Interview with the Nomadic Minimalists: Hannah & Taran of Nomad'erHowFar

Greetings Adventurers! Today we caught up with our nomadic minimalist friends, Hannah and Taran of Nomad'erHowFar. They are two super inspirational people, so we wanted introduce them to you all and to pick their brains about budget travel and minimalism.

Before we dive in, here's a quick intro from Hannah and Taran:

"Hannah and Taran here. We hail from Southern England, where we met online and are now realizing our mutual passion for travel at Nomad'erHowFar. On our blog, we discuss Nomadic Living, Simplifying your Life and Long-term Travel, to empower, motivate and inspire our readers. Get to know us there!"

Alrighty, let's do this thing!

What made you interested in the minimalist lifestyle?

Minimalism kinda happened by accident. Taran and I were both trying to save money to begin traveling and through that process we both confronted our relationship with consumerism.

We gradually began off-loading our stuff thinking that it made no sense to have bedrooms full of things that wouldn't be used again for years whilst we travelled.

It started small and eventually escalated to the point where we felt we could call ourselves minimalists, and wanted to share this mindset with the world, and make it a major part of our writing.

You literally wrote the book on minimalism. Why should people read it?

It's foremost a practical guide for anyone starting out in minimalism, but there's also an overarching moral focus. It forces people to re-consider not just the negative impact of consumerism on their own lives, but on the world around them, without preaching on this too much.

My book is very honest in that I use my own experiences to set the scene; I have a whole long backstory of reasons for believing in minimalist principles and I believe I was always guided towards it subconsciously, without realizing for years. I had to go through a mild shopping addiction and some consumer debt before I eventually accepted that I couldn't buy my way to a better me or a better life.

I try to help my readers consider their relationship with their clutter and propose actionable steps which I hope leads to them leading a calmer life with a clearer path.

What items (if any) do you miss the most?

Taran misses his gaming PC, being a super powerful piece of kit compared to his current laptop. I sometimes miss having physical books to read, now using a kindle exclusively as I can't carry a library on my back; apparently clothing and shoes are more important...

How much money do you spend in a month?

At the moment we average around $1000 AUD (£500, $770 USD), but that's because we travel slow. We don't mind waiting for free rides or hitch-hiking. We also try to find work for accommodation and use our tent where possible, never eat extravagantly or drink too much alcohol (we do manage to have fun despite this...). We make a note of most expenditures and input them into a spreadsheet to track it on a monthly basis.

How do you make money while traveling?

We have stopped to work twice in the last 16 months, first working crazy long hours on Fraser Island in hospitality, then working part-time in Noosa, both in hospitality again.

We also supplement our income via the blog. We want to grow this in the future and branch out with our little consulting and coaching side-gig, helping small businesses grasp social media and web design.

What’s your number one tip for traveling on a budget?

Appreciate the experiences to be had which cost little to nothing and stop basing your travel around convenience spending.

When we began tracking every expense, it helped us to see that those $7 smoothies once a week took $7 away from our already limited food budget and made us realize that we needed to be okay with the basics, because it allows us to keep doing what we love.

We want to extend a huge thanks to Hannah and Taran for letting us pick their minimalist brains. We try hard to live a minimalist and budget conscious travel lifestyle as well and they are always a big source of inspiration to us.

Keep doing what you do you two!

We're traveling the world and vlogging the entire thing! To follow along on our journey, you can subscribe to our travel vlog on our YouTube Channel or subscribe to our blog.

Thanks for reading, we'll see you on the road!