It’s a story that should be familiar to most everyone. Couple finishes their studies, head out into the job market only to find they can’t make ends meet.
For Californians Jeff Johns and Marina Dominguez, that meant no hope of paying off their school loans, let alone saving for marriage, a house or children.
So earlier this year they left their lives in the United States behind and relocated to Southeast Asia — the white-sand ringed island of Phuket, Thailand, to be precise.
“The facts were simple, we couldn’t afford not to move abroad,” Johns, 29, told Business Insider.
After eight months in Thailand, the couple reduced their expenses by more than half, live in a comfortable condo 10 minutes from the beach and for fuel spend an insignificant fraction of what they did back in Los Angeles. All of this from work das of about four to six hours doing photography or editing video.
“Now we are able to live in a house we could never afford in L.A., eat at restaurants we could never before, work less, save more and live the lifestyle we were chasing in the states,” Jeff said. “We work project-to-project, contract-to-contract, and if it’s a particularly nice day we can spend it at the beach, or if friends are sailing to an island to snorkel for a long weekend we can do that too.”
The couple plan to spend another half year in Thailand before heading elsewhere, and despite an interest in one day returning to the United States, don’t see that happening anytime soon, Business Insider reported.
They maintain a travel blog called Latitude 34.
Photo: Jeff Johns
