But the California native and blogger behind FY!S soon found herself on a one-way flight to Japan, where she took up freelance writing gigs to fund her travels around the country.
Her new lifestyle felt adventurous and thrilling, and she quickly crafted a plan to make it sustainable.
"It turned out to be a lot cheaper for me to be a laptop-hauling nomad, bouncing from Airbnb to Airbnb around different countries and cities, than setting up camp in one set location," Lee, 30, wrote in a recent article published on Thrillist.
Over the next 11 months, she paid a total of $10,584 for weeks-long stays in Airbnbs in Paris, Tokyo, London, Barcelona, Seoul, Taipei, Singapore, and Honolulu. Compare that to the estimated $20,400 she would have spent in a year on an average one-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles at $1,700 a month, and the savings is nearly $10,000, Lee said.
"At this point, I saw it simply as paying 'rent' as if I were living in Los Angeles but without commitment and in other cities around the world," she told Business Insider. What's more, transportation — mostly trains and cheap domestic flights throughout Asia and Europe — cost her a total of just $1,500 (another $800 worth of flights were paid for by a generous client).
Currently, Lee is spending time back home in Los Angeles with friends and family.
Below, learn more about the professional freelancer and traveler's life in Airbnbs and her strategy for finding the perfect rentals (and negotiating the cost).
To follow Lee's adventures working and living around the world, check out FY!S or follow her on Instagram.
