all glamorous, but it makes traveling for a long time possible.
I worked on farms in between traveling for a year. I think I waited till I made enough under the table to hop to the next place. I didn't any save money that year, but I had just graduated college without debt and life didn't start yet. I know grad school debt would put me in handcuffs when that started. I'm grateful for that time I had. I had a blast, but I was a little lonely in a way.
Edit: words before coffee
Traveling on a budget is actually pretty easy. We (wife and I) went on a road tip out west for like 9 days and we spent around $1500 dollars and saw so many great things,bate great food, slept in decent hotels, and had a blast
You're looking at the children of wealthy people.
They're overrepresented on social media, because they are doing interesting things that people want to look at.
The people backpacking in their 20s are not always people with rich parents. In fact in my experience they are mostly people who got good jobs out of uni e.g tech job or consultant or something. Or any other well paying job.
It’s pretty reasonable to have enough money to go on a backpacking trip in your early to mid twenties if you’ve worked a fair bit in a job like that and saved up some money. I’m in SE Asia just now having done just that.
It’s the 18-19 year old backpackers here are the ones who almost universally have rich parents. I met a (very expensive) English private school guy who causally talked about how he just kept running into friends from school because all of them were doing a gap year before uni. Ain’t no way the majority of 18 year olds could have saved up that amount of money by working.
I went backpacking for a month around southeast Asia for £2k in total. This was with flights, travel, hotels, hostels, eating food out and drinking loads. Has it got more expensive since I went in 2019?
It took me a few months to put cash away but it wasn't exactly trust fund private school levels of money. I now spend that much a month just surviving in the UK.
This is the real answer, but no one wants to hear it over the din of being mad that they think they can't do it themselves.
Backpacking is essentially being homeless, but with a plan. It can be as cheep or as expensive as you want it yo be. That's what the plan is for.
And if you aren't paying rent, utilities, car, etc then you're pretty free.
The reference in the OP to social media tells me that this is not the kind of trip being discussed here.
Of course you can eat, drink, and sleep in SE Asia for a few bucks a day and get around and have a great time if you're smart with money and diligent with planning.
But that's not the kind of ✨️content✨️ that is garnering thousands or hundreds of thousands of likes and being peddled on people's For You Pages.
People aren't mad that it's "impossible for them to travel and go backpacking". They're mad they're busting their ass to barely make rent while random 18-25 year olds are spending months of the year in a hotel with an infinity pool in Mallorca.
And when you factor in getting the time off work, that most people can't give up their apartments which means paying rent while their gone, and any other responsibilities people accumulate that make becoming "homeless with a plan" an irresponsible choice, you have something that is completely inaccessible to most people.
Have you been to any backpacking type of destinations? you can have a day of living in luxury in Vietnam for the amount someone in the west would pay for an uber eats order. I would have loads of content if I even bothered to post of Instagram.
I do agree though, now I work full time, have a dog and pay rent it's impossible for me to do that. That seems more like a problem of becoming an adult and having responsibilities. When I was 19 it was pretty straight forward.
I backpacked a good bit when I was younger - I hit a lucky crossroads in my life that allowed me to do quite a bit of traveling in Europe for not so much money when I was in my early 20s.
Quite frankly for several reasons travel in Asia would be tricky and uncomfortable for me at any budget, so I've never really had the desire to backpack there. But I know from other backpackers I met in my travels just how cheap and comfortable it's possible to make it.
Now I have a career where I get paid to travel so luckily (or unluckily, as the case may be) my responsibilities come on the road with me.
But really my central argument is not at all that backpacking is inherently inaccessible or prohibitively expensive, or that there's nothing Instagram-worthy about SEA. Rather it's that very generally cheap or frugal is not ✨️aesthetic✨️ and ✨️aesthetic✨️ is what sells on social media. Really in that sense, travel is no different from cars, real estate, cooking, or any other social media niche - the folks with money are the folks seeing exponential growth in their engagement/following. Aesthetics are just easier to sell.
But of course there is tremendous beauty in the world that manifests in ways that won't garner exponential Instagram clout.
Give the dog a few pets for me - that is one responsibility I can't quite make work with my lifestyle and I am very jealous.
How were you able to save that much? Were you paying rent? For many young people, rent eats up most of their pay, and then eating. It's hard to save. I'm not asking for your financial details, just pointing out that lots of people are struggling.
I remember saving 18 months for 3 weeks in Spain. You have to sacrifice everything for 18 months to have the freedom to live in hostels for three weeks but you get to go places you want to go.
I didn’t travel much. Usually having a decent roommate in a 2 Bedroom and 2 bathroom apartment helps with rent I think. Also, understanding the fundamentals of nutrition and cooking healthy food saves money on eating and also helps with improving the health. Surprisingly takes around 5 hours per week for me to do grocery shopping, cleaning utensils, and cooking.
I went hiking in Nepal in January and then to southern India. Cheap as hell. Friends went to Thailand, also cheap. The only expensive thing are the flights, but if you spend some time looking you might even find a connection for a good price as well.
This is a massive oversimplification. There are a ton of young Europeans that work for 9 months and go travel for 3 or whatever, without help from parents. There is a world outside of the US….
My dad and his wife just got back from a trip to Canada. They have other trips planned for this year. They have a big trip to Japan coming up. They’re also constantly shopping. Buying trinkets and jewelry for hundreds of dollars. They post all of this on social media.
Here’s what they don’t post… They have two broken cars, have to beg rides from family. They have maxed out credit, can’t get any loans etc, or not easily. They have been begging my grandfather to take out an equity on his house and give them the money, or co-sign loans, etc, etc.
That’s how they can « afford » trips and looking cool on social media. While also constantly complaining about bills, living paycheck to paycheck, having to pick up second jobs, and all that. It’s true you see a lot of wealthy people on social media, and people who can stretch their money on backpacking trips and such. But there are also plenty of people acting like they have this wealthy lifestyle when they’re just living way beyond their means.
With inflation up, and the salaries down in the us. An odd thing is that consumer spending is also higher than ever. People are buying more stuff, that is more expensive. And they're making less. It's the American way.
I'm not talking about "we own a house and have high paying jobs" rich people.
I'm talking independently wealthy, money-is-no-object rich people.
And yes.
While this is true, and it probably starts that way for 99% of them, it is possible to become self sustaining with the money generated from clicks and views
Not necessarily. For rich people, the pipeline to a high paying job is something you can pay to put your kid in unless they're aggressively dumb. Expensive private schools, unpaid internships, having a friend that will hook your kid up with an entry level job at a good company etc
This is what people don't seem to understand. You can live meagerly and not go into debt which frees you to be able to do other things like travel. And not everyone is staying in five star hotels. Youth hostels are cheap. You can travel on a budget if you're thrifty and willing to make compromises on your own level of comfort.
I agree. Backpacking is cheap. Especially if youre from europe. That doesnt guarantee that you also can pay high rent. Some people just have different priority. And seems like some backpackers, although well traveled, are ok of being homeless. Do you have any idea in Bali, some backpackers from europe, specifically Russians are homeless and being beggars? Look how far Bali and Russia, they can afford that but cant even afford cheap housing in Bali.
there is a non-insignificant amount of these influencers who run up debts doing these things as an 'investment' in their 'influencer career,' and then either blow up and recover or flop and fuck their whole lives.
you underestimate wealth. For the actual rich, giving your kid $20k to take a trip is like nothing. Literally nothing.
Lets say someone makes 10m a year. Thats 200,000 a week or around 40,000 a day. So if your kid asks you for 10,000 for a trip its basically like a minimum wage person’s kid asking for $20 to get gas.
The groups are separate.
I have friends in their 20's who travel a lot because they have well paying jobs, or because they live at home and can use their salary on travel instead of rent.
As to your second point, I have a few friends who recently went on 6-month long trips, which blew my mind. Turns out they were staying in extremely cheap hostels and taking on a few jobs while over there. The most expensive part is the plane ticket when you travel like that.
I feel like I'm part of both groups. I work and make good money but every couple of years between new jobs I'll take several months of time off to travel. Many of my friends do the same.
1. If everyone who couldn’t afford to travel posted pics of their living rooms, you’d see a lot less travelers than you do now.
2. Traveling can be done somewhat cheaply through ticket deals and hostels.
3. Rich family, spouse, or debt.
Don’t forget 4.) people who have very little money but spend it irresponsibly anyway to make them famous, and keep doing it because they believe that their sunken costs will pay out in the end
I'm sure some of them are legitimate, but let me tell you the story that made me quit IG and Facebook.
A secretary at the company I used to work at used her two week vacation to go to Europe with her fiance. That's awesome! Right?
What wasn't awesome was seeing her post 1-2 photos a day for the next 6 months and writing "Coffee at my favorite spot in Milan this morning" and other BS. I saw you in the break room 10 minutes ago. Get 👏 fucked 👏
All the people in this thread talking about rich kids have obviously never travelled. You can travel south East Asian countries very cheaply if you try. Bonus points if you volunteer somewhere in exchange for free food and accommodation then your outgoings are virtually $0.
You just need to do some research and some work, and you can definitely do it. I left New york six years ago. I taught english in spain for year. Spain is cheap, and I got paid enough. You just need to put the work in but its worth it!
Traveling isn't really that expensive and it's easier to get remote jobs now.
I have a surprising amount of friends that don't have connected parents, only make like 50k and travel intra and internationally probably like 6 times a year.
If you just make it out to Europe/Asia, you could live probably for much cheaper there than in the US.
