What is Travel Nesting, Anyway?
Updated: Oct 3
It’s simply living your normal, cozy life in a series of international locations. And it can often be cheaper than living a typical life in the United States.
There Is NO “Right Way To Travel”.
Some people might question whether this is even "travel", since I've been doing the same things I did at home. But does it really matter what it's called, when life is all of a sudden so much more interesting...and usually cheaper?
Everyone has different preferences and ways of living. We are all perfectly entitled to create our own way of living, as long as we don't hurt anyone else. The same goes for travel.
No matter what anyone says, as long as you respect the places you visit and the people who live there, you are allowed to travel however the hell you please.
Take tours, for instance. It's probably the type of travel most often criticized as superficial, with people trying to see as many famous landmarks as possible in the least amount of time.
But you know what? That may be the only way those people can afford to travel, or the only way they can do it safely and comfortably.
Think about it this way: most Americans get two weeks a year to travel, and a lot of them are saving every extra penny to see places they've dreamed about their whole lives. Some are elderly and need the extra care a tour provides. Nearly all of them are grateful they got to go at all.
My grandmother took group tours twice a year in her sixties and seventies, because she dreamed of seeing the world beyond the little backwater community where she'd lived her whole life. Asia, Mexico, Canada, Europe more than once, and sometimes just a tour of her own country by bus.
I actually went with her on one of those trips, the summer before my senior year of high school. I didn't care that it would be a bus full of senior citizens. That bus was rolling from New Orleans to San Francisco, through Las Vegas both directions. I'd grown up in that same backwater community, so to me it was all wildly exciting. I loved every single minute of it.
Also, after ten years of handling my own travel logistics, I can tell you there is a lot to be said for that kind of trip. Anyone who sneers at it is just a travel snob.
I'm sure plenty of people sneer at the way I travel too, but I don't much care what travel snobs think. Nobody should.
My routines are familiar and mundane. I work for hours at a time, I still have to cook, clean, do laundry, run errands and go grocery shopping. And just like at home, I don’t have a whole lot of energy left over to do much of anything else, so I mostly just don’t.
Of course, there are exceptions. But I genuinely find it thrilling to be just out running errands and doing my grocery shopping in such amazing environments.
Plus, after loathing grocery shopping my entire life, it is now a source of almost unending fascination. I linger in every aisle, looking at all the unbelievable choices available. This is fortunate, because grocery shopping and takeout are sometimes the only reasons I leave my housing for weeks on end.
Actually, I am also a fan of cafés and coffee shops, particularly those with outdoor tables. But I rarely get dressed just to go out to one. I tend to stop in when I'm already out and about.
I'm just a homebody with a raging case of wanderlust. Yet my best days are those when getting dressed is – and I can't stress this enough – purely optional. Somehow that has added up to more than a decade spent moseying toward distant horizons.
I'm not by any means saying that this would be a way of life anyone else would enjoy. I just happen to be an extreme introvert and am completely happy to have great gobs of solitude.
So regardless of what anyone else thinks, I've thoroughly enjoyed this way of life. If you're a low-energy introvert, you might enjoy some version of it, as well.
I Travel Full-Time, But I Hate Leaving My Couch
I have a passport full of stamps, though those are mostly a thing of the past now. Yet, my preferred route to travel will probably always be from the sofa to the fridge. The most perilous trek I undertake most weeks is the one to my washing machine. My soul is fused to my couch cushions, or my bed pillows during the months my tiny studio doesn't have a couch. And yet, I travel full-time because it's still so very much more interesting than the same life was at home.
The key to this lifestyle is to not let yourself feel pressured to see everything there is to see. For one thing, you can't. There's too much of it. For another, it isn't going anywhere, and you probably need to spend a lot of that time working to fund your travels.
Wanting to see the world while needing to work full-time presents a dilemma to most people. Unless you possess boundless energy, it's just not easy to do for very long without burning out.
There's room for everyone to create a travel lifestyle to suit their own individual preferences. I've developed my own version over the years, including making some tradeoffs to be able to enjoy the experiences I want most in a way I can afford.
So, How Exactly Does Travel Nesting Work?
