How I Traveled to South Africa for Free

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By Arthur Cundy

Back in July, I had the wonderful opportunity of traveling to South Africa. It’s a beautiful country and I recommend you go there if you get the chance.

The beginning of the year I had all these plans to travel to different states. Florida, Atlanta and California. Going to South Africa was definitely not in my plans. However, the stars seemed to align to make this trip possible.

I didn’t start thinking about going to South Africa until May of this year. I had a friend who was returning there. When she left to go back, I said I have to go there.

Now prior to this the only countries I’ve visited outside of the U.S. was England and Antigua. And the longest flight was about 11 hours.

South Africa is roughly a 22 hour flight.

So I heard from the grapevine that another friend of mine was planning to travel to South Africa in July. After speaking with him, he offered to let me stay at his place during my visit.

So I hadn’t bought the ticket yet and I already had a place to stay I the foreign country.

Since this was my first time traveling there, I felt it was imperative that I travel with my friend on the same flight at him.

Now remember I wasn’t planning to go to South Africa so I didn’t have money saved up ready to purchase the ticket. You can search on your own to see how much a round trip ticket to South Africa costs.

So while I am trying to figure out how I’m going to pay for this plane ticket, I get an email out of the blue from a gentleman from Denmark who is ready to give me money.

It sounds hard to believe, but yes. This guy wanted to give me money to buy one of my domain names. The timing couldn’t be more perfect.

After a few emails back and forth, I had the money deposited in my bank account.

I was able to go to South Africa. I had a blast. Check out some of the photos.

One thing I should mention about how this relates to having an online business is that I did not have a job. Things might not have gone so smoothly if I did. I wasn’t tied down to a 9 to 5; so I could travel at any time. I didn’t have to check how many sick days I had left or get my vacation approved by a manager. The keyword is flexibility. Flexibility, or freedom with how you spend your time, is one of the great benefits of having your own online business.

The plane ticket cost over $2,000. I sold a domain name for a few thousand dollars in profit. The entire process was done over email. This more than paid for my trip.

So when you think about it; I traveled to South Africa for free. Actually, I made a profit!