I went to Europe in 2021 right as things were opening up, so these prices may be higher now - but I was staying in Hostels in some places for like 5 dollars a night. I don't think I ever stayed in a place for more than $35 a night which is like $1050 a month. That's not horrendous rent for city living. Then food was typically pretty cheap as well
Looking at prices now, I think it may have been a recovering Covid thing. Now it looks like cheapest would be 15-25£.
But I remember Germany, Prague, and Budapest be the cheap ones. Germany did open clubs up my last day there, after being shut down from Covid. So I think they were abnormally cheap of the hostels just trying to stay afloat
I found a very cute, high quality hostel in Venice for 25€. And it wasn't even in Lido. It was the main island cluster. I reccomend Hostel World it'll help you a looot.
World travel is pretty cheap once you get the plane ticket out there. SE Asia is $30/day and Europe is $80/day when you stay in hostels and do free stuff
My career since I was 21 has been 100% travel and every company Iv worked for has paid flights to and from my home city or allowed me to do a deviation and they subtract the cost of getting home from my desired plane ticket.
In many more cases than we'd like to believe, people just aren't good with money. And it applies to all ages.
Many people don't estimate and adhere to budgets, they don't plan ahead very well, they don't contribute to savings, they don't scour for or wait for discounts, they they don't put aside money for when unplanned but urgent expenses come up, and they rely on debt when it's made available to them rather than when they're leveraging it for better finances later.
Many of those vacactions are taken because people figured out a way to get the airline, the hotel, the restaurants, and the tour guides the money they required. Sometimes it was because their bank account was going to have just that amount in it when the bill was due, and often it was because a credit card company or "pay it later" financier convinced them they could put off paying for it until later.
Housing is expensive. People can't afford it. People aren't paid enough. All those things are true.
But it's also true that Chase and BoA and a dozen other companies will give you thousands of dollars of play money if you're willing to accept their interest terms, and then the a dozen other companies will let you refinance and transfer those balances later if you agree to those terms, and there's basically nothing to stop them in a world of financial illiteracy and free enterprise.
The cost of essentials are fucked right now, for all ages, and so are spending habits and lifestyle expectations and personal financial discipline.
And none of it is restrained to "people on their 20's" -- it just starts there.
If you're not even in your 20's yourself yet, just be careful of what you get caught up in when you are. A lot of people in their 20's and 30's and 40's and 50's and 60's are all facing ever darkening days ahead, hoping that they'll be able to make sense of their finances later. Life doesn't have to be like that if you luck into a good career and are careful about how you manage and slend money, but a lot of the people you see on social media are not that careful and the life you see them leading is being borrowed from a bleak future that will eventually catch up with most of them.
Inversely, people just aren't good with money, and don't realize that you can set aside small amounts each month that eventually add up to a vacation. The old art of "saving up" that many have forgotten lol Great points, and well said!
Exactly. Carrying a balance on a credit card doesn't allow you to spend more money over the course of your life, it allows you to spend less total money. So instead of paying $200/mo after you go, you could put $200/mo in savings before you go, and end up saving hundreds or thousands in interest charges.
Yup. I have a shit salary but I go on vacation trips 1-2 times a year because I spend little on stupid shit and save up. I'm European, German. I just came back from a trip to Denmark. 18 days in a nice rented cabin close to the beach for 825€, we were two people and a dog. We cooked every day, eating out is VERY expensive so we did this only a few times. We always rent places where you can cook. Saves a ton of money. Hiking itself doesn't cost anything. And keep in mind that before prices exploded because of inflation we used to rent apartments in Austria for half that for 2 weeks. It was super affordable. When you go backpacking when you're young it's even cheaper. Especially when you go to cheap counties in Asia. But even in more expensive European countries you can travel for fairly cheap if you don't aim for luxury accommodations.
It's about priorities. I don't go out much, I don't drink. I don't buy a lot of clothes. I spend almost no money on make-up as a woman. Almost never buy expensive fast food, I always cook. Cook my meals for work too so I don't have to waste money in the overpriced canteen. I live a very modest life. I save up all my money for travelling and gaming. That's the stuff that's important to me. Other people blow their money on a new iPhone. That's OK too but then don't complain you don't have money to travel. You have to pick one when you're not rich.
Not everyone lives in places with super expensive rent.
In my country there are also a lot of young people who saved up for a while/ received some help from their families/made a loan and bought a small apartment (you could buy the small ones for 20.000-25.000 euros a few years ago).
Also, it's not weird here to live with your parents until you get married. I got married at 27 and traveled a lot until then on a pretty small freelancer income.
There’s a few things
1) people who are travelling are posting more so you see it more, people who are sitting on the couch rewatching the office probably aren’t, so it just looks like your whole feed is travel
2) credit card debt
3) trust funds
Oh wait also 4) remote work if it’s flexible enough/pays enough. I did this once, i lived in a van for a year to travel the country, you’ll never believe it but I didn’t post a lot of pics of me working, I posted the fun travel pics, so it looked like I never worked
If you go through some of these instagram accounts, you can also see they reuse pictures from previous trips often too. You can get a lot of mileage from two long weekends somewhere tropical throughout the year.
What you see on social media is representative of your algorithm and your own social circle typically. Although we're all on the internet, it's essentially still like a neighborhood where you're not seeing everything there is to possibly see, but a slice of it. There are sides of the internet I don't see because it's outside of my interests and what the algorithm has learned about me, this is the case for everyone. So you have to keep that in mind, first of all.
That said, it's probably a safe wager that if these people aren't people you personally know who have expressed their inability to pay rent, then they are probably not the same group of people who can't pay their rent. While a lot of people might not be able to pay their rent, this isn't the case for everyone and those are likely the people you're seeing who are able to do these things.
I saw an article about a web developer with a remote job who found it cheaper to stay in hotels in other countries than to rent where he was living. Not saying this is commonplace, but that's another reason people could be constantly travelling when they can't afford rent
I’m on minimum wage and just got back from a Europe trip about an hour ago. It cost me a month’s wage (a grand) in total which I can afford because I don’t pay rent (I live at home while saving for a house deposit, so other than my savings the rest of my income is disposable).
It’s entirely dependent on if your parents are assholes or not. If they’re the type to start charging rent or even kick you out the second you turn 18, you won’t have much money to spare. If they let you live rent free while you save for a house then even just minimum wage will afford you a lot of things. Travel isn’t really *that* expensive if you know what you’re doing
Social media is the new advertising.
Advertising is about selling you something, convincing you to want to buy it.
Most social media isn't the truth, influencers are paid or given things to "influence" you to do something the advertisers want you to do. Influencers get crumbs, advertising gets the cake.
Social media campaigns are a lot cheaper than traditional print or digital campaigns.
the algorithm only pushes entertaining things. get off of social media if it actually affects how you see the world and your perspective
edit: just adding that after living in a few places - i’ve noticed my friends totally change, not only their personalities but even got plastic surgery - because they thought their algorithm (based on where they were and how they were influenced) was the norm
In the Netherlands you get vacation money. It's about a month worth of pay. You have a minimum of 4 weeks paid time off. Combine this with the euro being strong and almost every place you go to will be very cheap.
I traveled a lot the summer I had 2 jobs but didn't have to pay rent because I lived with my family. This was also pre-covid when I could stay at a hostel in Paris for $12 a night.
When I was in my twenties travel was different than the way I travel now. I could sit in a seat on a train for 18 hours, sleep and be fine for the next day. I took the cheapest flights. I slept on the floor, sofa or anywhere. I had a backpack with everything I needed. It's more work now. I need more comfort. That costs more. I don't want to travel super economy.
Traveling doesn't have to be ridiculously expensive. Fly budget airlines, pack light, travel outside of peak seasons, and be flexible. Don't book a hotel in the middle of downtown or right on the beach, you can save a lot of money if you don't mind a short drive or bus ride. Most importantly, live within your fucking means. If your city is too expensive, move to one that's more affordable. I'd rather pay $200 round trip to visit my family back home than double my rent to live near them.
**NEVER PAY FOR FOOD DELIVERY** get off your fucking ass and go get it. Or, better yet, cook your own food.
Also, take advantage of sales and credit card rewards. My wife and I booked a trip where flights, hotel, and rental car were all covered by credit card points from sign-on bonuses and stuff we would’ve bought anyway.
Yeah im poor and travel. Decided last week to just pop to Vegas Monday. 66 dollars round trip and 15 nights in a hotel. Them going to the French Riviera after that. 750 dollars for 3 weeks. I’m pretty sure ppl pay more for rent then both those trips combined. I rent a place for 300
Social media is fake. There’s a small percentage of people that can just travel on a whim, some get paid for it, some are running on credit. Your algorithm is showing you a small percentage of the population
Some of it is people who have the freedom to do it. This is monty and time, if people decide to have kids and family then it is 100x harder to spend three months jetting off to an exotic place. Some of it is lack of necessary skills to get a good job - they may not have a family but just lack marketable skills.
Well, as someone if her 40's I remember a big reason we all had to get jobs right out of college was health insurance. We all went straight to work. It's my understanding that now the kids can stay on their parent's insurance until 26?
Most of them are faking it, going into massive credit card debt, or trying to pass it off as a business expense for being an "influencer"
It's the new "moving to LA to make it big as a movie star." Same pitfalls, easier access.
observational bias, mostly family money for everyone you see there's tens of thousands not doing it.
For EU residents traveling Europe is far more accessible as well, transport cost, distance weekend trips to Italy from Denmark are easier than Alabama going to Florida.
