Kevin Hilding
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Hey, guys! In 2022, I’m still reflecting on what went down in 2021, as many of you might be too. What an amazing year 2021 was for me! I can honestly say it was one of the best years ever to happen to me and I hope you can say the same!
The above being said for me, the beginning of 2021 did not start off most optimally. As a creator, I really want to be open about this to my audience. Now, after making content on YouTube for an entire summer and currently into the first winter, I feel that I am a place where I can connect to you guys more and share these experiences. I can promise, they are all part of the process of becoming who you want to be.
Coming into 2021, my mental health was not in the place where I wanted it to be after the winter months spent in Sweden. A combination of issues with my health, friends and life was really just bearing me down. In my room, I was spending a lot of my time contemplating what I wanted to do with my life and how to make things better. After spending all this time by myself, I realised something needed to change. I needed to get off the hamster wheel of life-bearing me down and take the leap doing something I really wanted to do. I NEEDED to follow my passions!
I have always been interested in photography and videography and I felt like it was only a matter of time before I started a YouTube Channel, as I had wanted to do this for MANY years. So, what was stopping me? The mind is truly amazing, but it can sometimes be your own worst enemy. Taking that initial step to start-up can be the hardest because you can be concerned about what everyone will think about you. Let me tell you this…Seeking the approval of others can hold you back from following the path of success. Conflict of listening to thoughts and following your dreams may ruin anybody eventually.
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.”
Mark Twain
I took the plunge. I started to go after what I wanted and made a YouTube channel. Consistently working, recording content, editing, and uploading, you can see my progress from the beginning to where I am now. When I watch my first video, I cringe to myself a little bit! Despite being sociable, I was so afraid to talk to the camera. Then after a couple months, I learned to actually find times where I fell in love with it.
It was consistency that helped me to continuously develop. As I did, I became more confident in knowing what I needed to think about to succeed. What could I do to make people engage with my content? Vlogging is pretty popular, becoming a focused opportunity because two passions of mine are photography and travel. When I travelled to Cyprus for the Summer, the opportunities to make these videos happened; this turned my life around completely.
In the beginning, I went back to that place of fear: What would people think? I was super nervous to tell anybody what I was doing with my YouTube channel in Cyprus when I was surrounded by many new faces. Thankfully, I met such fantastic people that supported me the whole way through. I could not be more grateful. Having people around you who support you and are positive about what you are doing helped solidify it all. ‘Okay, this is actually something I am pretty good at, and I love doing it’. I continued to create whilst being in one of the best destinations I have visited, making so many memories along the way. Living in such a wonderful place where I worked while travelling made me develop into the person I am now. I am super grateful for this.
From then, my confidence in creating content just increased massively. Here I am after building this platform up, speaking to you through my own website in addition to my channel. As well as sharing blog content, I can share so much more of my Photography Portfolio with the world after building it up for months.
Starting a YouTube and making a website was part of my goals for 2021. Using these platforms, I have achieved a lot of my creative goals for 2021. For example, I made my first 50 Euros through photography and videography. For me, this felt amazing! Achieving this showed that by following my favourite hobby, I could actually take my camera with me and have the chance to make an income from my passion.
Goal Setting in 2022
Photo by Bich Tran on Pexels.com The original list I made for my goals for 2021 was crazy, humungous and I was super happy that I got to tick off a lot of the goals I had planned to do. One tip that really helped me was you should break down goals into different pathways. I had three specific paths that I could choose to follow this year relating to an area of career interest in my life. I set an action plan for each of these paths, focusing on what I would need to do to achieve this. Outside of YouTube, I reached some other goals. For example, investment in stocks. However, others I did not achieve could be implemented into this year. For example, reading for 30 minutes per day.
Even if you aim to achieve the 50% of goals, that’s 50% worth of effort and progress made. With this mindset, I guarantee that over time you will have reached some great milestones! In just under a year, I am almost at 200 subscribers on YouTube. Visualise a room with two-hundred people listening to and valuing what you are saying, and you could realise just how significant each milestone is. I am going into 2022 with this mindset to celebrate the milestones, the small achievements that make you realise all the effort and work is actually worth it. You can learn about the other milestones I achieved on my video Here. In this video, I talk about the steps I took to achieve my goals and turn my life around, through following my passions whilst travelling. Here’s my advice for you: remember, whatever you aim to do, consistency is the key. Keep posting, keep creating and keep celebrating those small milestones.
“Consistency is not perfection. It’s simply refusing to give up”
– Sean Cannell
Plans for 2022
2021 completely turned my life around through setting goals and following my passions. Nobody knows how exactly 2022 will end up. But I do know I will continue to create awesome videos wherever I am in the world, whether at home in Sweden, in the UK, here in Thailand or elsewhere. In 2022 I really want to enhance my videography skills, building on everything I learnt in 2021. I am super passionate about this. I hope to build up my clientele, gain some photography work and continue to develop my YouTube channel, where you can follow my whole journey. I have plans to produce content that I really hope will help communicate and connect with you as an audience and build up this community together over the coming year.
