How to Balance Travel and Earning Money When Teaching Abroad in Asia

When I first landed in China with a slightly over packed suitcase, and roughly three months of savings, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing financially. I was fresh out of university, new to receiving an actual salary, and suddenly surrounded by night markets, ancient temples, and a WeChat Pay QR code I didn't fully understand yet. 

The temptation to spend every weekend somewhere new was overwhelming. 

But here's what I learned fast: teaching in Asia gives you a genuine chance to travel and build your savings, if you're intentional about it. I've hiked the Great Wall, eaten my way through a Chengdu hot pot alley, watched the sun rise over Borobudur, and still ended the year with more in my bank account than when I started. It's possible. Here's how I did it.

From my own experience, there's a very specific kind of pressure in expat circles: everyone always seems to be flying somewhere. I felt it constantly in China. Every weekend someone was heading to Bali, Seoul, or Kuala Lumpur. To be honest, I burned real money trying to keep up. 

The shift that helped me most was this: slow down and go deeper, not wider. 

My best and cheapest experiences were never the impulsive ones. A solo vacation in Guilin, wandering karst mountains and rice terraces, logistically effortless on China's high-speed rail. A trip to Zhangjiajie (yes, the Avatar mountains) that cost less than weekend city break back home. I realised that you don't need to go everywhere to feel like you're truly living. Some of the best travel happens quietly, close to where you already are. 

Personally speaking, this is the part nobody emphasises enough.  

Wherever you based in Asia, the cost of daily life is genuinely low by Western standards. A full meal from a street stall in China costs a fraction of what you'd pay at home. Local transport, fresh markets, neighbourhood restaurants - all of it adds up to a lifestyle that doesn't require spending much at all. 

The trap is drifting into expat habits. Eating at Western restaurants because I was homesick, going to rooftop bars because everyone else was, ordering things online out of boredom. In China particularly, it's surprisingly easy to spend as if you're still back home, especially in Shanghai where the Western comforts are always there if you look for them. 

My rule became simple: eat local as often as possible, and spend intentionally when you don't. The ‘malatang’ from the cart near my school in China was better than most restaurant meals anyway.  

The more you lean into where you actually are, the less you spend, and the more you remember.

Balance isn't a fixed destination. It's something you re-calibrate constantly, especially when you're new to earning real money and living somewhere that makes spending it feel very easy. 

What teaching across Asia gave me was something I didn't fully expect: financial confidence. I learned to budget, to save deliberately, and to still have a life genuinely worth writing home about.  

If you're in your twenties or thirties and considering this, now is exactly the right time. Go. Be intentional enough to save something. And explore everything in between.