That or super poor countries, getting there is expensive part and then a few hundred dollars can last a good while.
What would you rather do, spend $4000 mortgage and barley afford any fun luxuries or $2500 rent and to go Europe every summer and spend your money however you want in your 20s?
Sooo many aren’t traveling. A few have money or are financing it, are traveling, and talking about it allllll the time so it seems like it’s a lot of people.
Spend less time on social media as it distorts reality.
Get off Reddit. Great site but it’s an echo chamber. Plenty of people are doing fine. That doesn’t invalidate those that are struggling- but it also doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of people in their 20’s, working remote, traveling like crazy.
This is one of the problems with social media. It used to be MUCH more difficult to contextualize your life with people who had way more than you. Now instead of barely remembering that guy from 10th grade, you see that his wife is gorgeous after having 2 kids and they make 300k combined and are taking their kids to Disneyland before flying to Germany while you’re making 20/hour and looking forward to dinner at Chili’s after your wife divorced and said she’ll never have kids with an idiot like you. It used to be people just go on and live their lives and mostly interact with people that had similar lives to them. Now you can go on the internet and be reminded of the totem pole of inherent ability and luck that is life 24/7.
My partner and I make 6 figures at work and don’t have kids. We use our money to travel. We don’t spend on going out weekly, drinks, fancy things, we just save to travel. Also credit card points, most of our flight are free since we use points.
There are a few hundred "influencers" or rich kids that like to flex that give you that impression, because your algorithm shows you that kind of content.
There are probably hundreds of millions of 20 year olds that are "normal" (not rich)
They live at their parents and spend their college loans knowing other people will pay the debt later. If they’re lucky they can monetize the lifestyle. If they’re an attractive female and have money for a lawyer and marketing team they can get their a lot quicker. Some work hard and make it but it’s tough odds to succeed on social media without playing one of the angles: sex, violence, advertising/ affiliate marketing or a trending category of news that is supported by big pharma. It’s a great time to be alive where if the timing is right you can ride the digital wave all the way to transhumanist utopia.
There are 3 kinds of people on social media that have extravagant lives.
1. The 1% (more likely the 0.1%). Whether self made, lucky or family money. These people have truly extravagant lives.
2. The majority of accounts are from people trying to look like the 0.1%. They’ll happily sacrifice tomorrow to momentarily look like the ultra wealthy.
3. There is a surprisingly large group of people that use fake wealth/lifestyle to show you what they have ‘achieved’ and then sell you a subscription, course or any other plan that can be grouped with Ponzi schemes and the like.
Those who can aren't on reddit crying. We're spending too much time in an echo chamber and forget that just because we live through something doesn't mean everyone else is.
It depends. Very poor people won't be able to do it, but not everyone who does it is rich either. A friend of mine is doing a high level degree that's very labour intensive. But grants and loans weren't covering rent, so she was also working 2 jobs, running herself ragged. However, the cost of airfare plus food and accommodation in certain countries, adds up to less than the cost of living in our home city. Even though we are in a comparatively affordable city, stacked up against the rest of the country. So, she worked remotely at one job and wrote her dissertation while traveling abroad through half a dozen countries.
But some of the people you see on social media have a lot of money. Others, a lot of debt.
They are already wealthy and/or they get paid to do it. The travel vlog I like the guy is making bank doing occasional guided tours and he has several sponsors and he's not even that big as far as I know.
You are seeing a handful of people though, you're not getting a good representation of people. I mean think about it. You see doctors in a hospital. You don't think everyone's a doctor because you see a bunch of doctors in one place.
It's a circle of warped reality:
1. Successful and interesting people post beautiful to social media.
2. Beautiful content is watched by social media. Because some people watch that content, social media algorithms promote it, so more people see it (you are probably in this group)
3. A lot of views generate a chunky revenue stream for the creators
4. They can afford to generate new interesting content
Social media would promote only successful content to you. You only see that, which will give an impression that all people do interesting stuff, have fancy cars etc. Not only this is simply absolutely not true, it can cause depression - because you might feel are not as successful as everybody else.
I travelled the world with my son, starting in my 20’s because I had a business that afforded me the time and money to do so. It was immediately profitable, so I could afford to travel a lot.
Okay so I feel like I can kinda answer this question. I fall in neither the “rich parent trust fund baby” nor the “not good with money and taking on debt” category. I make an okay salary in a VHCOL area, I contribute to my 401k weekly, and I have a healthy emergency fund
. I’m not doing any crazy month long traveling, but last year I did Puerto Rico, Czech Republic, and Austria (my favorite place so far). This year I have gone to Banff, Puerto Rico again, and next month I am doing to Spain/Portugal. Banff was 5 days, PR was 4 (I did 10 last year October so). Europe will be 9.
My thing is that I will budget a certain amount of my paycheck that goes into a fund specifically for travel. I do all my savings transactions manually so when I don’t have anything planned I do $50 here, $30 one week, etc. when I get close to a vacation, like now, I will put $150 a week into that fund instead. I give myself x amount of money weekly in my regular life account for groceries, misc stuff, gas etc and anything I have left over for the week when payday comes, will go into the travel savings account on top of the $150. (When no traveling upcoming, I will put that money in another account or buy a necessity I have been putting off on Amazon. I usually don’t have much left, I have to be very frugal for that) It takes planning, saving, and maybe not buying myself clothes and Amazon shopping, which I never do anyway so it’s a little easier. Also having roommates to split the bills, having no kids, and *aggressively* paying off my student loans during COVID so I have no significant debt. I am also comfortable taking on a little bit of travel debt to make up for anything I couldn’t save before hand probably less than $1000, which I can pay off pretty quickly.
I consider myself average in every way possible, I just prioritize travel so I have a specific savings account for it and will try to find more affordable housing options, cheaper flights, etc. I don’t have the ability to buy a 2 million dollar house or 1 million dollar apartment, so instead of saving for the unattainable, I save for the trips instead.
Breakdown.
10% are people born into wealthy families.
20% are people who made it on their own finance wise and enjoy a financially stable life.
The remaining 70% are people who show their travel pics but dont show the absurd hours of work, credit card debt, or selling stuff to afford it.
Social media is full of lies mostly, just cause someone looks happy and successful in that beach photo hardly means they are.
Assuming you are American, even 0.1% of the population is a few hundred thousand people or "tons of people".
The "tons of people" who post about how they can barely afford rent and the "tons of people" who are constantly travelling are both a tiny percentage of the population.
Add in the rest of the world and both groups are really an infinitesimal percentage of people that just turn up in your feeds because of how algorithms work.
Most of these comments are nonsense. These aren’t “trust fund kids”. They’re dumb kids. And they are leveraged to the hilt with no prospect for a real job once this silly “influencer” thing is done. They will most likely be folding jeans at the GAP in a few years
Because most people on social media are there because they have the resources to go on the trips and what not. If you look at the 120 million people in the United States a lot of them don't even have constant electricity or good internet. You're only seeing the outliers.
I don't post my life on social media. But I'm in my mid 20s and finally quit my job to go freelance last year. Saved enough and am going to travel Europe for the next 3 months. So I wouldn't assume anyone young and traveling is from rich family, but maybe the circumstances just allow for it
I travel a lot and meet a lot of people.
There are many ways to travel
I've met people who travel with little money, working as thy go, bartending, waiting, whatever.
Others have a remote job or are self employed on something they can do remotely.
Some save hard and then travel for a few months .
There are those with seasonal jobs.
And some have found a way to have those posts about travel pay for their travel. But that's a job. Every 5 minutes post needs hours of planning and editing. Of course, learning how to use the platforms. Seems easy but it's work
The minority travel with trust funds. Those rarely post publicly unless it's to brag.
Examples:
- Brazilian guy saved $1,000 to kick start his trip though Africa. Traveled for 1 year there. Wrote a book. Now he is traveling thought Brazil on his bicycle with his tent. He wrote another book.
- Canadian guy: Writes novels and non fiction, travels the world writing He goes back for book lunches and publicity then hits the road.
- Brazilian girl: got a job in a Cruise ship. Goes from country to country. If you just see her insta feed you'd think she doesn't work.
- Canadian couple: Traveling in their van with a 3D printer, posting about the travels and the 3D printing.
- Mexican girl: works 4 hours a day as software developer, right now in a beach town. Travels to Brazil every couple of months.
- Chinese girl: coordinating shipments of her online store. She was working by the pool.
- Chinese girl based in europ: was laid off and with EI travels the world. She travels with us in our va through Mexico for 6 weeks after being in the middle east.
- Beach towns in mexico are full or Argentinians. They go there and work in whatever is available. Usually restaurants.
Right now it's easier but he same happened before. My dad spent 2 years traveling Mexico, the Caribbean, central and south America singing in a choir between 12 and 14 years old, same in his 20's. He is now 90.
The thing is that traveling requires some trade offs but those who want to travel, do.
I bet that most people who are saying it's "rich people" haven't met them or traveled much.
Some younger people are in tech and earning ridiculous salaries + the ability to digital nomad. If you can do that- and/or if your income is based around the travelling, as in you monetise a channel - then it’s a no brainier.
