Watching Movies at Home

10 Tips on How to Enjoy Watching Movies at Home

Traditionally movies were meant to be seen in a dark theatre. However with the advent of television, laptops and smart phones things movies became much more accessible and easier for us to watch. Despite being so busy in our daily lives we all look forward to the weekend to lie lazily in our homes and probably watch a movie which we have been meaning to do for so long. Watching a movie at home has its own sets of pros and cons. With the constant bickering of our siblings as to who will control the TV remote or our parents nagging about wasting too much time online – managing to watch a movie from beginning till end is distant dream for many. It’s not an impossible task though, if we plan it properly. Here is a list of 10 things to do while planning a movie hour at your home.

1. Choose a Perfect Time

Timing is of utmost importance while planning to watch a movie at home. Choose a time period during the day when you will be free of any domestic or work related chores so that your mind is not preoccupied with other things and you can concentrate on the film completely. It would be also an ideal situation if you are alone at home because then you will have the luxury of being on your own without the disturbances of your parents or other family members. If you are not alone then you can take your laptop to a relatively silent room where no one will disturb you, draw the curtains to get that movie theatre effect and the best part – put on your head phones. Heaven!

2. Decide on the Movie Earlier

It will be smart of you to decide earlier which movie you are going to watch on a particular day. Or else you will lose valuable time in going through your movie collections or searching the internet for recommendations. Watching a movie will take a minimum of your one and a half to two hours, so you cannot afford to waste any extra time owing to your lack of proper planning. Also it is advisable to have a vague idea about the film you are planning to watch as you don’t want to end up watching a substandard movie. Every individual have different tastes so pick a movie which you think you will enjoy watching.

3. Keep your Favorite Snacks/Food Items Ready

It’s a personal choice depending on your mood and habit. However a delicious snack or munchies can be pretty awesome companions while watching a movie worth its time. Imagine digging into a piece of fritter dipped in red sauce while a serial killer is on a rampage in the movie. That’s food porn and cinematic porn for you right there.

4. Invite Likeminded Friends

It’s always fun to catch up on blockbusters at home on TV or your laptop. Double the fun it will be if some of your gang members join you in the act. One advantage of watching movies at home is that it gives you the freedom to talk and discuss your heart out. If you come across a badass action sequence you can pause it, marvel upon it and then rewind it again. The process becomes more fun when someone disagrees with your opinion regarding a particular scene and you start a sort of discussion-debate to prove your point. Pillow fights, anyone?

5. Go Solo and Use Subtitles

Sometimes it’s also fun to watch a movie alone at home. Not every movie needs to be seen with friends or family, some films demands serious viewings or rather multiple viewings like for instance David Lynch’s ‘Mulholland Drive’. You cannot even afford to miss a single word or a scene, which is why it is also advisable to see such movies along with the help of subtitles. Now some people might be put off with the idea of using subtitles. It doesn’t mean that you don’t get English properly rather it only means that you are serious about watching a movie and want to understand it better without missing out on the nuances or references. British and American films are different in their use of English so a subtitle only makes your job easier. Besides while watching a foreign film it is unavoidable.

 6. Use of Streaming Services

Have you ever felt like you have just wasted your money by subscribing to various online streaming services like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu to name a few? Here is what you can do about it. Not many people know that these streaming services also have many reputed film titles hidden in their list of things to watch. You can take help form the internet or from your friends in accessing the available films on these platforms so that you don’t have to go to the theatres or rent a DVD to fulfill your wish of watching a movie on a day off. You just need a valid subscription and good internet speed to watch a movie.

7. Video on Demand

If you are old school and not into streaming websites or can’t afford it then there is the ever loyal television set for you. Many DTH services around the world offer this facility to the viewers at home. A much selected list of recent and past blockbusters is available for you to choose from on any given time via online or SMS service. So after a long day at work or after completing a deadline you can sit back, relax and enjoy this particular service which has revolutionized the concept of home video.

