Traveling though Central America permanently is cheaper than the 9-5 life

You’ve probably heard the excuses a million times from your friends, “I’d love to travel more, but I just don’t have the money.”

Well, when it comes to traveling around Central America, you don’t need much money, and it can be cheaper than living the 9-5 life in most major cities in the U.S.

Housing

One of the great things about Central America are the number of hostels willing to give you a free place to stay in exchange for volunteering part time. The work is easy too, and usually involves running the reception desk or helping out at the bar.

If volunteering isn’t your thing, you’ll only pay between $10-$15 a night to stay at most hostels. Short term apartment can be found for $400-$800 a month depending on what country you’re in.

Food

If you live full time in New York City, Los Angeles, or one of the big metropolitan cities a lot of your budget goes to overpriced restaurants and bars. You’ll find that in Central America your food and drink budget will stretch further (more true if you’re a girl).

Transportation

Goodbye expensive car insurance, parking, tickets, etc… You’re new best friend in Central America is the bus. They will take you anywhere and everywhere for cheap. With Central America becoming more popular every year, it’s also ridiculously cheap to fly here. Southwest is even flying to Costa Rica!

Taxes

One of the craziest things about traveling full time in Central America is that you might end up paying almost nothing in taxes to the I.R.S. It’s called the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion

If you are a U.S. citizen or a resident alien of the United States and you live abroad, you are taxed on your worldwide income. However, you may qualify to exclude from income up to an amount of your foreign earnings that is adjusted annually for inflation ($92,900 for 2011, $95,100 for 2012, $97,600 for 2013, $99,200 for 2014 and $100,800 for 2015). In addition, you can exclude or deduct certain foreign housing amounts.

So if you already work from home in the states, you might as well live and travel abroad and save a ton in taxes!

Pointless Material Things

When you live the 9-5 you can get caught up buying things you don’t need to impress people you don’t even care about (I think that phrase was stolen from one of those inspirational Instagram posts). If you’re traveling full time, you don’t have time for that, plus it’s not even a good idea to have expensive things on you when you’re in Central America. You’ll be shocked at how much less you spend on things in paradise.

So, if you’re reading this from a dead end 9-5 soul sucking job, time to book your one way ticket to paradise!

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