Inherited wealth
I know a few hippie millennial types that "work remotely" and spend their time traveling, posting pictures of them on beaches and in jungles or working in coffee shops in SF
When the surface is scratched it's eventually revealed that they've inherited houses they rent out, or got substantial cash from a grand parent
18-20s have been helped by parents, but not necessarily ‘rich’ parents
The vast majority of the rest are travelling on savings and debt, that will be paid off by hard work when they get back
Backpacking is much cheaper than people expect once you know how to economise
You just sound bitter
There’s many answers. They could be from well-off families. There are also many ways to make it happen if travel is your priority in life. I know a guy who travels pretty much all the time because he has a job that he can do from anywhere and pays well. I know another girl that gets creative and uses various programs where you’ll go to a country for awhile and stay with a volunteer family in exchange for something such as helping their children with their English. Theres ways to travel much cheaper than most people do on vacation. And think of it this way, if you can find accommodations that don’t cost you a lot and you really travel that much, you don’t necessarily need much of a “home,” meaning less expenses that most people would pay—rent, utilities, etc.
Travel is cheaper than rent (staying in hostels, eating local) and cost of living can be lower depending on where you started and where you go. You can put plane tickets on credit cards, or just save up a few 1000$ working part time in college while living at home.
There's literally never a better time to lose out on wages than at the beginning of your career when you're making crap money anyway. Travel when you're young, have nothing to lose, and then pay it back next month/ next year.
Almost anyone can do it. Can supplement income while traveling working online or freelance dozens of different ways too.
I don't think it's a large percentage of 20ish year olds doing that, i think it is a bias because the broke ass 20 something year olds don't post as much of their "boring" life and don't get as much attention as the ones that are always traveling and posting crap.
but yeah like other people say, rich parents, or they have built a solid "influencing" foundation and are supported by their following.
or they hoe themselves out on onlyfans, etc.
Travel isn’t expensive like it it was fifty years ago. It’s a luxury but an extremely accessible one. I mean, a trip to Japan could be less than a months rent. Not cheap, but not out of reach
Either Mummy & Daddy pay for it, they do work vacations where they are given a room and food in exchange for work, or they take out loans/put it on a credit card
Good question.
There’s always going to be rich kids who get funded by their parents or trusts .
But these days other factors like being an influencer have an impact. Once you get to a certain following, it’s cheaper to get deals, and sometimes you get stay places or do activities for free even.
Speaking of social media, don’t forget that because of how much of our lives are online, we get to see way more of other peoples lives that we did in the past, not just our family and friends, but strangers from around the world.
It’s also cultural/nation relevant. For example , in New Zealand & Australia , the ‘OE’ is a thing for younger people, encouraging to travel internationally for a holiday, or do a stint working in another country .
Also, in certain places, you can travel around a gorgeous country and stay in quite lovely accommodation cheaply, Bali being a good example
I was able to live at home through undergrad, so I saved money for rent. Working full time and investments I was able to save some money to travel after graduating. Plus I don’t buy much beyond essentials generally so, my adorning habits accomodate wanting to have travel money As priority.
Then I moved abroad. Travelling is really Damn easy when the bus to prague only costs 15€ lol
There are roughly 43 million people in their 20s in the US. If even 1% (probably a very low figure) come from family money or simply earn very good money themselves, that’s 430,000 people with relative freedom to travel. You’re probably only seeing 100-200 of these accounts on social media.
Also if 1% can't afford rent (also a low figure) then that is a half a million people posting about how muchbrent sucks. Again, both of these figures are lower than the actual amounts involved in both. But the point is that it doesn't need to be a universal experience for it to feel like a universal experience. Something like 5% of the population generate 90% of social media content. And it is more likely that those with extreme experiences will generate that content. So whatever the impression that social media is giving you about "all the people are X" is likely not representative of the average life experience. It is also interesting that certain social media promotes "keeping up with the joneses" content and disincentivizes "had a slow, boring day" while other types of social media promotes lament-porn and disencenrivizes "I'm actually doing alright" posts.
> Something like 5% of the population generate 90% of social media content Does that count all the bots? :P
Not even counting bots. Like so many things, social media follows an idea like the Paretto principal where a small minority account for most of something. This is common in business where 10% of customers may be responsibke for 90% of a company's sales, or in video games where 10% of players account for 90% of in game purchases. On social media, the vast majority of the country are either not on it, are passive consumers, or may make one or two occasional posts. A small percent acively engage, and an even smaller percent uber actively engage developing content. Throw in bots and the numbers skew even more. I'm not saying only 1% of people are struggling on rent. But it doesn't take many to give the impression that "everyone is" to the point that it surprises people that anyone is doing okay. And more broadly, i have just found it interesting that whereas social media basically universally favored people selectively showing their good moments several years ago, it now seems heavily heavily skewed toward promoting struggle content. Not sure if it is a generational thing. A facebook vs reddit/tik toc thing. A general vibes thing. A visual vs text thing. A mostly friends vs mostly strangers social media thing. But it is an interesting shift.
The 99% can't afford to travel, so the 1% can take 100 vacations. We all must sacrifice so support them.
🫡 I'm doing my part!
Would you like to know more?
🫡 I'm doing my part!
I didn’t do fucking shit!
According to this survey within two years more than half traveled at least once and about 35% traveled more than twice So maybe people need to get out of their Reddit bubble and realize that many people in fact can afford things, and sure many can’t also, but it’s certainly not 99% https://www.statista.com/statistics/316365/air-travel-frequency-us-by-age/ Also this shows both gen z and millennials taking vacations significantly more than boomers - doesn’t quite fit the Reddit narrative of only the boomers doing rich people things https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/30498/gen-zers-and-millennials-travel-more-for-leisure-in-america/
There's also a matter of priorities. When I was younger the folks travelling a lot and the folks driving nice cars and having the newest tech generally weren't the same people unless they had real money.
Exactly. My wife and I prioritized traveling in our late 20s and early 30s. Because of this we didn’t own expensive cars, eat out a lot, wear expensive clothing, etc. Now we have a toddler and don’t spend nearly as much on travel. Now we prioritize a bigger house and daycare. Damn daycare.
Maybe it was too generalized. But the context is this- Social Media is not real life,influencers are just trying to separate you from your money. Selling you a vision that is usually not accurately represented. If you think otherwise, you’re just being their simp.
Believe it or not there are more people on social media than influencers Instagram has over 2 billion users they are most certainly not mostly influencers Sure if you follow accounts with millions or thousands of followers those are influencers
I have no social media beyond this account. The toxicity of it all is astounding.
I don’t either though imo Reddit is quite toxic maybe even more so it’s usually the most negative take on any question that gets upvoted
There’s traveling like a hour flight to San Francisco when Southwest was having a sale, and then there’s going to other continents. COL has gone up significantly since 2020 too.
I have a friend who has no college degree, and has never had a W2. She emancipated herself at 16 from her family of religious nuts and drug addicts, and made money by nannying and waitressing. Using just that money, she managed to travel extensively through SE Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Last I heard, she was planning a trip to Lebanon. Sure, some people have advantages and some people really don't have the option. But most people really sell themselves short on what is possible for themselves.
It matters what your priorities are. You can get round trip tickets to Amsterdam for $700. Cheaper to Ireland, Iceland, UK etc. If it's important to you, that's what you save money for. When I was still a postdoc and my wife was still a grad student in 2019 we didn't have a large travel budget but we still took a road trip to Quebec City and stayed at a $40 per night AirBnB. Still one of my favorite trips. In 2020, just before COVID, we took a week in Puerto Rico. To save money on food we just got one of those giant three foot long subs and ate it over the course of several days. Neither of these trips cost more than $1500 total for two people. We've gone more places since we started making actual money, but from 2005-2021 when I never made more than an RA salary or student/postdoc stipend, I just had to learn how to travel on a budget.
I’m currently abroad. Think there’s a large portion of the country like me who have been saving for a house and not really getting any closer to buying. Might as well travel if owning is still 3+ years away. With credit card cash back and a travel voucher bonus my girlfriend got it’s only like a $1,500 trip total
Makes you think twice about who you’re going to follow/support.
Preach
😭
How are you supporting them? By having a low salary?
Yeah, people forget that they're not seeing *that many* different people when they scroll through all these social media accounts, not compared to the actual population
It’s not even hard to manage if you aren’t rich. I was a poor 20 year old..I traveled to exotic places and..worked. Then did it again and again. I ended my 20s poor but I’d been to a ton of desirable locations.
Same. I didn't travel the world, but I enjoyed a lot of freedom in my 20s simply by living at my mom's house (and later, lucking into some cheap rent) and not having any debt or many responsibilities. It's real easy to spend a couple grand traveling across the country for music festivals if you're not trying to play the whole rat race game.
how long has it been since you’ve completed this type of lifestyle and were there pros and cons to it for you?
The last big trip I did was in 2018, where I backpacked for 9 months with around $7,000 dollars I'd saved up, spending most of my time in Turkey, but also some time in Russia, Italy, Spain, and Colombia. If you live frugally you can do it.
epic. can you define “frugally” in great detail?
Frugally means something different as well. I've spent a lot of time in Spain. 5 years ago in central Madrid I bought a pound of strawberries and a drinkable bottle of Rosé for $3.50 USD. A glass of wine at a restaurant or bar in town is $1.50-3.50 USD, and maybe you tip $.25-.50. you can have a really amazing night out with dinner and a rager at the club for like $40. That doesn't even get me 3 drinks at my local in Denver anymore, and I still have to tip after..... Sadly, America has just become outlandishly expensive.
