'I'm travelling the world for $100 a day. Here's exactly how I'm doing it.'

For Rachel Lay and her husband Jakob, their decision to quit their jobs, sell their belongings and travel around the world sounds refreshingly simple.

"My husband is an accountant, so his job was to run the numbers," Rachel told Mamamia.

"There was no real scientific formula. We literally just went, 'Okay, we want to have $100 a day. That's this many days in 12 months. That's the total.' And that's how much we knew we had to save. That was literally it."

The 30-year-old had been working in marketing for a decade, had a mortgage and was very settled.

But once they made the decision to travel the world on $100 a day, they set about saving to make the dream a reality within 12 months.

Watch: Etiquette Guide: Travel. Post continues below.

To fund their adventure, they rented out their townhouse, becoming unexpected landlords.

"We found a real estate agent, and then we literally sold everything. We did it in monthly drops to make it less overwhelming," Rachel told Mamamia's The Quicky podcast.

The gradual sales process involved weekly Depop postings and weekend Facebook Marketplace listings until their house was virtually empty.

Their $200 daily budget ($100 each) even included their mortgage payments back home.

"We have this amazing app called Travel Spend, and you can put expenses over a set period of time. So we split our mortgage payment out over each day, so that sits there as a baseline," she shared.

Budget-Friendly Destinations vs. Budget-Blowing Experiences.

The couple discovered that destination choice dramatically impacts daily expenses.

"It was actually cheaper for us to go to Sri Lanka a month earlier than to stay in Australia," Rachel explained.

"We did beaches in Sri Lanka, a safari and cooking classes. Sri Lanka was just amazing and so, so affordable."

Similarly, the Balkans region proved to be a budget-friendly destination.

"We spent a month in Bosnia. We stayed in the village, hired a car, and just saw so much of the country. And then we spent the next few months in the Balkans seeing as much as we possibly could — all over Croatia, Serbia, North Macedonia, and Kosovo," she said.

However, some destinations inevitably blew their budget.

"We went to Italy next, which was super expensive, and one of the places we went over budget every single day by hundreds of dollars. Our accommodation was more than our daily budget," Rachel laughed.

"But it was worth it. We saw the Colosseum... had dinners and walked around ancient sites at 1am with a glass of wine. I wouldn't trade the budget blowing for anything."

Worth breaking the budget for. Image: Supplied 

Japan also proved costlier than anticipated: "I feel like everyone's been saying on social media lately that the Yen isn't so bad, that now's the best time to visit Japan, but I found it quite expensive for our budget," she admitted.

Money-Saving Strategies.

"The biggest money-saving hack is maybe not so much a hack, but more of a mindset shift. You just have to know what's important to you," Rachel advised.

Unlike many budget travellers, they're prioritising comfortable accommodation over dormitories.

"As a couple in our 30s, we're not cut out for the dorm life. It's way more cost-effective for us to stay in hotels or apartments. You have to know what you want to spend money on and what you don't," she explained.

Their accommodation in China reflected this strategy:

"It's $25 a night, and we have a big, king-size hotel room right next to the subway in the middle of the city," Rachel said.

Food costs vary dramatically by location.

"In the UK, we were eating cup noodles and literally boiling eggs in a kettle for every single meal," she recalled with a laugh.

In contrast, she recommended street food as an affordable alternative to restaurants.

"People always say avoid it because you'll get sick. We haven't had food poisoning from street food as yet," Rachel added.

Worth the boiled eggs! Image: Supplied 

For this couple, the world adventure is about balancing daily expenses with occasional splurges on bucket-list experiences like seeing the Great Wall or seeing the pyramids. They simply "willingly blow the budget and then just balance it out over the next few weeks or months," she said.

You can listen to Rachel's full story on The Quicky. Post continues below.

What's next?

What started as a 12-month adventure has evolved into something much more open-ended.

"Now we genuinely have no idea. It's like the fig tree analogy, there are so many different things branching out ahead of us. We genuinely have no clue what's next, which is so exciting," she said.

"The budget runs out in July, but I think we really need to look into doing things like house sits and volunteering to help extend our budget, which we haven't had to do yet.

"I don't want it to end. This is the best, and the thought of going back to work for both of us is terrible."

Image: Supplied 

Despite the uncertainty, Rachel acknowledged that facing her fears has been worthwhile.

"I was so scared to do this, and I still am scared when I have to go back to the real world, and I might not be able to find a job. I've got this big gap in my resume," she admitted.

"But the whole point is to be scared and do it anyway, because it's the best time I've ever had in my life. And I think also, I'm making myself happy and my husband happy."

For others contemplating a similar journey, Rachel offered this advice: "Embrace the fear and just roll with it because it's so worth it. I think just do it because you could never, possibly ever regret doing something like this."

Would you ever consider packing up your life and travelling the world? Share in the comments below!

Feature Image: Supplied.