Fatma a young Egyptian traveler has been to 11 countries till now at the age of 28 with 34.3K follower on Instagram.

The beginning
Through the interview with Fatma, she told us that she started 5 years ago when she was 23, It all starts when she was working in a hotels and flights reservations company as a social media marketeer and her job included writing social media content about different countries that the company want to market their flights to, from this point her passion towards travelling and discovering more about countries and cultures have born.
Of course, there were many difficulties faces her as a woman in the Egyptian society as it is not familiar to see girls travel alone specially if it is not for the purpose of studying or working abroad.
Her salary was another barrier, as she said only the flight ticket equal 2-month salary and she thought that travel is very expensive, but she decided to take the steps for her first journey, she discovered that her company has a benefit for the employees that they can reserve a flight ticket and pay in installments for 6 months, then she started to save for the pocket money, she applied for a volunteering opportunity through AISEC, and after few months Fatma was in a plane heading to Morocco.
She added, language was a big barrier as she was not able to speak English fluently but she solved it by choosing an Arabic country as a first destination to take a confidence in travelling.
Financial income was a struggling point in her start.
Another hindrance was time because she was hardly able to take vacations from work and travel for few months.
She explained, her family’s acceptance to the idea of travelling alone was one of the biggest barriers.


Convince the parents
We can all do what we want in different ways. This is how Fatma began her answer to the question: How did you convince your family of the idea of traveling?
To convince her family by the idea of traveling she started by travelling inside Egypt 3 months before, in particular, to Dahab with her friends before telling her parents that she is going to Morocco and that made her mom more reassuring.
After that, she talked to her family and convinced them by her Morocco journey by telling them that she is going to travel with a well-known organization and it is very safe, she is not alone, and that she is not still a kid and can take care of herself.
Travel return
Fatma expressed, travel added to her the skill of knowing what to do and when, unlocked more potentials to her, made her work more on herself, acquire more skills, knowing more and widen her perception, always raising her targets and goals.
She sees that in 4 years travelling added to her mind stones if she was not travelling, she will never get them in less than 10 years.

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Advice
Her advice to those who are willing to travel is just to start and don’t wait to the perfect right time or waiting to bless someone else, the most important thing is to be satisfied with yourself.
And according to vacations struggle and that travel may affect your concentration, concentrating on yourself is important than that to work better, don’t wait to the most appropriate moment because it is not exist, you will never be ready 100%.

Through experience
Of the 11 countries that Fatma has traveled so far, she sees that travel experiences differ from one person to another, and each of us has what to likes and dislikes in each country based on personal preferences, but through her personal experiences, she liked Nepal the most because of the dazzling nature, the kindness of the people, Sri lank was the worst country because of the bad internet connection and it leads her to delay her job as she is working remotely and finally it caused her to struggle with working.

Fatma finished her speech by saying that you can start voluntary travel with well-known organizations such as AISEC or others, and that if you can, start working remotely to secure an income while traveling.

7 tips for cheaper and easier travel
Through my interview with the Egyptian traveler Fatma Abdelmonem, she gave me the most important advices to travel if I am not a millionaire through her personal experience.
Morocco, Lebanon, Albania, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, India, Nepal
Fatima started her journey 5 years ago when she was twenty-three years old, during which she went to 11 countries and is now planning a year-long trip that will cover all of South America.
Through her personal experience in the past 5 years, Fatma informed me of the travel approach that she follows in her previous and upcoming trips.
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Traveling process
Choosing the country: choose near country to reduce flight ticket cost, and choose well known safe countries.
Visa: Her advice is to choose visas that do not require a lot of documents and official papers, and which are known to be easily extracted, especially the visa on arrival or the online visa (E-visa).
Flight ticket: Fatma advised to book flight tickets at least three months before the flight, because this reduces the value paid for them and makes it easier for you to book the best place on the plane at the cheapest price.
Pocket money: Determine a budget for the trip after reading about the country and the cost of living in it, and then start saving money before traveling for a period in order not to experience financial difficulty.
Planning: Starting to plan the trip is one of the most important steps, as determining what you will do, what you will visit, and the activities you do determine the extent to which you will maintain the budget.
Accommodation: Fatma expressed the importance of choosing accommodation near to the down town and the public transportations which will ease the journey on us as travelers.
Booking a hostel as it is cheaper than hotels and there, she meets travelers who are ending their journeys to take advices from them and taking the conclusion of their experience in these country and recent arrived travelers to hang out with.
A cheaper way to stay or can be described as free, but it is not the first preference for a large group of travelers is the couch surfing application, as it allows accommodation in a host`s home for free.
Applications: Download the local map of the country from google maps in order to save yourself from getting lost if the internet connection is gone for any reason.
Download the language of the country from google translate in case that the people aren`t speak your language.
Download Rome2rio to know the public transportation and how to move from city to another.

Fatma concluded that there is no ideal time to start traveling, and that if we wait for a moment when we are fully ready to travel, we will never travel.

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