8. Rent a Movie

I know it’s is a bit 90s but it still works for you if you want it to. Many big cities as well as a few small cities around the world still have those DVD parlours where you can browse from a diverse collection of titles and pick the one that catches your fancy. In the big cities they have a well-organized collection where films are divided on the basis of their genre. So you just have to go to your desired section and pick your favourite. If you are looking for some X rated fun then the adult section is where you need to spend some time before heading to your home and setting the DVD player or PC/laptop in place.

9. Don’t Force Yourself

One of the many benefits of watching movie on your personal devices is that you can go easy with your timings and your mood. Inside a movie theatre you are literally forced to watch a movie from start to end even if you are not necessarily enjoying it. While at home you can be free from any such restrictions. In other words you don’t need to force yourself to go through an insufferable movie. You can skip through the songs (if you are watching an Indian movie) or some mundane portions of the film. If you get tired or sleepy or remember some unfinished business you can pause or stop the process and can resume it later.

10. Mix Business and Pleasure

Very often your parents chide you for spending too much time watching movies on your laptop or television. Watching a movie doesn’t always have to be a time-wasting affair. You can make it a fruitful exercise. When you watch a Hollywood film you can improve your English vocabulary via subtitles. If you are a content writer or an aspiring film critic then watching movies and writing about them will be a good practice for the future. Artist or graphic designers can get inspiration for their works through watching sci-fi and superhero movies. And who says who you can’t chop vegetables or do some domestic chores without losing concentration of a movie?

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Enjoying your life with computer games

Far Cry 5 preview, release date, pre-order info, trailers and latest 

news

At Paris Games Week, Ubisoft revealed a brand-new trailer for Far Cry 5 taking a look at the “Friend for Hire” system, showing off the series’ expanded co-op mechanics for players to cause chaos together.

Far Cry 5 release date – When’s it coming out?

Far Cry 5 launches February 27, 2018 on PS4, Xbox One and PC.

-Far Cry 5 Trailers

Take a look at the co-op trailer from Paris Games Week:

Far Cry 5 gameplay 

Back at E3, Trusted got the chance to experience a snippet of Far Cry 5 using one of the “Guns for Hire” characters. This let us see how much mayhem we could cause in Hope County while liberating the town from the terrifying Seed cult. More recently, I got the chance to replay the same mission a few times, using each of the three friends for hire to see how differently the madness can play out.

One thing Ubisoft always does with Far Cry is create an incredible hook. From Vaas’ definition of insanity to Pagan Min’s incredible eccentricity and now we arrive at the Seed’s. Every villain has done enough to have me excited to jump into the latest open world, but the idea of causing absolute anarchy in the heart of America feels all the more enthralling.

The mission is to liberate the town of Fall’s End, which you’ll have probably seen in the trailers, as it plays home to the Whistling Beaver Bar – a pun as unsubtle as it is quintessentially American – and serves as the perfect explainer for what to expect in this entry.

Starting atop a hillside with my first Gun for Hire – Nick Rye, the town pilot who will watch over you from above and drop bombs on targets you designate – a quick look through the binoculars shows townsfolk being dragged from their homes and bound against their will by crazed cultists.

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It’s up to me to save them, and I can do so by going down either the stealth or guns-ablazing route. This being Far Cry, what’s the point of making a low-key entrance? First I climb the nearby water tower and pick off some enemies with the conveniently-placed sniper rifle while Nick drops some hellfire on targets. The explosion from the bombs is nothing short of spectacular, and as over the top as the best 80s action movies. Considering there are only a dozen-or-so enemies in the immediate vicinity, the carnage that ensues is as entertaining as it is hilarious, and it’s classic Far Cry.

In fact, once the proverbial hits the fan, everything feels familiar. The core action feels very Far Cry, in the sense the enemies behave in a very distinct manner, running straight towards you with little regard for self-preservation. Everything is done with an acute self-awareness and a little tongue-in-cheek. Some may be saddened by things feeling like they have done for a while, but I slip right back into the game like a comfy pair of slippers.

hat separates this entry from its predecessors is the setting, which does make things feel interesting and fresh. All of this action taking place in America makes it seem more tangible, “real” somehow, especially in light of how mad the real world has got in recent years.

