Who Is Tony Florida?

From Corporate Career 👨‍💼 to Budget Backpacker 🎒

I used to love my software engineering job. It was easy for me, and most of all it paid really well. But after 5 years of sitting behind a desk in a corporate office, I physically and mentally had enough.

So I quit my career when I was 28.

My Travel Inspiration 📚

Leading up to my last day of work in August 2018, I had a realization… I was saving all my money for future retirement, and not enjoying my present self. As Rolf Potts, author of my favorite travel book, puts it best:

We end up spending the best part of one’s life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it. We’d love to drop all and explore the world outside, we tell ourselves, but the time never seems right. Thus, given an unlimited amount of choices, we make none. Settling into our lives, we get so obsessed with holding on to our domestic certainties that we forget why we desired them in the first place.
Vagabonding by Rolf Potts

Well for me, I did the unthinkable and dropped everything. I gave up my career. Sold, donated, or trashed 80% of my material possessions. And (as cliché as it sounds) packed my bags to travel the world.

Long-term Travel Is No Vacation 🌎

Fast forward to today—31 countries later—and boy, has it been a journey! Yet at the same time, I barely scratched the surface, and I’m just getting started.

Just a few highlights from my travels:  played a British soldier in a major Bollywood movie, slept under the stars in Australia’s outback, floated 3 days down the Amazon river, and stood taller than everyone in Japan at the summit of Mt. Fuji.

These experiences plus so many more inspired me to start this travel blog. I not only want to document and share, but provide valuable travel advice to you. Wether it’s in the form of budget backpacking tips or travel destination inspiration, I hope to serve your future travel needs in some way.

Budget Travel Is My Speciality 💸

Similar to most others, I too was under the impression that international travel was only for the wealthy. Boy, was I wrong! In fact, I frequently spend less money abroad than I would back home in the United States.

Budget travel doesn’t mean bed bugs and crappy food. Rather, budget travel is intelligently experiencing your destination by spending money as if you are a local. In other words, avoid expensive tourist traps, buy some groceries and cook a meal or two, and take advantage of public transportation.

👉 Get My Best Budget Travel Tips 👈

I invite you to explore this website to discover all my best budget travel tips that I’ve learned over the past few years. For the latest updates, subscribe to my YouTube channel.

Most of all, get out there and travel! Remember, tomorrow is not promised.

— Tony Florida

Tony Florida backpacking India at the Taj Mahal in Agra, IndiaPin
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