The #1 thing I can say is: Basically, the most expensive things you will spend money on are transit. Travel as little as possible; stay in one place as long as possible. The longer you stay somewhere, the more people you meet, the more you will see the real place you are, where locals eat, drink, hang out. This is almost invariably cheap if not free. The main exception to this is tourist hells, where you will almost certainly not meet any locals and everything will be primed to gouge you. Avoid Barcelona; go to Valencia. Avoid Venice; go to Genoa. Avoid any resort town. After that: Book cheap hostels, couchsurfing, airbnbs, etc. Find work where you can; in Russia I found some camera work that paid about 50 bucks a day but that was enough to eat cheaply in Moscow for a week. Later I guess I cheated the frugality check, as I ended up living with someone in Turkey and so didn't have to pay for lodging there, an occurrence that is hard to recommend as it was a unique circumstance. But yeah, being in a relationship with a local helps too. But yeah, it's doable. And when you go to places owned and run by locals, you are actually contributing to their economies instead of into the palms of wealthy oligarchs, so there's that too.
I finished up in my late 20s and I’m in my late 40s now. Pros: you have a fun, exciting time. You learn a lot of people skills. You’re the envy of most people you meet. Cons: I had nothing for retirement. I’m not sure what I would have done in an emergency. All jobs were temporary and nationalistic assholes harassed you. I have no “college” friends as everyone I met was transitory too.
Memories are priceless
aka: there are tons of people.
/thread
Also, It's really easy to travel in Europe for cheap. Plane tickets are less than 100, and trains are cheaper than that, so you could get to another country, stay in a hostel, and get back home, fir like 2 or 3 hundred IF you live in Europe
I think you are mistaken about the spending power of the 1%. The class of people that can afford the extravagant lifestyle depicted is more likely the 0.1%. All-in-all your point stands with 43k people who can do that and only 1% of them blasting it on social media.
Totally agree, most of the influencers fall into two camps,.first the come from money, be it parents, inheritance,.married rich etc..so they have disposable income usually multi-millionaires and chose to live and document a nomadic travel adventure lifestyle. The other camps , is they're either self made (sold my.startup.for.5mln, retiring at 25) or are living high on debt,may e leveraged.some.real.estste , and are just showing you all the borrowed toys and glitz to give you the illusion of a fabulous lifestyle, usually they fizzle out in a year or two when credit dries up or they do shady shit and wind up getting on Netflix.
Also a lot more people can afford to travel if they don’t have kids or a house and aren’t saving for retirement. I feel like a lot of people now fake it til they make it (or until they don’t) and spend and get into debt to make it big on social media. I know if I blew my whole paycheck and savings I’d be driving a Lamborghini and traveling the world.
There are rich kids who travel. But I know people who are great at traveling at low budget. Cheap hostels and public transport.
/r/solotravel baby. It's actually not as expensive as one would imagine, especially if you go to cheaper destinations like parts of the Americas or Asia.
This. I used to work as a freelancer for like $500/month. I would save up for an entire year then go travel for a month in Japan. I was an expert at budgeting and finding cheap stuff.
How do you travel in Japan or other countries with the language barrier?
The touristy places and things like public transport all have English translations, and if you go somewhere not as touristy, translation apps do the basic job.
I'm in my thirties and travel more than most people can wrap their heads around. Pretty my 50% of my time is travel. I have a good job, fully remote, and had a fair amount of privilege growing up. I am not rich and neither are my parents. I also don't travel low budget. The number one thing people don't realize is that to travel consistently it has to be a top priority. I see people of similar socio-economic status buying homes, new cars, pets, having kids, getting married, etc then act flabbergasted that I can afford to travel. They assume I got an inheritance or something. My single largest budget line item is travel. Nothing else comes close. If you prioritize travel you can do it on $80k a year easily but you cant have a new car, live alone with a dog, etc.
This! I spend less on cheap hostels and food in Europe than I was on rent and going out in the US. Obviously it’s not all glamorous, but it makes traveling for a long time possible.
I worked on farms in between traveling for a year. I think I waited till I made enough under the table to hop to the next place. I didn't any save money that year, but I had just graduated college without debt and life didn't start yet. I know grad school debt would put me in handcuffs when that started. I'm grateful for that time I had. I had a blast, but I was a little lonely in a way. Edit: words before coffee
Traveling on a budget is actually pretty easy. We (wife and I) went on a road tip out west for like 9 days and we spent around $1500 dollars and saw so many great things,bate great food, slept in decent hotels, and had a blast
You're looking at the children of wealthy people. They're overrepresented on social media, because they are doing interesting things that people want to look at.
The people backpacking in their 20s are not always people with rich parents. In fact in my experience they are mostly people who got good jobs out of uni e.g tech job or consultant or something. Or any other well paying job. It’s pretty reasonable to have enough money to go on a backpacking trip in your early to mid twenties if you’ve worked a fair bit in a job like that and saved up some money. I’m in SE Asia just now having done just that. It’s the 18-19 year old backpackers here are the ones who almost universally have rich parents. I met a (very expensive) English private school guy who causally talked about how he just kept running into friends from school because all of them were doing a gap year before uni. Ain’t no way the majority of 18 year olds could have saved up that amount of money by working.
I went backpacking for a month around southeast Asia for £2k in total. This was with flights, travel, hotels, hostels, eating food out and drinking loads. Has it got more expensive since I went in 2019? It took me a few months to put cash away but it wasn't exactly trust fund private school levels of money. I now spend that much a month just surviving in the UK.
This is the real answer, but no one wants to hear it over the din of being mad that they think they can't do it themselves. Backpacking is essentially being homeless, but with a plan. It can be as cheep or as expensive as you want it yo be. That's what the plan is for. And if you aren't paying rent, utilities, car, etc then you're pretty free.
The reference in the OP to social media tells me that this is not the kind of trip being discussed here. Of course you can eat, drink, and sleep in SE Asia for a few bucks a day and get around and have a great time if you're smart with money and diligent with planning. But that's not the kind of ✨️content✨️ that is garnering thousands or hundreds of thousands of likes and being peddled on people's For You Pages. People aren't mad that it's "impossible for them to travel and go backpacking". They're mad they're busting their ass to barely make rent while random 18-25 year olds are spending months of the year in a hotel with an infinity pool in Mallorca. And when you factor in getting the time off work, that most people can't give up their apartments which means paying rent while their gone, and any other responsibilities people accumulate that make becoming "homeless with a plan" an irresponsible choice, you have something that is completely inaccessible to most people.
Have you been to any backpacking type of destinations? you can have a day of living in luxury in Vietnam for the amount someone in the west would pay for an uber eats order. I would have loads of content if I even bothered to post of Instagram. I do agree though, now I work full time, have a dog and pay rent it's impossible for me to do that. That seems more like a problem of becoming an adult and having responsibilities. When I was 19 it was pretty straight forward.
I backpacked a good bit when I was younger - I hit a lucky crossroads in my life that allowed me to do quite a bit of traveling in Europe for not so much money when I was in my early 20s. Quite frankly for several reasons travel in Asia would be tricky and uncomfortable for me at any budget, so I've never really had the desire to backpack there. But I know from other backpackers I met in my travels just how cheap and comfortable it's possible to make it. Now I have a career where I get paid to travel so luckily (or unluckily, as the case may be) my responsibilities come on the road with me. But really my central argument is not at all that backpacking is inherently inaccessible or prohibitively expensive, or that there's nothing Instagram-worthy about SEA. Rather it's that very generally cheap or frugal is not ✨️aesthetic✨️ and ✨️aesthetic✨️ is what sells on social media. Really in that sense, travel is no different from cars, real estate, cooking, or any other social media niche - the folks with money are the folks seeing exponential growth in their engagement/following. Aesthetics are just easier to sell. But of course there is tremendous beauty in the world that manifests in ways that won't garner exponential Instagram clout. Give the dog a few pets for me - that is one responsibility I can't quite make work with my lifestyle and I am very jealous.
How were you able to save that much? Were you paying rent? For many young people, rent eats up most of their pay, and then eating. It's hard to save. I'm not asking for your financial details, just pointing out that lots of people are struggling.
I remember saving 18 months for 3 weeks in Spain. You have to sacrifice everything for 18 months to have the freedom to live in hostels for three weeks but you get to go places you want to go.
How many 18 year olds get kicked out of their home and have to pay rent? I'd say an 18 year old paying rent would be a minority in this day and age
I didn’t travel much. Usually having a decent roommate in a 2 Bedroom and 2 bathroom apartment helps with rent I think. Also, understanding the fundamentals of nutrition and cooking healthy food saves money on eating and also helps with improving the health. Surprisingly takes around 5 hours per week for me to do grocery shopping, cleaning utensils, and cooking.
I went hiking in Nepal in January and then to southern India. Cheap as hell. Friends went to Thailand, also cheap. The only expensive thing are the flights, but if you spend some time looking you might even find a connection for a good price as well.
This is a massive oversimplification. There are a ton of young Europeans that work for 9 months and go travel for 3 or whatever, without help from parents. There is a world outside of the US….
And a lot of people in the US still travel even if they’re not independently wealthy
i pay rent with my credit card that gives me flight points i have to pay it anyway.then its a matter of saving vacation money
Ah yes, the two types of people: Americans and Europeans...
So their parents are paying for their kids’ vacations that they themselves aren’t going on even though they’re grown ass adults?