After liberating the town, things get a little weird, as I’m asked to go and visit Nick Rye in his hangar, the same Nick Rye who’s been hovering above me and ‘bringing the noise’ for the past ten minutes. Once I reach the hangar, Nick’s hangar is overrun by cultists, and after helping him out, I speak to Nick about taking out a bunch of silos in the local area using one of his planes. I should point out that while talking to Nick face-to-face, another Nick was still flying above, a funny bug that will of course be ironed out by launch, but in a small demo built to show off both this mission and the Guns for Hire mechanic, one that’s hard to avoid.

Flying the plane was great fun, and surprisingly easy to handle considering how much that can be done within it. I’ve always found flying planes in the likes of Battlefield incredibly tricky, and always feel bad for teammates who opt to be passengers as I quickly descend to our death, unable to inform them of my incompetence on the way. But in Far Cry, everything is simple. There’s a button for the machine gun, one for rockets, another for dropping bombs, and even an alternate camera angle to aim where the bombs are going to land.

Controlling the plane is super easy, and when one of the members of the Project at Eden’s Gate decides to chase me in their own biplane for some dogfighting, it’s an intense and fun battle to round off the demo.

Then of course, I jump straight back in with the next character – Grace Armstrong. Unfortunately, this mission didn’t really help show off Grace as a character, rather show off how fiddly it can be directing your AI partner around the map.

While aiming, tapping the D-Pad will send your Friend to attack a particular enemy, or to a location, while holding orders them to return to you. Grace holds a rifle, so I wanted to place her in the water tower to pick enemies off while I attacked up close. Unfortunately, this proved impossible, and in the end the mission devolved into another shootout where Grace ran off and did her own thing.

However, I did appreciate how different the combat played out. Rather than running straight down the middle of the street and taking on enemies as bombs rained from above, this time I was more tactical. I snuck through buildings and popped out from cover to take out enemies as they approached. I also discovered on this run that I had dynamite, and things got very interesting once again.

As enemy trucks pulled into town, I tossed the dynamite under the vehicle before enemies had a chance to get out, making a HUGE explosion, which was very satisfying indeed.

After liberating the town once again, it was Boomer’s turn to shine. I don’t know what it is about video game animals, but I always care about them more than any artificial human, and as soon as it became apparent that I could pet Boomer as and when I pleased, he immediately became my favourite Fang for Hire. Nick may have the explosives, but he doesn’t lick my face the way Boomer does.

Boomer can be ordered to attack a single enemy, and while this doesn’t prove hugely beneficial when it all kicks off, it can help whittle down the numbers by silently removing baddies on the outskirts of a command post, so for those wanting the silent approach, Boomer is a great choice. Even when I run down the far side of the terrain and spot a mounted gun to mow down the cultists, Boomer is on-hand to take out those I can’t reach.

First Impressions

Gameplay-wise, this still feels very much like the Far Cry you know, but the setting and narrative make it possibly the most intriguing and exciting entry to date. I enjoyed the combat I played, but what I’m really looking forward to is experiencing the story, coming face-to-face with the Seed family, and witnessing firsthand the destruction they cause to Hope County and the people within.

Far Cry 5 characters – Who are they?

As well as Joseph Seed, he has three siblings known as “The Heralds” who also lead The Project at Eden’s Gate.

Not much is known about each family member yet, but considering the Far Cry series’ excellent history with memorable villains, we can’t wait to see each cult leader’s dark tale.

As well as the villains, we also got a glimpse of three key allies whom we’ll meet during the campaign.

Up first is Pastor Jerome, a preacher of Hope County who has lost his followers to The Project at Eden’s Gate. A teaser trailer shows Jerome quoting the Bible, Jeremiah 23:1 – ”Woe to the man who leads my flock astray, says the Lord”, before picking up a gun and leaving his now-decrepit church to (presumably) take on the Seeds.

