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  • Hi, I'm Xin En.

  • Hi, I'm Xinen too.

  • I think only the two of us are excited about that.

  • Yeah, because maybe our name is special.

  • I'm a 28-year-old professional who decided to quit her job two years ago to travel the world full-time.

  • I wanted to quit my job because I didn't want to spend my twenties hanging out in a cubicle.

  • I didn't want to spend all this time worrying about whether I could climb the corporate ladder.

  • But I wanted to chase something that I was really passionate about, which is traveling,

  • and encouraging others to chase their dreams and go down this path as well.

  • I ended up in North America after a month, decided to work my way down to the tip of

  • South America in Ushuaia, and after that I went on to Africa for three months,

  • and then Europe for another three months.

  • And then I came back to Singapore, and it was like a total of two years.

  • Well, my parents definitely do not contribute to a cent of my travel expenses.

  • This entire travel experience is funded by myself and my savings.

  • I saved about S$50,000.

  • It was definitely a challenge to save that, but I feel that if you have a goal,

  • it's easier to find motivation to work towards that goal.

  • Another way that I saved that S$50,000 was to break it up into different segments, like different

  • quarters in the year that I would have different mini-goals I would work towards.

  • It's a little bit difficult to travel hack in Singapore as compared to people in the U.S., but it's still possible.

  • I travel hacked by using a few different credit cards and I split my expenses across three

  • different credit cards and racked up enough points to fly around the world...twice.

  • In four years?

  • In four years, yeah.

  • Every bill that I can pay, I will pay with a credit card because

  • it's money that I'm already going to spend, so I might as well make it work for me

  • by earning some points instead of just me withdrawing money.

  • In Africa to save money, because it's an expensive continent for tourists to travel to,

  • I spent a lot of my time sleeping in a tent.

  • Yes, I camped throughout Africa and people might think, “Oh my god, that's so crazy.”

  • But it's actually really comfortable because it's your private room, you have a mosquito net

  • and you have all the privacy in the world while still enjoying traveling Africa.

  • I guess I sacrificed a little bit of comfort in the sense of my accommodation

  • because after recording my expenses all around the world,

  • accommodation is the majority of where your money goes to.

  • So if you can can save a little bit of money on accommodation by staying in hostels or

  • even in a tent, you definitely can make your money go a long way.

  • Interesting souvenirs don't have to be expensive so if you're going drinking anyway,

  • why not save the beer bottle labels as souvenirs for your scrapbook?

  • And then you can use your money for your other travel fun.

  • Of course, a lot of them were very like wistful and said they would also want to do, or they

  • wish they had done it when they were younger, but they have lots of responsibilities.

  • And I feel that in your twenties is the time to take that risk and for me I have no regrets,

  • absolutely no regrets taking the time off to travel the world.

Hi, I'm Xin En.

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