Google "what is slow travel" and you'll get vague answers about "living like a local," with no actual specifics. I switched to slow travel at the end of 2017, so I've got plenty of specifics.
Travel Nesting is how I see the world without sacrificing my right to be a hermit. It involves staying in one place for a solid chunk of time – usually between one to three months.
This is the core of my slow travel life and what makes long-term travel actually sustainable for me – financially and physically. Deep discounts on monthly rentals bring your cost of living waaay down. Fewer relocations are so much less exhausting.
I unpack all my comfort essentials – slippers, jammies, fan and collapsible food storage containers. I work my remote job. I cook dinner. I do laundry. I figure out which grocery store has the best cheese.
The magic is in the significantly upgraded backdrop. My mundane errands become tiny, delightful adventures. Doing laundry in a laundromat – or even in my own rental – when I need Google Translate to figure out the settings is infinitely more satisfying than I ever thought that chore could be.
I'm just living in each destination, much as I did back home. Yet, somehow, formerly boring routines are just not as commonplace. Travel nesting is about replacing the pressure of sightseeing with the pleasure of simply being somewhere so completely different from anything I'm used to.
What This Is NOT
Still, allow me to shatter a few illusions before you get the wrong idea. Travel Nesting is:
NOT a permanent vacation. It's just...life, elsewhere. I still have deadlines and dirty dishes.
NOT about rushing to see All The Things™. If I miss a famous monument because I was deeply invested in a novel at the park, so be it. The FOMO is dead here.
NOT Instagram-perfect adventure tourism. You will not find me bungee jumping. I might watch the bungee jumpers from my comfy seat at a sidewalk café.
NOT synonymous with expensive luxury travel. It's often cheaper, not only for a relatively equal quality of life, but also for a month in a gorgeous Adriatic beachfront studio.
(So, for the record, if you were wondering: is slow travel cheaper than regular travel? In my experience, the answer is yes, often dramatically so.)
However, this lifestyle is also not a permanent rejection of the tourist style of travel. Yes, it's slow a majority of the time. Because that conserves energy and funds to expend during joyful short intervals in more expensive locations where there is much I may want to see, if that's what I feel like...after which, I'm usually eager to return to my quiet, peaceful routines.
Why This is an Introvert's Dream Come True
If the thought of repacking a suitcase every 72 hours gives you a nervous twitch, no problem. Travel Nesting is your sanctuary. This is the ultimate form of travel for anyone seeking a more peaceful approach to long-term travel.
In my opinion, slow travel for introverts is not in any way a compromise. I definitely consider it an upgrade. The introvert travel lifestyle I stumbled into doesn't have adventures or relentless social calendars. There's a lot of sitting by windows with good coffee. Which, umm, is exactly the point.
There are also way fewer 10 AM check-out panics. Much less frantic shoving of half-dry towels into your travel bag.
And let's talk about "sightseeing." I visited the Sistine Chapel and Versailles before the internet existed, and I admit to being suitably impressed. I also saw the Mona Lisa at that time and was not at all impressed. Still, I brought my family to see all of them again in 2015 and I honestly believe they are all now too crowded to be able to appreciate any of it.
I do sometimes enjoy visiting somewhat less famous, or more out of the way attractions. But on the whole, for me, travel life is more about just wallowing in appreciation of wherever I am, not checking off famous landmarks.
I get to engage with the world on my own terms, in small, manageable doses that recharge me instead of draining my social battery.
Speaking of Paris...
Okay, full disclaimer here: there is probably very little chance that you will be able to spend a month or more in a place of your own in Paris, London or most other major European capitals on a travel nesting budget (with the exception of Athens, which I love and will return to time and again while it's still affordable).
However, that does not mean you can't visit the famous places you've dreamed of visiting. You simply do so for a few days in between your long-term stays or you stay in a hostel – wait, don't knock hostels yet, because I have cracked that lifestyle like a freaking egg.
Forget everything you've heard about them, because there are all different kinds of hostels and, suffice it to say, they are not nearly as bad – even for introverts – as you might expect. In fact, there is a hostel in London where I regularly stay weeks at a time. Check out my post The Introvert Hostel Hack to find out how to make life in a dorm much more comfortable for long-term stays. I happily spent the entire winter there from early December 2025 to late March 2026 for a ridiculously low amount of money. And no matter where I was sleeping, there was all of London outside my door whenever I cared to venture out.