We also have the owner of the local bar, Mary May. Mary May says The Project “took” her mother, father and brother, but it’s unclear whether the Seed’s killed or converted her family. Now she’s no the warpath for revenge. Oh and the bar is called “The Whistling Beaver”, because of course it is.

Finally we have Nick Rye, a family man with a passion for planes. His father and grandfather were pilots in World War 2 and he hopes to pass on the passion for flight to his unborn son, but fears the Seed’s are destroying everything, so is taking up arms, with his biplane now equipped with a gatling gun.

Far Cry 5 animals – What can we hunt and kill?

Considering the Far Cry series is known for including a wealth of flora and fauna for us to forage and hunt to craft new and better items and equipment, it’s natural to be interested in what we can be chasing down in Far Cry 5.

While Ubisoft hasn’t released a complete list of the animals in the game, but bears, cows and deer as well as birds are present in the trailers and vignettes released thus far.

It’s not an extensive list, but a quick search online shows that lynx, gray wolves, bighorn sheep, elk, moose, mountain lions, mountain goats and many more mammals are indigenous to Montana, so hopefully Ubisoft adds the whole lot to Far Cry 5.

Far Cry 5 vehicles – What can we drive and fly?

The early trailers have given a glimpse of some of the additional ways players will be able to traverse Hope County. A brief tease of a muscle car shows they will be featured in the game, but also players will be able to fly around the terrain with the help of Nick Rye and his planes.

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Enjoy Life with pc Games

Build guide: The best gaming PC

The best gaming PC isn't one you buy: it's one you build. Building PCs can be a very expensive hobby, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get a great, powerful build for a reasonable price. Not everyone needs to play games at 4K, after all. The trick is to build a PC that will offer impressive performance now while still delivering the power needed to play games at least two to three years in the future. 

We have system builds for everyone here at PC Gamer, with five builds each targeting a different price. From the cheap build starting below $500 / £500 up through an extreme system priced well north of $3,000 / £3,000, we have your back. This guide represents the balanced option, giving you what we feel is the best PC gaming system that balances price and performance for around $1,250 / £1,250. 

This midrange PC is designed to give outstanding marks for 1080p and 1440p gaming, thanks to prices dropping on the GTX 1080, though CPU and RAM do come into play as well. What this machine won’t be aimed at is those who need extra computing power for video, sound, and image editing. For those uses, you’ll need to spend more for a CPU that can deliver on those tasks. Similarly, gaming at 4K is best reserved for builds sporting one or more higher-end GTX 1080 Ti GPUs.

The price point also doesn't account for the operating system or any peripherals. Check out our buying guides for the best mouse, keyboard, and gaming monitor for our favorite picks to pair with your new rig. 

We based this build on prices we could find at the time we updated this article, but prices do change. You'll find real-time prices for the parts in the list above and the part descriptions below.

With the arrival of Kaby Lake, we now have more options to choose from when it comes to the processor. There's the i5-6600K we previously used, the newcomer i5-7600K, the higher performance i7-6700K and i7-7700K, and potentially the i3-7350K if you're looking to save a bit of money. We ruled out the last one as the price and features come up short, along with Core i7 as the extra money rarely pays off in gaming, leaving Core i5. When checking prices, we found the Kaby Lake Core i5-7600K is basically the same price (within a few dollars) of its Skylake predecessor. Combined with the extra 300MHz you get from the newer chip, the i5-7600K an easy choice.

The 7600K is a speedy quad-core that offers impressive overclocking abilities. With a base clock of 3.8GHz and 4.2GHz turbo, it's the highest clocked Core i5 Intel has ever released. With overclocking we were able to push even further, topping out at 4.9GHz (others report 4.9-5.1GHz as typical for liquid cooling). And when both are overclocked, the difference between the i5-7600K and the more expensive i7-7700K in gaming performance is pretty minute.