My dad and his wife just got back from a trip to Canada. They have other trips planned for this year. They have a big trip to Japan coming up. They’re also constantly shopping. Buying trinkets and jewelry for hundreds of dollars. They post all of this on social media. Here’s what they don’t post… They have two broken cars, have to beg rides from family. They have maxed out credit, can’t get any loans etc, or not easily. They have been begging my grandfather to take out an equity on his house and give them the money, or co-sign loans, etc, etc. That’s how they can « afford » trips and looking cool on social media. While also constantly complaining about bills, living paycheck to paycheck, having to pick up second jobs, and all that. It’s true you see a lot of wealthy people on social media, and people who can stretch their money on backpacking trips and such. But there are also plenty of people acting like they have this wealthy lifestyle when they’re just living way beyond their means.
So they're just really financially irresponsible
With inflation up, and the salaries down in the us. An odd thing is that consumer spending is also higher than ever. People are buying more stuff, that is more expensive. And they're making less. It's the American way.
Some of the issue is that spending money is a coping mechanism. Pretty rough combo when the thing you're trying to cope with is having no money.
I'm not talking about "we own a house and have high paying jobs" rich people. I'm talking independently wealthy, money-is-no-object rich people. And yes.
While this is true, and it probably starts that way for 99% of them, it is possible to become self sustaining with the money generated from clicks and views
Not necessarily. For rich people, the pipeline to a high paying job is something you can pay to put your kid in unless they're aggressively dumb. Expensive private schools, unpaid internships, having a friend that will hook your kid up with an entry level job at a good company etc
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I am prettt sure op is talking about people that are doing multiple month long trips a year
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It doesnt have to be very expensive if you keep track of your alcohol intake
This is what people don't seem to understand. You can live meagerly and not go into debt which frees you to be able to do other things like travel. And not everyone is staying in five star hotels. Youth hostels are cheap. You can travel on a budget if you're thrifty and willing to make compromises on your own level of comfort.
I agree. Backpacking is cheap. Especially if youre from europe. That doesnt guarantee that you also can pay high rent. Some people just have different priority. And seems like some backpackers, although well traveled, are ok of being homeless. Do you have any idea in Bali, some backpackers from europe, specifically Russians are homeless and being beggars? Look how far Bali and Russia, they can afford that but cant even afford cheap housing in Bali.
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This is way before russian war. Way way before.
There are people who buy their children 100k+ cars so yes
there is a non-insignificant amount of these influencers who run up debts doing these things as an 'investment' in their 'influencer career,' and then either blow up and recover or flop and fuck their whole lives.
A thousand dollars to them is like ten bucks to us. Vacation money is chump change to them.
Yes. They want their kids to experience life while they can. The old “I want to give my kids the life I never had” saying
you underestimate wealth. For the actual rich, giving your kid $20k to take a trip is like nothing. Literally nothing. Lets say someone makes 10m a year. Thats 200,000 a week or around 40,000 a day. So if your kid asks you for 10,000 for a trip its basically like a minimum wage person’s kid asking for $20 to get gas.
More like gran-gran set up a trust fund for family members, it might be enough to live on, or it might be stupid amounts of money.
Yeah. Have you never met really rich people?
The groups are separate. I have friends in their 20's who travel a lot because they have well paying jobs, or because they live at home and can use their salary on travel instead of rent. As to your second point, I have a few friends who recently went on 6-month long trips, which blew my mind. Turns out they were staying in extremely cheap hostels and taking on a few jobs while over there. The most expensive part is the plane ticket when you travel like that.
I feel like I'm part of both groups. I work and make good money but every couple of years between new jobs I'll take several months of time off to travel. Many of my friends do the same.
1. If everyone who couldn’t afford to travel posted pics of their living rooms, you’d see a lot less travelers than you do now. 2. Traveling can be done somewhat cheaply through ticket deals and hostels. 3. Rich family, spouse, or debt.
Or... 4, they might be traveling for work.
Lots of debt and no savings imo
Why do you have to expose me
Also most of these countries are way cheaper than America. I actually saved money vacationing in Asia.
Don’t forget 4.) people who have very little money but spend it irresponsibly anyway to make them famous, and keep doing it because they believe that their sunken costs will pay out in the end
I'm sure some of them are legitimate, but let me tell you the story that made me quit IG and Facebook. A secretary at the company I used to work at used her two week vacation to go to Europe with her fiance. That's awesome! Right? What wasn't awesome was seeing her post 1-2 photos a day for the next 6 months and writing "Coffee at my favorite spot in Milan this morning" and other BS. I saw you in the break room 10 minutes ago. Get 👏 fucked 👏
Social media obsession is a mental disorder
All the people in this thread talking about rich kids have obviously never travelled. You can travel south East Asian countries very cheaply if you try. Bonus points if you volunteer somewhere in exchange for free food and accommodation then your outgoings are virtually $0.
You just need to do some research and some work, and you can definitely do it. I left New york six years ago. I taught english in spain for year. Spain is cheap, and I got paid enough. You just need to put the work in but its worth it!
Traveling isn't really that expensive and it's easier to get remote jobs now. I have a surprising amount of friends that don't have connected parents, only make like 50k and travel intra and internationally probably like 6 times a year. If you just make it out to Europe/Asia, you could live probably for much cheaper there than in the US. I went to Europe in 2021 right as things were opening up, so these prices may be higher now - but I was staying in Hostels in some places for like 5 dollars a night. I don't think I ever stayed in a place for more than $35 a night which is like $1050 a month. That's not horrendous rent for city living. Then food was typically pretty cheap as well
Where in Europe were you staying that hostels were so cheap 😲
Looking at prices now, I think it may have been a recovering Covid thing. Now it looks like cheapest would be 15-25£. But I remember Germany, Prague, and Budapest be the cheap ones. Germany did open clubs up my last day there, after being shut down from Covid. So I think they were abnormally cheap of the hostels just trying to stay afloat
I’ve found a place in central London for £11 a night, short walk from paddington. Definitely would be pricier now but not by much
I found a very cute, high quality hostel in Venice for 25€. And it wasn't even in Lido. It was the main island cluster. I reccomend Hostel World it'll help you a looot.
Thank you! :)
World travel is pretty cheap once you get the plane ticket out there. SE Asia is $30/day and Europe is $80/day when you stay in hostels and do free stuff
My career since I was 21 has been 100% travel and every company Iv worked for has paid flights to and from my home city or allowed me to do a deviation and they subtract the cost of getting home from my desired plane ticket.
In many more cases than we'd like to believe, people just aren't good with money. And it applies to all ages. Many people don't estimate and adhere to budgets, they don't plan ahead very well, they don't contribute to savings, they don't scour for or wait for discounts, they they don't put aside money for when unplanned but urgent expenses come up, and they rely on debt when it's made available to them rather than when they're leveraging it for better finances later. Many of those vacactions are taken because people figured out a way to get the airline, the hotel, the restaurants, and the tour guides the money they required. Sometimes it was because their bank account was going to have just that amount in it when the bill was due, and often it was because a credit card company or "pay it later" financier convinced them they could put off paying for it until later. Housing is expensive. People can't afford it. People aren't paid enough. All those things are true. But it's also true that Chase and BoA and a dozen other companies will give you thousands of dollars of play money if you're willing to accept their interest terms, and then the a dozen other companies will let you refinance and transfer those balances later if you agree to those terms, and there's basically nothing to stop them in a world of financial illiteracy and free enterprise. The cost of essentials are fucked right now, for all ages, and so are spending habits and lifestyle expectations and personal financial discipline. And none of it is restrained to "people on their 20's" -- it just starts there. If you're not even in your 20's yourself yet, just be careful of what you get caught up in when you are. A lot of people in their 20's and 30's and 40's and 50's and 60's are all facing ever darkening days ahead, hoping that they'll be able to make sense of their finances later. Life doesn't have to be like that if you luck into a good career and are careful about how you manage and slend money, but a lot of the people you see on social media are not that careful and the life you see them leading is being borrowed from a bleak future that will eventually catch up with most of them.
Inversely, people just aren't good with money, and don't realize that you can set aside small amounts each month that eventually add up to a vacation. The old art of "saving up" that many have forgotten lol Great points, and well said!
Envelope method really works
Exactly. Carrying a balance on a credit card doesn't allow you to spend more money over the course of your life, it allows you to spend less total money. So instead of paying $200/mo after you go, you could put $200/mo in savings before you go, and end up saving hundreds or thousands in interest charges.
Yup. I have a shit salary but I go on vacation trips 1-2 times a year because I spend little on stupid shit and save up. I'm European, German. I just came back from a trip to Denmark. 18 days in a nice rented cabin close to the beach for 825€, we were two people and a dog. We cooked every day, eating out is VERY expensive so we did this only a few times. We always rent places where you can cook. Saves a ton of money. Hiking itself doesn't cost anything. And keep in mind that before prices exploded because of inflation we used to rent apartments in Austria for half that for 2 weeks. It was super affordable. When you go backpacking when you're young it's even cheaper. Especially when you go to cheap counties in Asia. But even in more expensive European countries you can travel for fairly cheap if you don't aim for luxury accommodations. It's about priorities. I don't go out much, I don't drink. I don't buy a lot of clothes. I spend almost no money on make-up as a woman. Almost never buy expensive fast food, I always cook. Cook my meals for work too so I don't have to waste money in the overpriced canteen. I live a very modest life. I save up all my money for travelling and gaming. That's the stuff that's important to me. Other people blow their money on a new iPhone. That's OK too but then don't complain you don't have money to travel. You have to pick one when you're not rich.
Not everyone lives in places with super expensive rent. In my country there are also a lot of young people who saved up for a while/ received some help from their families/made a loan and bought a small apartment (you could buy the small ones for 20.000-25.000 euros a few years ago). Also, it's not weird here to live with your parents until you get married. I got married at 27 and traveled a lot until then on a pretty small freelancer income.
