Hello! Welcome to My Website SpendLifeTraveling.com
My name is Sanne, I’m from the Netherlands but I have spent most of my adult life living, working and traveling all over the world.
Also check out: This Funny Video Explains Why It’s the Netherlands, not Holland!
I first left the Netherlands at the age of 17 when I found a job for the summer in a small Spanish town called Moraira. That’s when it all went ”wrong”… After four months of sunshine, life by the sea, Spanish food and sangria I couldn’t possibly go back to ”normal life” back home!
In the years that followed I ended up living and working (sometimes paid, sometimes as a volunteer) in countries all over the world and I traveled through many others.
To be precise, I found (volunteer) work in: Spain, Guatemala, St. Maarten, Greece, South Africa, Honduras, India, Mauritius, Scotland, Aruba, The Maldives, Israel, Italy, the Bahamas, Colombia and the Philippines.
Also Read: How to Find the Perfect Job Abroad
Some jobs were amazing, others I left quite quickly. But every journey and every country was a unique, amazing, and unforgettable experience.
Then, in 2020, I bought a catamaran and spent the next two years exploring the Caribbean and the Mediterranean by boat. Not the easiest of travel lifestyles I can tell you, but an incredible adventure!
I Love to Spend Most of My Life Traveling
I have been back to the Netherlands, many times. I even tried keeping a regular 9 to 5 office job and bought an apartment in The Hague, one of the main cities in the country.
But I could never get myself to stay in the Netherlands. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great country. It’s very well organized, wages are good, supermarkets are cheap and our trains (almost) always run on time.
But, it also seems to rain half of the year, it’s cold, dark and depressing in the winter and people often seem stressed.
Just yesterday I spoke to an Italian guy in the Netherlands who asked ‘why are people here always running?’. The Dutch friend who was with us didn’t seem to understand the question, but I did. We are. We are always in a hurry. And we don’t seem to be able to relax anymore, to just enjoy the little things in life. Ok, maybe that’s also why our economy is generally doing well, but it’s not the lifestyle I enjoy.
And so I became a digital nomad, a traveler, a wanderer. My goal in life? To enjoy it, to see it, to experience it.
I set up a Dutch marketing company called A to Z Marketing in such a way that it allows me to work from anywhere in the world (well, anywhere there is an internet connection, which isn’t really everywhere in the world as I found out the hard way…).
Will this lifestyle give me the best career opportunities? Maybe not. But it does give me the freedom to do the things I want to do and live a life that works for me.
Also Read: 9 Years of Constant Travel – My Tips & Tricks and How to Become a Digital Nomad
Why I Started Spendlifetraveling.com
During the first years of my travels I wrote a blog in Dutch. I have also been contributing to one of the main Dutch hotel and destination review websites as an expert reviewer and I wrote a few articles for print publications.
But I started getting more and more questions about my experiences abroad, not only in Dutch but also, and by now mainly, in English. So I decided it was time to set up a website in English with the appropriate name Spend Life Traveling.
On this website I will not only share my travel stories but also try to share a lot of general information about the places I visit, about living as an expat, and about spending (part of) your life abroad.
I am not a native English speaker so please do excuse my occasional (well, I hope only occasional…) spelling mistakes. And I hope you will enjoy my stories and travel tips!
If you want to follow my travels more closely then follow me on Instagram where I try to post new stories almost daily.
If you have any travel-related questions feel free to leave a reply on any of my articles or send me an email at sanne@spendlifetraveling.com
And if you want to read a bit more about me and this website, check out the About Me page.
Enjoy life and spend it traveling!
Sanne Wesselman
Traveler, wanderer, digital nomad, and entrepreneur
Linkedin | Instagram