There are only three big differences that most people need to know about when choosing between the i5-7600K and the i7-7700K. The i7 has higher stock base and turbo clocks, though this can be compensated for with even conservative overclocks. If you’re not comfortable with overclocking, you can rest easy knowing that the 7600K’s base clock of 3.8GHz is plenty fast for gaming purposes.

Second, the 7600K has 6MB of cache while the 7700K has 8MB. That means the i7 can store 33 percent more data than the i5 before the CPU has to reach out to the RAM. This typically means that at the same clockspeed, even without the extra threads (see below), the 7700K would be a few percent faster.

Finally, and most importantly, the i5-7600K doesn’t offer Hyper-Threading support while the i7-7700K does. In a typical processor, you only have one thread per physical core. With Hyper-Threading, each core gets two threads (each thread is treated as its own logical processor by software). As a result, Windows sees the 7600K as a 4-core part while the 7700K can be treated as an 8-core. All of this doesn’t matter much for games, which rarely make use of more than 2-4 threads, though at least a few DX12 games are showing benefits from additional CPU cores.

If the choice comes down to spending more money on the CPU versus putting that cash into a faster graphics card, for gaming the GPU is nearly always the better choice. We wouldn't go so far as to pair a top-end graphics card with a budget CPU, but the Core i5 can handle just about any single GPU you're likely to throw at it.

                      GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080

For a long time, this build recommended Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1070 GPU. It's an outstanding card, and well worth consideration if you want to shave a hundred dollars off your build, but since prices have dropped on both the GTX 1070 and 1080, we were able to fit the 1070 into our $800 budget build, while the 1080 gets the nod here. 

Prices for the GTX 1080 have dropped significantly since post-launch scarcity became less of an issue. With the advent of the GTX 1080 Ti, prices of the entire GTX 10-series of cards have dropped even further. This makes the GTX 1080 a much better value than at launch, with cards available for around $500, sometimes even cheaper on sale. It's also managed to largely avoid the cryptocurrency scarcity that is currently driving up prices on mid-range GPUs.

As for which GTX 1080 to buy, the modest factory overclocks don't make a huge difference, so we recommend buying whichever 1080 is cheapest.

        Motherboard: MSI Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon

MSI's Gaming Pro Carbon is an excellent midrange board that offers excellent performance and great features at an affordable price. The Z170 variant was a long-time top pick in our motherboard guide, and the Z270 version we're using here only improves upon things, with double the number of M.2 slots, more USB 3.1 ports, and bumping the audio to Realtek's ALC1220 codec. Styling-wise, you can keep things calm due to the board's neutral colors, or go all-out with MSI's RGB LED Mystic Light implementation.

On the performance side, the Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon is hard to beat. In our extensive motherboard testing, the Gaming Pro Carbon is the lowest-cost motherboard to overclock the sample Kaby Lake i7-7700K processor used in testing to 5 GHz. We're only using an i5-7600K in this build, but this board will be able to overclock it well all the same.

Building with the board also proves satisfying, as the previously unused area along the right edge is now populated with components, relaxing the tight layout considerably. Connectors for the CPU fan, system fan, and 1151 socket power all have improved access, for example, so your knuckles and fingertips will thank you. The only drawback is it doesn't have Wi-Fi or Bluetooth built in, so you'll need a USB Wi-Fi adapter if you aren't planning on connecting via Ethernet. 

Memory: 16GB (2x8GB) G.Skill Ripjaws V Series DDR4

Memory is one of the toughest components to make recommendations for, since it is especially susceptible to diminishing returns. You really just want a solid choice that will get the job done. This is one of the reasons we went with G.Skil’s Ripjaws V Series. G.Skill’s Ripjaws (like Corsair’s Vengeance LPX, Crucial’s Ballistix, Kingston HyperX, and others) is one of the core memory brands that most people should go to, and G.Skill tends to use Samsung's memory modules, which RAM makers have told us are the best around. 

Most gamers won’t see the advantages of memory with sky-high clocks, so we aren't going to make a specific clockspeed recommendation, but it’s good to get a kit that’s above the slowest speed, 2133MHz. Unfortunately, DDR4 prices have been rising in the last few months, due to increased demand from both PC builders and smartphones. Memory prices change often, so you can always find a deal near this price point. Grab whatever clockspeed is cheapest at the time, and remember that sometimes tighter timings are more important than raw bandwidth.