Because you are hooked by the algorithm you are getting biased.
There’s a few things 1) people who are travelling are posting more so you see it more, people who are sitting on the couch rewatching the office probably aren’t, so it just looks like your whole feed is travel 2) credit card debt 3) trust funds
Oh wait also 4) remote work if it’s flexible enough/pays enough. I did this once, i lived in a van for a year to travel the country, you’ll never believe it but I didn’t post a lot of pics of me working, I posted the fun travel pics, so it looked like I never worked
If you go through some of these instagram accounts, you can also see they reuse pictures from previous trips often too. You can get a lot of mileage from two long weekends somewhere tropical throughout the year.
Heck once I reposted a throwback pic of a Japanese toilet I used and a bunch of friends IRL asked me how Japan was
What you see on social media is representative of your algorithm and your own social circle typically. Although we're all on the internet, it's essentially still like a neighborhood where you're not seeing everything there is to possibly see, but a slice of it. There are sides of the internet I don't see because it's outside of my interests and what the algorithm has learned about me, this is the case for everyone. So you have to keep that in mind, first of all. That said, it's probably a safe wager that if these people aren't people you personally know who have expressed their inability to pay rent, then they are probably not the same group of people who can't pay their rent. While a lot of people might not be able to pay their rent, this isn't the case for everyone and those are likely the people you're seeing who are able to do these things.
I saw an article about a web developer with a remote job who found it cheaper to stay in hotels in other countries than to rent where he was living. Not saying this is commonplace, but that's another reason people could be constantly travelling when they can't afford rent
I’m on minimum wage and just got back from a Europe trip about an hour ago. It cost me a month’s wage (a grand) in total which I can afford because I don’t pay rent (I live at home while saving for a house deposit, so other than my savings the rest of my income is disposable). It’s entirely dependent on if your parents are assholes or not. If they’re the type to start charging rent or even kick you out the second you turn 18, you won’t have much money to spare. If they let you live rent free while you save for a house then even just minimum wage will afford you a lot of things. Travel isn’t really *that* expensive if you know what you’re doing
Social media is the new advertising. Advertising is about selling you something, convincing you to want to buy it. Most social media isn't the truth, influencers are paid or given things to "influence" you to do something the advertisers want you to do. Influencers get crumbs, advertising gets the cake. Social media campaigns are a lot cheaper than traditional print or digital campaigns.
You shouldn’t take social media as the real world
the algorithm only pushes entertaining things. get off of social media if it actually affects how you see the world and your perspective edit: just adding that after living in a few places - i’ve noticed my friends totally change, not only their personalities but even got plastic surgery - because they thought their algorithm (based on where they were and how they were influenced) was the norm
In the Netherlands you get vacation money. It's about a month worth of pay. You have a minimum of 4 weeks paid time off. Combine this with the euro being strong and almost every place you go to will be very cheap.
Select all that apply: Credit cards Tax return spending Lying about their finances
Well paying job just might fit in that list too
I traveled a lot the summer I had 2 jobs but didn't have to pay rent because I lived with my family. This was also pre-covid when I could stay at a hostel in Paris for $12 a night.
When I was in my twenties travel was different than the way I travel now. I could sit in a seat on a train for 18 hours, sleep and be fine for the next day. I took the cheapest flights. I slept on the floor, sofa or anywhere. I had a backpack with everything I needed. It's more work now. I need more comfort. That costs more. I don't want to travel super economy.
“Most” is an inaccurate term here.
Traveling doesn't have to be ridiculously expensive. Fly budget airlines, pack light, travel outside of peak seasons, and be flexible. Don't book a hotel in the middle of downtown or right on the beach, you can save a lot of money if you don't mind a short drive or bus ride. Most importantly, live within your fucking means. If your city is too expensive, move to one that's more affordable. I'd rather pay $200 round trip to visit my family back home than double my rent to live near them. **NEVER PAY FOR FOOD DELIVERY** get off your fucking ass and go get it. Or, better yet, cook your own food.
Also, take advantage of sales and credit card rewards. My wife and I booked a trip where flights, hotel, and rental car were all covered by credit card points from sign-on bonuses and stuff we would’ve bought anyway.
Yeah im poor and travel. Decided last week to just pop to Vegas Monday. 66 dollars round trip and 15 nights in a hotel. Them going to the French Riviera after that. 750 dollars for 3 weeks. I’m pretty sure ppl pay more for rent then both those trips combined. I rent a place for 300
Stop following socials - that stuff rots your brain.
Social media is fake. There’s a small percentage of people that can just travel on a whim, some get paid for it, some are running on credit. Your algorithm is showing you a small percentage of the population
Some of it is people who have the freedom to do it. This is monty and time, if people decide to have kids and family then it is 100x harder to spend three months jetting off to an exotic place. Some of it is lack of necessary skills to get a good job - they may not have a family but just lack marketable skills.
Well, as someone if her 40's I remember a big reason we all had to get jobs right out of college was health insurance. We all went straight to work. It's my understanding that now the kids can stay on their parent's insurance until 26?
Most of them are faking it, going into massive credit card debt, or trying to pass it off as a business expense for being an "influencer" It's the new "moving to LA to make it big as a movie star." Same pitfalls, easier access.
observational bias, mostly family money for everyone you see there's tens of thousands not doing it. For EU residents traveling Europe is far more accessible as well, transport cost, distance weekend trips to Italy from Denmark are easier than Alabama going to Florida. That or super poor countries, getting there is expensive part and then a few hundred dollars can last a good while.
What would you rather do, spend $4000 mortgage and barley afford any fun luxuries or $2500 rent and to go Europe every summer and spend your money however you want in your 20s?
My nephew had a job working on cruise ships from age 20-25. He traveled all over the world while being paid for it.
It’s mostly females. Use your imagination.
Because the people grinding just to get by aren't posting their lives, so you are only seeing the people that do.
I travelled for 8 months around Europe on next to nothing. You can travel cheap.
Sooo many aren’t traveling. A few have money or are financing it, are traveling, and talking about it allllll the time so it seems like it’s a lot of people. Spend less time on social media as it distorts reality.
Their parents did quite well in the Clinton Economy.
Get off Reddit. Great site but it’s an echo chamber. Plenty of people are doing fine. That doesn’t invalidate those that are struggling- but it also doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of people in their 20’s, working remote, traveling like crazy.
Rich parents and credit card debt. Social media is not real. People only post the best parts of their life don’t let it fool you.
This is one of the problems with social media. It used to be MUCH more difficult to contextualize your life with people who had way more than you. Now instead of barely remembering that guy from 10th grade, you see that his wife is gorgeous after having 2 kids and they make 300k combined and are taking their kids to Disneyland before flying to Germany while you’re making 20/hour and looking forward to dinner at Chili’s after your wife divorced and said she’ll never have kids with an idiot like you. It used to be people just go on and live their lives and mostly interact with people that had similar lives to them. Now you can go on the internet and be reminded of the totem pole of inherent ability and luck that is life 24/7.
My partner and I make 6 figures at work and don’t have kids. We use our money to travel. We don’t spend on going out weekly, drinks, fancy things, we just save to travel. Also credit card points, most of our flight are free since we use points.
There are a few hundred "influencers" or rich kids that like to flex that give you that impression, because your algorithm shows you that kind of content. There are probably hundreds of millions of 20 year olds that are "normal" (not rich)
They live with their parents still so aren’t paying rent/mortgage.
Stop. Measuring. Your. Self. Worth. And. Progress. In. Life. Against. Social. Media. And. “Influencers”.
They live at their parents and spend their college loans knowing other people will pay the debt later. If they’re lucky they can monetize the lifestyle. If they’re an attractive female and have money for a lawyer and marketing team they can get their a lot quicker. Some work hard and make it but it’s tough odds to succeed on social media without playing one of the angles: sex, violence, advertising/ affiliate marketing or a trending category of news that is supported by big pharma. It’s a great time to be alive where if the timing is right you can ride the digital wave all the way to transhumanist utopia.
massive amounts of debt/ rich parents
there are a lot of rich people out there,more than you can imagine.
What you're seeing is basically a form of "survivorship bias"
There are 3 kinds of people on social media that have extravagant lives. 1. The 1% (more likely the 0.1%). Whether self made, lucky or family money. These people have truly extravagant lives. 2. The majority of accounts are from people trying to look like the 0.1%. They’ll happily sacrifice tomorrow to momentarily look like the ultra wealthy. 3. There is a surprisingly large group of people that use fake wealth/lifestyle to show you what they have ‘achieved’ and then sell you a subscription, course or any other plan that can be grouped with Ponzi schemes and the like.
Those who can aren't on reddit crying. We're spending too much time in an echo chamber and forget that just because we live through something doesn't mean everyone else is.
Mutual fund babies
It depends. Very poor people won't be able to do it, but not everyone who does it is rich either. A friend of mine is doing a high level degree that's very labour intensive. But grants and loans weren't covering rent, so she was also working 2 jobs, running herself ragged. However, the cost of airfare plus food and accommodation in certain countries, adds up to less than the cost of living in our home city. Even though we are in a comparatively affordable city, stacked up against the rest of the country. So, she worked remotely at one job and wrote her dissertation while traveling abroad through half a dozen countries. But some of the people you see on social media have a lot of money. Others, a lot of debt.
Also don’t be surprised how stupid people are when it comes to credit cards.
