My winning numbers?
The country is abuzz about tonight's Mega Millions lottery drawing with an estimated jackpot of $640 million. People from all walks of life are daydreaming about what they would do if they won. While browsing an Internet forum today, I came across a wide variety of ideas, ranging from practical:
I'd pay my debts!
To unselfish:
I'd pay my friends' and family members' debts!
To creative:
I'd buy the space shuttle and make it street legal!
To funny:
I'd buy a billion Twinkies!
But more than any of these, I became fixated on a common response:
I'd travel the world!
Do you really need half a billion dollars to travel the world? No, but you already knew that. After all, let's say you spent $2000 on your last weekly vacation. If you continued that exact style of travel for a year, you'd need $104,000. Not chump change, but a far cry from half a billion.
So how much do you really need? What if I told you that I traveled for years at a time, including to exotic and expensive destinations such as Antarctica and the Galapagos Islands, all for an average of $1000 per month, including airfare? Sound impossible? Well it's not.
You don't need to be rich to travel the world!
I created this website for two main reasons: to document my own travels, and to show you how to realize your dream of world travel, even if you don't win the lottery. Check back for more advice in the coming months and years of where to go and how to do it.
For the record, the picture at the top of this post is of my actual Mega Millions ticket. Winning would be nice, but even if I lose, I have a backup plan to see the world. And it won't cost me half a billion bucks.
Update: One of the people who won in Maryland (not the McDonald's worker who "lost" her ticket) wants to go backpacking around Europe with the money. She won something like $100 million, so I'm glad she finally has barely enough for that short jaunt.