                 Storage: Intel 600p 512GB M.2 SSD 

Storage is one of the most subjective parts of any build, as people can have wildly different opinions on how much storage they need in their rig. Obviously, more is better, but prices can easily skyrocket if going that route. But regardless of size, the most important factor when choosing storage is speed. 

At PC Gamer, we've reached a point where spinning disc drives are simply not worth our time. If you’ve never used an SSD-powered system before, the difference between running on an SSD and HDD is like night and day. We consider it an essential part of any gaming PC—as such, even our super-cheap sub-$500 build uses an SSD.

primary recommendation is a 512GB Intel 600p M.2 SSD. It's a low-end pick, as far as NVMe drives are concerned—especially compared to the ultra-luxe Samsung 960 Pro, but it also costs half as much. M.2/NVMe drives are the cream-of-the-crop when it comes to storage speed, so even a budget M.2 drive delivers on performance in a big way. 

The 512GB Intel 600p is our pick for best budget NVMe SSD. At around $170, it generally beats the similarly-priced Samsung 850 EVO—a long-standing mainstay in the SSD game—though it is a tad bit slower when it comes to random Writes. 512GB gives you more than enough room for your OS and a handful of games, and we really can't stress enough how nice it is spending as little time as possible on loading screens.

Alternatively, for around the same price you could pair a 250GB Samsung 960 EVO (~$130) with a 1TB HDD (~$50). The 960 EVO will load your OS and whatever games you can fit on it even faster than the 600p, but with game sizes often ballooning above 50GB these days, you won't have room to install more than a handful at a time. The 1TB HDD picks up the slack in that regard, but it means any games installed there will load on the slower side of things.

        CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo

As much as we love all-in-one water coolers, sometimes we need a slap to the face: "Hey stupid, there are really great air coolers out there too!" The Hyper 212 is one of those coolers, and builders should always consider this cooler in their lineup of possible components. (Unless, of course, you need a low-profile cooler for a slim case.)

The downside to using an air cooler is that the heat from the CPU is dumped into your case. As long as you have plenty of airflow, this isn’t a problem.  All-in-one coolers help keep the ambient temperature in your case lower, but are pricier and take up a lot of room. 

Keep in mind that Intel’s K-model Kaby Lake CPUs don’t ship with coolers in the box, so buying an aftermarket cooler of some sort is required with these CPUs. If attaching an aftermarket cooler feels too risky given your skillset, you can always consider a locked processor for your first build. Non-K model CPUs come with coolers that are (literally) a snap to install, and have thermal paste pre-applied.

If you're willing to spend a bit more, a nice AIO liquid cooler is a worthy investment, especially if you're planning on overclocking the CPU. Corsair's H60is a nice entry-level pick on that front, or the H110i if you want to go one step further. 

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Shimmering Shores of Vaadhoo Maldives

You can bathe in a sea of stars at this incredible glow-in-the-dark Maldives beach

As if the islands of the Maldives weren’t already heaven on earth, come night time, Vaadhoo Island reveals another mystical surprise: Glowing blue waves, lapping the sandy shore, like something out of a fantasy land.

Where?

On Vaadhoo Island, one of the islands of Raa Atoll in the Maldives. It’s a tiny island with just over 500 inhabitants, but its Sea of Stars phenomenon has firmly planted it on the global map.

Why?

Plankton

How does it work?

It’s a natural chemical reaction with a fancy name, bioluminescence, which takes place when the water is disturbed by oxygen. Phytoplankton, the marine microorganisms in the water have a blue luminescence that occurs as they produce toxins that are harmful to fish, humans and other creatures, so though they look all pretty and magical, they’re actually not so friendly. The phytoplankton’s blue glow is like a defence mechanism which wards off other marine organisms from eating them. The phytoplankton will continue to glow inside the fish that eat them, which means, in turn, they will make bigger predators go after them. It's a catch 22 situation.

