A woman has opened up about how she and her boyfriend left her jobs behind to travel the world with very little money, keeping to a tight budget of just £5 a day

A woman who felt as though she’d hit a dead end after graduating from university has told of how she quit her nail salon job to travel the world for three years, keeping to a daily budget of £5.

Erica Pham, 27, and her boyfriend Terry, 29, both decided quit their jobs on a whim back in 2018, packing up their lives in the UK to travel the world together.

According to Erica, they had no plan in place and no tickets booked when they “took what little savings we had down to Dover without even booking a ferry.”

As previously reported by the Manchester Evening News, the couple arrived in France at 4 am that same night, without so much as a hotel booking.

They spent the next two months driving 5,500 miles, living cheaply before eventually scrapping their car in Athens.

Their adventures took them to a number of far-flung destinations, including Monaco, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Greece, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Turkey.

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Erica, from Manchester, told the publication: Erica says: “We stayed in £3 hostels or made friends along the way who would pay for our meals or let us stay with them – one night we even slept on a train station floor in India surrounded by rats.

“It actually felt nice to only think about where we would stay that night and not worry about existential things like what I wanted my life to be.”

She continued: “When we were in Europe we spent around 20 euros a day but once we started moving to other places we survived on £5 a day.

“As volunteers in India, we stayed with people for free and would only spend £30 a month for the two of us as we were looked after entirely by the charity we worked for.

“We helped teach English to the children and we helped to initiate a project to start up a local library, among other community projects. We stayed with the principal of the school and his family members.”

When in other countries, they found rooms or hostels for just £5 a day, living off street food. It ended up working out cheaper if they just turned up rather than booking anywhere.

Erica added: “Sometimes we would not spend anything and then we would treat ourselves to a £25 hotel which felt like the most luxurious thing ever. In total, our output was around £5 a day.”

On they reached Australia, Erica found work as a salesperson and nail technician, and also earned money through bar work. Meanwhile, Terry spray-painted cars, having obtained a working holiday visa.

During their time in Australia, Erica began painting some of the things she’d seen during her time globe-trotting and carried on nurturing her love of art once back in the UK.

She believes her extensive travelling experiences have given her the push she needed to pursue her dreams of becoming a professional artist.

Going forward, Erica has plans to move to a city centre studio, intent on developing her career after her character-building adventures.

Erica said: “My boyfriend and I said we needed to do it while we are young and said that then if we go back and live a mediocre life at least we have had that experience – but there’s no way after you have had an experience like that, you can just go back.

“You want to pursue your passion, your career, and your creativity. You are more fearless.”

Have you uprooted your life and started again? We pay for stories. Email us at julia.banim@reachplc.com