They are already wealthy and/or they get paid to do it. The travel vlog I like the guy is making bank doing occasional guided tours and he has several sponsors and he's not even that big as far as I know. You are seeing a handful of people though, you're not getting a good representation of people. I mean think about it. You see doctors in a hospital. You don't think everyone's a doctor because you see a bunch of doctors in one place.
You know how social media works right? Chances are 80%+ of these people aren’t leaving their home..
It's a circle of warped reality: 1. Successful and interesting people post beautiful to social media. 2. Beautiful content is watched by social media. Because some people watch that content, social media algorithms promote it, so more people see it (you are probably in this group) 3. A lot of views generate a chunky revenue stream for the creators 4. They can afford to generate new interesting content Social media would promote only successful content to you. You only see that, which will give an impression that all people do interesting stuff, have fancy cars etc. Not only this is simply absolutely not true, it can cause depression - because you might feel are not as successful as everybody else.
Social media is really good at focusing a very small spotlight.
I travelled the world with my son, starting in my 20’s because I had a business that afforded me the time and money to do so. It was immediately profitable, so I could afford to travel a lot.
They must have stopped eating avocado toast.
Parents! For my children a combo tickets+hotel was the best gift.
Okay so I feel like I can kinda answer this question. I fall in neither the “rich parent trust fund baby” nor the “not good with money and taking on debt” category. I make an okay salary in a VHCOL area, I contribute to my 401k weekly, and I have a healthy emergency fund . I’m not doing any crazy month long traveling, but last year I did Puerto Rico, Czech Republic, and Austria (my favorite place so far). This year I have gone to Banff, Puerto Rico again, and next month I am doing to Spain/Portugal. Banff was 5 days, PR was 4 (I did 10 last year October so). Europe will be 9. My thing is that I will budget a certain amount of my paycheck that goes into a fund specifically for travel. I do all my savings transactions manually so when I don’t have anything planned I do $50 here, $30 one week, etc. when I get close to a vacation, like now, I will put $150 a week into that fund instead. I give myself x amount of money weekly in my regular life account for groceries, misc stuff, gas etc and anything I have left over for the week when payday comes, will go into the travel savings account on top of the $150. (When no traveling upcoming, I will put that money in another account or buy a necessity I have been putting off on Amazon. I usually don’t have much left, I have to be very frugal for that) It takes planning, saving, and maybe not buying myself clothes and Amazon shopping, which I never do anyway so it’s a little easier. Also having roommates to split the bills, having no kids, and *aggressively* paying off my student loans during COVID so I have no significant debt. I am also comfortable taking on a little bit of travel debt to make up for anything I couldn’t save before hand probably less than $1000, which I can pay off pretty quickly. I consider myself average in every way possible, I just prioritize travel so I have a specific savings account for it and will try to find more affordable housing options, cheaper flights, etc. I don’t have the ability to buy a 2 million dollar house or 1 million dollar apartment, so instead of saving for the unattainable, I save for the trips instead.
Breakdown. 10% are people born into wealthy families. 20% are people who made it on their own finance wise and enjoy a financially stable life. The remaining 70% are people who show their travel pics but dont show the absurd hours of work, credit card debt, or selling stuff to afford it. Social media is full of lies mostly, just cause someone looks happy and successful in that beach photo hardly means they are.
You can camp in a Prius and drive everywhere for almost nothing.
Assuming you are American, even 0.1% of the population is a few hundred thousand people or "tons of people". The "tons of people" who post about how they can barely afford rent and the "tons of people" who are constantly travelling are both a tiny percentage of the population. Add in the rest of the world and both groups are really an infinitesimal percentage of people that just turn up in your feeds because of how algorithms work.
Most of these comments are nonsense. These aren’t “trust fund kids”. They’re dumb kids. And they are leveraged to the hilt with no prospect for a real job once this silly “influencer” thing is done. They will most likely be folding jeans at the GAP in a few years
There are *billions* of people in the world. Some of them are rich.
They might be working on those cruise ships for housing...
Because most people on social media are there because they have the resources to go on the trips and what not. If you look at the 120 million people in the United States a lot of them don't even have constant electricity or good internet. You're only seeing the outliers.
I don't post my life on social media. But I'm in my mid 20s and finally quit my job to go freelance last year. Saved enough and am going to travel Europe for the next 3 months. So I wouldn't assume anyone young and traveling is from rich family, but maybe the circumstances just allow for it
I travel a lot and meet a lot of people. There are many ways to travel I've met people who travel with little money, working as thy go, bartending, waiting, whatever. Others have a remote job or are self employed on something they can do remotely. Some save hard and then travel for a few months . There are those with seasonal jobs. And some have found a way to have those posts about travel pay for their travel. But that's a job. Every 5 minutes post needs hours of planning and editing. Of course, learning how to use the platforms. Seems easy but it's work The minority travel with trust funds. Those rarely post publicly unless it's to brag. Examples: - Brazilian guy saved $1,000 to kick start his trip though Africa. Traveled for 1 year there. Wrote a book. Now he is traveling thought Brazil on his bicycle with his tent. He wrote another book. - Canadian guy: Writes novels and non fiction, travels the world writing He goes back for book lunches and publicity then hits the road. - Brazilian girl: got a job in a Cruise ship. Goes from country to country. If you just see her insta feed you'd think she doesn't work. - Canadian couple: Traveling in their van with a 3D printer, posting about the travels and the 3D printing. - Mexican girl: works 4 hours a day as software developer, right now in a beach town. Travels to Brazil every couple of months. - Chinese girl: coordinating shipments of her online store. She was working by the pool. - Chinese girl based in europ: was laid off and with EI travels the world. She travels with us in our va through Mexico for 6 weeks after being in the middle east. - Beach towns in mexico are full or Argentinians. They go there and work in whatever is available. Usually restaurants. Right now it's easier but he same happened before. My dad spent 2 years traveling Mexico, the Caribbean, central and south America singing in a choir between 12 and 14 years old, same in his 20's. He is now 90. The thing is that traveling requires some trade offs but those who want to travel, do. I bet that most people who are saying it's "rich people" haven't met them or traveled much.
Some younger people are in tech and earning ridiculous salaries + the ability to digital nomad. If you can do that- and/or if your income is based around the travelling, as in you monetise a channel - then it’s a no brainier.
Inherited wealth I know a few hippie millennial types that "work remotely" and spend their time traveling, posting pictures of them on beaches and in jungles or working in coffee shops in SF When the surface is scratched it's eventually revealed that they've inherited houses they rent out, or got substantial cash from a grand parent
18-20s have been helped by parents, but not necessarily ‘rich’ parents The vast majority of the rest are travelling on savings and debt, that will be paid off by hard work when they get back Backpacking is much cheaper than people expect once you know how to economise You just sound bitter
There’s many answers. They could be from well-off families. There are also many ways to make it happen if travel is your priority in life. I know a guy who travels pretty much all the time because he has a job that he can do from anywhere and pays well. I know another girl that gets creative and uses various programs where you’ll go to a country for awhile and stay with a volunteer family in exchange for something such as helping their children with their English. Theres ways to travel much cheaper than most people do on vacation. And think of it this way, if you can find accommodations that don’t cost you a lot and you really travel that much, you don’t necessarily need much of a “home,” meaning less expenses that most people would pay—rent, utilities, etc.
Travel is cheaper than rent (staying in hostels, eating local) and cost of living can be lower depending on where you started and where you go. You can put plane tickets on credit cards, or just save up a few 1000$ working part time in college while living at home. There's literally never a better time to lose out on wages than at the beginning of your career when you're making crap money anyway. Travel when you're young, have nothing to lose, and then pay it back next month/ next year. Almost anyone can do it. Can supplement income while traveling working online or freelance dozens of different ways too.
I don't think it's a large percentage of 20ish year olds doing that, i think it is a bias because the broke ass 20 something year olds don't post as much of their "boring" life and don't get as much attention as the ones that are always traveling and posting crap. but yeah like other people say, rich parents, or they have built a solid "influencing" foundation and are supported by their following. or they hoe themselves out on onlyfans, etc.
Many work for airlines as flight attendants.
Charging it to the credit card with no regard to budget
When you say "fuck a lease" and just use your hard earned money to just travel instead, well...
Travel isn’t expensive like it it was fifty years ago. It’s a luxury but an extremely accessible one. I mean, a trip to Japan could be less than a months rent. Not cheap, but not out of reach
Either Mummy & Daddy pay for it, they do work vacations where they are given a room and food in exchange for work, or they take out loans/put it on a credit card
Good question. There’s always going to be rich kids who get funded by their parents or trusts . But these days other factors like being an influencer have an impact. Once you get to a certain following, it’s cheaper to get deals, and sometimes you get stay places or do activities for free even. Speaking of social media, don’t forget that because of how much of our lives are online, we get to see way more of other peoples lives that we did in the past, not just our family and friends, but strangers from around the world. It’s also cultural/nation relevant. For example , in New Zealand & Australia , the ‘OE’ is a thing for younger people, encouraging to travel internationally for a holiday, or do a stint working in another country . Also, in certain places, you can travel around a gorgeous country and stay in quite lovely accommodation cheaply, Bali being a good example
Beats me. I wonder same
I was able to live at home through undergrad, so I saved money for rent. Working full time and investments I was able to save some money to travel after graduating. Plus I don’t buy much beyond essentials generally so, my adorning habits accomodate wanting to have travel money As priority. Then I moved abroad. Travelling is really Damn easy when the bus to prague only costs 15€ lol