As for how the bioluminescence occurs, that’s where it gets complicated… As the phytoplankton float, movement in the water sends electrical impulses around a proton-filled compartment inside them; electrical pulses open the voltage-sensitive proton ion channels into scintillons (the flashing unit inside them.) The pH in the cytoplasm changes, creating a series of chemical reactions, which activate a protein called luciferase. When luciferase is mixed with oxygen, the neon blue light is created.

Photo: Doug Perrine/Getty Images.

Is there anywhere else in the world quite like it?

Dinoflagellates — the ultra specific type of phytoplankton at Sea of Stars — aren’t the only ones to produce this beautiful bioluminescence. Other marine animals like krill, deep-sea squids, and anglerfish are also able to produce light. Within the Maldives you can see something similar on the islands of Mudhdhoo and Rangali. Similarly, bioluminescence has been seen on the shores of the Lakshadweep Islands in India, Mosquito Bay in Vieques, Puerto Rico, and on the coast of Leucadia in California.

I need to see it…

To the Maldives you go! Vaadhoo Island is a 15-minute speedboat ride away from the main international airport of Malé. Whilst the Maldives ain’t cheap, a sight like this is pretty damn priceless, right?

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Traveling ways

This Is How I Get Paid To Travel The World

ravel Tips

After 7 years of traveling the world, the most common question I get is: “how do you make money traveling?” or “how do you get paid to travel?” Well here’s my answer.

Working as a professional travel blogger has been a dream come true after many years of hard work. But I completely understand your curiosity. How am I getting paid to travel so much?

From the outside it must look like I’m just always on vacation traveling around, having a blast — but there’s a lot more to it than that behind the scenes. Somehow I need to make a living!

How exactly do I make money? How do I fund my travels? Do I have sponsors? Who is paying me to travel the world?

To fund my long-term travel lifestyle, I make money different ways.

These sources are constantly changing from year to year. Attempting to explain how I get paid to travel in casual conversation usually takes a while.

Often times I’ll just throw out “travel writer” or “photographer” to avoid a lengthy discussion.

However because this is the big question everyone wants an answer to, I’ll try to clarify this burning query for you today.

You’ll learn exactly how I’ve funded my travels for the past 7 years — and how I’m able to get paid for traveling around the world.

Get Paid To Travel The World?

It was 2009 when I first began planning to quit my job and travel the world. I was inspired by two friends. Both were traveling very cheaply, on a backpacker’s budget, living on less than it takes to live in the United States.

I was completely enthralled with their photos and stories from exotic destinations around the world.

At the time, I didn’t realize you could travel long-term for less than $1000 a month! Budget travel was an entirely new concept for me.

My buddy Ferenc was backpacking through Southeast Asia, making money advertising with Google Adsense on his photography website.

My ex-girlfriend Katie was working on private yachts as a chef, island hopping around the Caribbean and Mediterranean.

I thought if they could travel like this, so could I!

Saving Money To Travel

My family isn’t wealthy, and I’ve never had a trust fund. According to US statistics I was considered lower-middle class, a single male living in South Florida working 2 jobs that earned about $30k per year.

How could I possibly save money to travel the world for a whole year living on that?

The answer is I downsized my lifestyle to live on even less.

I’d just finished paying off my car, so I decided to sell it. I canceled my car insurance, gym membership, and Netflix subscription. I purchased a used commuter bicycle, a rain poncho, and a bus pass to get around.

I sold off almost everything of any value that I owned. Goodbye DJ turntables, goodbye stereo, goodbye sports equipment.

I stopped going out to bars, restaurants, and nightclubs too. I cooked a lot of pasta & rice at home. Made my own cheap sandwiches for lunch.

I rented a small room for $400 in a small 2 bedroom house I shared with 2 other people in the suburbs.

These simple (but boring) actions allowed me to save about $7000 over the course of a year. It required discipline, and it wasn’t exactly “fun”.

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