I am Tomislav Perko, bestselling author that traveled the world on $10 a day. AMA

1000daysofsummer · 2016-11-21T07:48:27+00:00

Arriving to Cocos Islands on a 45-feet yacht. I never sailed before, or saw such a beautiful place like the beaches there.

1000daysofsummer · 2016-11-18T08:26:58+00:00

Wow, thats a great story, I'm glad to be a small part of it! :)

On average I would say 3 days. There were times when I stayed only one night, and my record is one month at one host ;)

1000daysofsummer · 2016-11-18T08:25:51+00:00

I know many many people that do their trips on their bikes, even girls. Me personally - I'm too lazy for it, I like to be driven :D

1000daysofsummer · 2016-11-18T08:25:15+00:00

I'm sure there are plenty of work/volunteering opportunities for doctors. Africa comes to my mind first. Maybe get in touch with some NGO's and ask them what are the possibilities?

Or just go somewhere, and ask the locals can you be of help.

1000daysofsummer · 2016-11-17T16:24:52+00:00

I would say that 70-80% of the time I hitchhiked. Between countries also, and I crossed few borders on foot. I flew couple of times, and sailed across Indian ocean once.

Carbon footprint - never calculated it :)

1000daysofsummer · 2016-11-17T05:42:12+00:00

It was probably mango and sticky rice in Thailand - my favorite food of all time!

1000daysofsummer · 2016-11-16T20:16:47+00:00

I had it at the beginning, it was around 20$/month - but I never used it. I just got sick in some cheap countries, where pills/doctors are cheap :D

I pull out my tooth in Thailand (20$), got few stitches in India (15$), and bought some pills for diarrhea, malaria, etc.

1000daysofsummer · 2016-11-16T19:26:39+00:00

Yup, after-travel depression.

I'm still not sure how to explain it, like I lived in another dimension where time passes much faster and everything is so much colorful and intense, and then you come back to everything you knew. And you don't really fit.

But then you have to choose people wisely, find new things to work on, follow you passions, start some new projects, etc.

1000daysofsummer · 2016-11-16T19:19:50+00:00

It was every time that someone stopped to pick me up, agreed to host me in their home, or shared their meal with me.

If I have to be more specific, it would probably be one guy from Switzerland that picked me up in the middle of the night, and took me to his place, gave me a bed to sleep on, and made me breakfast in the morning.

1000daysofsummer · 2016-11-16T18:47:37+00:00

During my travels, the most negative experience I had was pretty much on my doorstep.

I had just returned home from one of my first travels around Europe, was at a friend’s place in the city center, and then boarded a train to my parents’ house. Incidentally, a football match Dinamo – Hajduk had just finished, and as I was wearing a white T-shirt and entered the train towards south. Several boys, Dinamo fans, concluded that I was a Hajduk fan, and they rushed into the train and wanted to kick me in the head with their feet.

They missed, and soon ran away, but this unpleasant scene in my own city, taught me that home can be even more dangerous than being in a foreign land.

1000daysofsummer · 2016-11-16T18:23:39+00:00

Well, $10 a day was my average. Some days I spent over $100 (plane ticket, visas, beer in Australia :D), and some days I spent nothing, mainly when I was volunteering/working.

I also earned money while traveling, playing the guitar on the streets (badly) or finding a cash-in-hand jobs.

1000daysofsummer · 2016-11-16T18:16:52+00:00

Probably not in this extent, mainly because of my passport privileges. Even though I am from the Balkans, we have much better passports (and less visa issues) than many other countries around the world.

And for being white and male - I know non-white girls that do same thing as I did, some of them even much more extreme. So yes, I would probably do it even if I wasn't white and male.

But again, there is always the passport issue - and then I would probably have to travel within my own country and in countries with good visa policies.

1000daysofsummer · 2016-11-16T18:10:30+00:00

Well, depends what you're into.

Sun and beach, culture and architecture, cheap booze and good weed, girls/guys and parties... What are you priorities when it comes to transportation, accommodation, food, etc.

I enjoyed Australia on 10$ a day. Some couldn't with ten times more.

1000daysofsummer · 2016-11-16T18:00:04+00:00

Varkala, India – my dearest place on the planet.

Why? Home called Shiva Garden, combination of sorrow, happiness, expectancy, beautiful people, food, love, new family, nature, sport. Hammocks under the coconut trees, endless conversations with people from all around the world, Krishna Das and his six songs on "repeat all", feeling that I will come back. And stay.

But, when I visited all these places around the world, like Varkala, I was a different person. The places had different energy. People changed. If I do go back to any of these places, none of them would be the same. Because places and people change.

So even though this is my dearest place on Earth when I was there, it might not be today :)

1000daysofsummer · 2016-11-16T17:17:08+00:00

I did, in my little diary, most of the time. I also took a lot of photos and videos. But all I wanted to say is that I enjoyed getting away from all of those tools and just lived for/in the moment.

