About Nomadic Matt
To start saving money on your next trip visit my getting started page, or keep on reading about this site!
a picture of Nomadic Matt in New Zealand
Hi! My name is Nomadic Matt, creator of this website, and author of the New York Times best-selling book, How to Travel the World on $50 a Day. I’ve been traveling the world since 2006 and created this website to help others travel more while spending less. Growing up in Boston, I was never a big traveler. I didn’t take my first trip overseas until I was 23. Outside a cruise and college trip to Montreal, I had no travel experience. After college, I got a job and the standard American two weeks a year vacation. I wanted to use that time to travel. After all, it was vacation time, right? So for my first trip overseas, I went on a tour to Costa Rica.
That trip changed my life. It opened me up to the possibilities of the world. I was just a sheltered middle class suburban kid. In Costa Rica, I experienced other cultures, got lost in a jungle, saw real poverty, conservation projects in action, and met people from around the world. From that moment on, I was hooked. All I wanted to do was travel and see more of the world and the people in it. But like most Americans I only had two weeks of vacation per year and I didn’t know any of the genius ways to save money and travel longer. A trip to Thailand in 2005 changed that. There in the wonderful city of Chiang Mai, I met five backpackers who showed me that I didn’t have to be tied down to my job and that I didn’t need to be rich to travel. Here were five people who were living my dream of traveling full time. I wanted in. I wanted to do what they were doing. After that trip, I went home, finished my MBA, quit my cubicle job, and, in July 2006, set out on an adventure around the world. My original trip was supposed to last a year. I didn’t come home until 18 months later. Back home, I quickly realized I couldn’t go back to working in a cubicle and, three months later, I was on the road again. And that’s where I’ve been ever since. I’ve traveled to over 80 countries and territories, flown hundreds of thousands of miles, slept in all sorts of places, tried weird food (including fried maggots), made life long friends, learned multiple languages, and learned that you don’t need to be rich to travel. There are countless ways to travel world on a budget. It’s my mission now to help others like you to realize their travel dreams the same way those five backpackers helped me realize mine.