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FAQ

"How much does traveling cost?"

Cost of living(rent, utilities, data/wifi, groceries) is $500 USD per month for most countries, $1000 for most others.

"Health care and insurance?"

Health care and insurance abroad are both pennies on the US dollar for the highest quality of medical care

"What about visas?"

You usually don't need them; when necessary, visas are almost all entirely online: a fifteen minute e-form and nominal fee offset in your first day by the drastically lower cost of living abroad.

"How do you make money while abroad?"

Any job that nets you $500+ a month works. There are almost 2 billion English students globally right now, so native English speakers have lucked into a guaranteed job on or offline.

"What qualifications do I need as an English teacher?"

Some countries and schools require a TEFL certificate or prefer candidates with an associate's degree depending on the position, but if you want to teach English, all you need is to be a fluent English speaker.

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bitofarambler@crazypeople.online

Hey US taxpayers: if you live outside the US 330+ days per year, you don't have to pay federal earned income tax on your first 130,000 USD each year (crazypeople.online)

submitted 21 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) by bitofarambler@crazypeople.online to c/Travel@crazypeople.online

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IRS form 2555 qualifies you for the IRS Foreign Earned Income Exclusion(FEIE), and is a simple form to fill out with the rest of your taxes, takes 5-20 minutes depending on how many countries you lived in that year.

IRS instructions for form 2555.

This is the official language of the IRS form 2555 physical presence test:

“You meet the physical presence test if you are physically present in a foreign country or countries 330 full days during any period of 12 consecutive months including some part of the year at issue. The 330 qualifying days do not have to be consecutive.”

Plainly, it doesn’t matter if you were absent from the United States between January 1st and December 31st to qualify, it only matters that you were not present in the United States for 330 of 365 consecutive days that include, in some part, the current tax year you are applying the exemption to.

You could have been in the US until april, and then outside the US from May until the following april, and that’s fine to claim the FEIE and exclude a variable amount of your earned income tax as determined each year by the IRS (currently at $130,000 annually).

By tax year(Jan. 1 - Dec. 31) you were only out of the country for 270 days, but out of 365 calendar days, you were not physically present in the US for 330+ days from May to April, and so you pass the physical presence test, which qualifies you for the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion.

It can be a US or non-US company that employs and pays you, you just have to be physically outside the US.

This IRS exemption is for earned income, so self-employment tax, capital gains, dividends and other excluded "unearned" incomes can still be taxed.

Ask any questions below, I'm happy to answer.

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[–] bitofarambler@crazypeople.online 2 points 21 hours ago

I didn't know Somalia was as explicitly unreasonable as the US, but "absurdly onerous" is how I prefer to describe the US tax code to anyone who asks.

I've known travelers from all over and whenever taxes come up, they say "but you aren't even in the country. Why would you have to pay for the services of that country?" and i say "yes!"