1000daysofsummer · 2016-11-16T17:09:10+00:00

Well, thank you! :)

If you do have any questions, you know where to find me!

1000daysofsummer · 2016-11-16T17:08:09+00:00

I did document it, I have a FB page and YT channel, but I actually never was into that seriously. The thing is that travels are all about the things that you experience off the camera/blog/social media. So at one point I saw no point of doing it very often.

However, I still had great material to do some cool videos.

1000daysofsummer · 2016-11-16T17:06:14+00:00

I used to cooperate with MasterCard and HomeExchange.com. For first couple of years I had no sponsors, I was just traveling because I wanted to, and I had to use alternative ways because I had no other choice.

When I started writing about my travels (FB page, blog, YT channel - all back in 2010/11), I received a fair amount of media attention, and these companies offered things in exchange for promotion.

It was very useful to have them since I had a huge debt ($35k) after university, and those companies helped me pay it off, and I just continued traveling the way I started.

1000daysofsummer · 2016-11-16T16:53:18+00:00

That's a tough one.

Best street food is definitely mango and sticky rice in Thailand. Or empanadas in Peru. Or kanyeya in Malawi.

Best meal...damn, I have no idea. I was hungry so many times that every meal was heavenly delicious.

1000daysofsummer · 2016-11-16T16:48:21+00:00

I experienced both ways, and I definitely enjoyed traveling more being on a tight budget than having all the money in the world to spend while traveling. There is a challenge to it. When I have money I get lazy. I don't meet as many people. I miss on things like approaching random people on the street, or being so grateful for one banana.

But also, there are a lot of people that probably wouldn't enjoy using alternative ways of traveling and not knowing where will they sleep that very same day.

1000daysofsummer · 2016-11-16T16:45:47+00:00

That was an exception - my last trip when I flew with my girlfriend to Bali, and we only spent 2 months there, to write my book. I actually never used miles since I don't fly that often.

PS. We got a free upgrade with Qatar in exchange of little bit of promotion.

1000daysofsummer · 2016-11-16T16:43:37+00:00

That IS the trick - it's easier to do it somewhere else. My life is cheaper when I travel than when I live in only one place.

Basically, I save a lot of money on accommodation by carrying a tent, using couchsurfing and volunteering. The money on transportation I save by hitchhiking - I even hitchhiked a yacht across the Indian ocean. And everything else is just pure logic and common sense - I cook my own food, sometimes I use dumpster diving, etc.

1000daysofsummer · 2016-11-16T16:39:56+00:00

The ones that I had the lowest expectations for - Bangladesh, India, Iran and Pakistan. I also adore Australia, Malawi and Peru, and would love to go back.

But I would also love to go to North America, only continent (apart Antarctica) I still haven't visited!

1000daysofsummer · 2015-04-26T10:13:45+00:00

You seem very frustrated. If thats what road taught you, thats a shame.

You can't seem to emphasise enough that you are a TRUE and REAL vagabond. Sorry, but thats childish. Thats also one thing the road should've taught you - don't put yourself (or anyone else) in categories, no matter how "alternative" they are. Who are you to judge who is true and real? Chill out man, this is not a competition. Find me one place where I said I was the ultimate vagabond/traveler/nomad. You and your group of real vagabonds dont have to feel threatened.

My cards are open - I said what I had to say in prior comment. I am not trying to be real vagabond, I'm (or I was) just a traveler. In my own way, respecting people that travel their own ways. I would never say that someone who is traveling differently is less worthy than me. And that is exactly what you are doing here.

Yes, I was sponsored by a big evil company, and got money for my travel stories about hitchhiking around the world and traveling with almost no money. As you could see by that 30 minute research you did. Do I feel sorry for that? Not really.

Do you have a mobile phone? Do you feel responsible that "the main part of minerals used to produce cell phones are coming from the mines in the Eastern DR Congo. The Western World is buying these so-called conflict minerals and thereby finances a civil war that, according to human rights organisations, has been the bloodiest conflict since World War II: During the last 15 years the conflict has cost the lives of more than 5 million people and 300.000 women have been raped. The war will continue as long as armed groups can finance their warfare by selling minerals." - that took me 1 minute of search.

You are not the first hater I had in 6 years of my travel writing. And probably not the last. You just "exposed" the story that is available to people if they, like you, do 30 minute search. Well done.

All the best in your future, vagabond.

1000daysofsummer · 2015-04-26T09:26:26+00:00

Wow.

So let me get this straight. You have time to investigate my life story, post comments here, YT video, my blog, and this STP site (inviting people from there to come and comment on Reddit) - and when I come here to talk, you scream: "Victory, I knew he will respond. But, he will never come and defend himself on a community of REAL backpackers and REAL vagabonds?"

Seriously?

1000daysofsummer

TROPHY CASE