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Hi, I'm Xin En.
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Hi, I'm Xinen too.
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I think only the two of us are excited about that.
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Yeah, because maybe our name is special.
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I'm a 28-year-old professional who decided to quit her job two years ago to travel the world full-time.
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I wanted to quit my job because I didn't want to spend my twenties hanging out in a cubicle.
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I didn't want to spend all this time worrying about whether I could climb the corporate ladder.
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But I wanted to chase something that I was really passionate about, which is traveling,
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and encouraging others to chase their dreams and go down this path as well.
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I ended up in North America after a month, decided to work my way down to the tip of
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South America in Ushuaia, and after that I went on to Africa for three months,
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and then Europe for another three months.
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And then I came back to Singapore, and it was like a total of two years.
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Well, my parents definitely do not contribute to a cent of my travel expenses.
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This entire travel experience is funded by myself and my savings.
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I saved about S$50,000.
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It was definitely a challenge to save that, but I feel that if you have a goal,
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it's easier to find motivation to work towards that goal.
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Another way that I saved that S$50,000 was to break it up into different segments, like different
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quarters in the year that I would have different mini-goals I would work towards.
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It's a little bit difficult to travel hack in Singapore as compared to people in the U.S., but it's still possible.
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I travel hacked by using a few different credit cards and I split my expenses across three
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different credit cards and racked up enough points to fly around the world...twice.
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In four years?
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In four years, yeah.
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Every bill that I can pay, I will pay with a credit card because
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it's money that I'm already going to spend, so I might as well make it work for me
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by earning some points instead of just me withdrawing money.
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In Africa to save money, because it's an expensive continent for tourists to travel to,
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I spent a lot of my time sleeping in a tent.
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Yes, I camped throughout Africa and people might think, “Oh my god, that's so crazy.”
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But it's actually really comfortable because it's your private room, you have a mosquito net
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and you have all the privacy in the world while still enjoying traveling Africa.
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I guess I sacrificed a little bit of comfort in the sense of my accommodation
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because after recording my expenses all around the world,
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accommodation is the majority of where your money goes to.
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So if you can can save a little bit of money on accommodation by staying in hostels or
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even in a tent, you definitely can make your money go a long way.
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Interesting souvenirs don't have to be expensive so if you're going drinking anyway,
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why not save the beer bottle labels as souvenirs for your scrapbook?
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And then you can use your money for your other travel fun.
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Of course, a lot of them were very like wistful and said they would also want to do, or they
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wish they had done it when they were younger, but they have lots of responsibilities.
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And I feel that in your twenties is the time to take that risk and for me I have no regrets,
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absolutely no regrets taking the time off to travel the world.