London is my happy place, but rents for entire apartments are rarely affordable on small budgets even with deep monthly discounts. Reducing my housing costs so drastically means I still manage to enjoy the city a great deal while I'm there.
I go to the theater, which is also not exactly cheap, often having dinner out first for a whole fabulous evening experience. I had dinner at the Swan Restaurant attached to the historic Shakespeare's Globe before a performance while the line to see the Queen lying in state in Westminster Hall snaked along the river in front of the building.
I can do all of this because I'm spending about $140 to $240 a week for my lodging. However, you can also just go for a few days when there are often affordable hotel or alternative private room rates on Booking.com and other platforms. Weekdays are usually less expensive.
The Moment It Finally Clicked For Me
I figured out that this was my style long before I had a name for it. It was on a rainy October day in Paris in 2017. I was wet, cold and tired of moving around, even though I'd only been traveling for about six weeks.
I'd spent a month in Mexico City, then a month visiting family in Las Vegas. Now, after a few days in New York, several weeks traipsing around the UK and a few days in Paris, I just wanted to go somewhere for the winter that was fairly sunny, warm and cheap. I was burned out on the typical pace of long-term travel.
If you've ever tried to figure out how to travel long term without burning out, it may surprise you to know that the key is the same as for how to travel long term on a small budget: slow down, stay longer, spend less.
I started with places where I might not have too much trouble with the language – I find Google Translate is a lifesaver, but foreign language mishaps are still a thing. Having grown up in a French-speaking community, I'm not anywhere near fluent, but I can understand and make myself understood well enough for the basics. That's how I stumbled upon Morocco. I'd like to point out that I also discovered my much-beloved Antalya, Turkey, when inflation started running riot in Morocco, raising rents by up to 50%. Turns out, "go where it's cheap" can be a fairly decent budget travel philosophy.
I found gorgeous apartments in Marrakesh and Essaouira. Back then, Marrakesh cost me almost $1,000/month, but by 2022, I was getting huge one-bedrooms for barely $700. Those deals are a lot harder to find now in my preferred neighborhood of Gueliz.
Anyway, I found staying a month in one place to be absolute bliss. Then I remembered when I first started going to Mexico City – I'd stay for months at a time because I loved the city. Now it’s another victim of skyrocketing rents that I don't visit as much anymore. And that's fine, because now I'm exploring Albania. The world is full of surprises – I find them so much more enjoyable when savored slowly.
My first Marrakesh apartment had a wraparound balcony; my second was a lot cheaper.
Is This You? Welcome, You've Found Your People.
This style of affordable full-time travel is for you if:
• The mere thought of packing and unpacking every few days, or even weekly, gives you hives.
• The phrase "full-day itinerary" makes you want to lie down in a dark room.
• You dream more about finding the perfect local market for fresh fruit than you do about landmarks.
• The idea of working remotely from Turkey and buying strawberries for $1.13 a kilo from the Muratpaşa Belediyesi Pazarı sounds infinitely better than counting countries you've visited.
If your ideal vacation involves a library card and a favorite bench, or if you believe the true soul of a city lives in its neighborhood parks and grocery stores and not just its top-ten list, you are my people. This is for the slow movers, the quiet observers and anyone who believes connection to a place doesn't have to be loud in order to be meaningful. This is for anyone drawn to the digital nomad lifestyle but appalled by a nonstop pace.
Your Cozy, Global Life Awaits
If you take away just one single thing from this post, please make it the fact that long-term travel is not some far-off fantasy. It's a practical, affordable, peaceful and deeply satisfying way to live. I've been traveling full-time for over a decade, and I've spent the last several years fine-tuning the art of building a home anywhere in the world. I am so thoroughly satisfied with it that I want you to be aware of some of the possibilities.
If this sounds kind of perfect, welcome. You're in the right place. I'll show you how I do it, which isn't necessarily how or where you should do it, but will hopefully help you figure out what suits you best.
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