With that being said, let me know about your 2021! What did you improve or not improve? What are you excited about for 2022 and the future? Tell me below in the comments; I am super excited to answer all of your questions! Thank you so much for taking the time to read this blog and for watching my videos over on YouTube. If you haven’t checked them out yet, you can find all my Travel, Filmmaking & Lifestyle content on: https://www.youtube.com/c/KevinHilding
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Hi There! I haven’t seen anyone writing about these tips before… Sooo I’m gonna tell you now. We all know that when we are traveling we might spend just a bit too much right?
Even for me who lives abroad for a long time this might happen. So how do you save more money then?
That’s what I will tell you today, my 5 secrets to saving more money while traveling.1. The 7-Day Rule
Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com My first tip is actually, the seven-day rule as it’s called and what it means is really that you don’t spend any money on something directly when you see it, you wait around seven days.
I know that many of you maybe don’t do traveling for more than seven days or ten days, so maybe wait for at least three to five days before you decide to “okay I want to buy this thing”.
Otherwise, you will just spend money and regret it later… So my tip for you is to use the seven-day rule! It has worked for me for a long time actually, it’s been two years since I found out about this which has helped me tremendously to save more money because I don’t spend it on things that I don’t need.
This is a really good tip for anyone really, that wants to save money and a good thing to always have in mind.
2. Hire a Car
Photo by Tobi on Pexels.com The next time you travel I suggest that instead of spending A LOT of money on a tour with a big charter company, you should go and rent a car. This is much cheaper than going on a trip that is already planned and having pickups and everything with guides.
Those are more expensive than just hiring a car and go there by yourself. Because the cost of guide, transfer, lunch is all in the price plus profit. Don’t take me the wrong way, I do love going on guided tours myself. which is NOT because I’m a tour guide, but because it’s very relaxing and you don’t have to plan anything ahead. So if you do enjoy going with a guided tour. DO IT! Because it’s usually on a fantastic experience to do.
My tip here is that if you actually hire a car and then plan ahead which different places to go. Find a good deal especially those with several day discount which is the best ones! You can also while having a car, try to find a free walking tour, these usually have a guide that is free and you can just go with the flow with them and enjoy all the things that you would otherwise also. But you have other people there and also a guide which was for free because you planned ahead. If you want to know what to do in Ayia Napa, Cyprus read my post about it Here to plan your trip!
Might gone a bit off topic also but hey, I just love these small tips that you can use to save some extra money because, it’s expensive to live abroad sometimes.
3. The Nice View Trap!
Photo by Polina Kovaleva on Pexels.com another tip I want to tell you about is, “don’t fall for the nice view trap” as I call it. That’s basically if you go to a harbor for example and the harbor or anything really. That is so nice, with views like never before!
Don’t go and eat on the restaurants by the harbor for example, because you will pay an extra price just for that nice view. This is why I call it the nice view trap. They usually up their prices by 20-30% just because you have this really nice view you’re looking at.
But if you go to a local restaurant instead in your city. You’re most likely to fall down in prices instead! Maybe you will even get a better experience by the food, just because it’s so local and they just give so much love to the food they make. Much more than some of the “nice view restaurants” where they always had customers anyway.
Though sometimes you actually just need to try and eat with a really nice view of course! i’m not that kind of person that don’t want that at all haha… I enjoy having a nice view sometimes but if you’re going out 20 times, please go and try a local restaurant.
4. Cooking at home
Photo by August de Richelieu on Pexels.com This next tip is actually that you can cook food at home instead and don’t always have to go eating out. Cook your own food instead, this will save you those 15€ you would otherwise lose… But when buying food from the grocery store instead, the cost might be the same, but lasts for 3 days!
” But, oh no, i don’t have the right equipment… or, oh what am i gonna do?”
My bonus tip is then actually that when you book your apartment, book for example an apartment with kitchen, this makes it so much easier. So for example i’m using TripAdvisor you can check it out. Because there you can book an apartment, for example with good kitchen. It’s very easy, you just find out your destination you want to go and then book an apartment.
I very much recommend this, because you will spend so much more money if you go to a restaurant for like three days worth of food when you could have gone to the supermarket and then come home to cook it. This will make you feel that really nice satisfaction of achievement from cooking your own food.
It always tastes so good to cook your own food! I love cooking so that’s probably just me being “mental” but Hey! that’s how I feel and I think many people will feel the same. Oh I almost forgot. If you do feel that its hard to figure out something to cook then buy a cook book. I know this sounds weird but try it! I can link a good one here with loads of options!
5. Watch this Video!
I do many things as a Tour Guide. With that said I do know one or two tips about how to actually save money when you’re traveling. So in this video I do talk about a few of these tips. But I go more in depth and also its 7 Tips, Plus a bonus one! which you could learn a few extra tips from if that is what you need.
With that said, I thank you for your time! Please tell me what your favorite tip has been so far? Maybe There is something you want to add. Tell me in the comments below.
have a great rest of Your day.
Here is Some of my latest posts if you can’t get enough!
2 responses to “5 Tips: How To Save Money While Traveling”
I really like the 7 Day Rule, definitely stops that impulse buying.
Yes absolutely! Impulse buying is a big factor.