So he took two months off to backpack through Asia, he said, landing in Beijing in January 2019. “On the first day … I meet her,” he said, gesturing to Darina Karpitskaya, who is sitting next to him. The couple, speaking to CNBC via video from Dubai, said they met through the travel app Couchsurfing, which connects single travelers. Karpitskaya, 31, and a flight attendant at the time, had been grounded in Beijing for two days due to mechanical problems with her return flight. Although several solo travelers agreed to meet that day, Tyminas and Karpitskaya were the only ones who showed up. After a day together, they planned to meet again in Asia a month later.

A second appointment lasting a month

Karpitskaya returned to Asia and the couple’s second date was a “crazy month-long adventure” in Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, Tyminas, 29, said. In the Philippines, he said, he decided he would not return to his old life.
“We were… lying on the beach under the stars,” he said. “We started dreaming of this lifestyle.” After returning to Colorado, Tyminas quit his job, sold his belongings and moved to Europe, he said. Karpitskaya wasn’t there yet, saying, “At first it sounded like: Oh my God, you’re quitting your job. You’re moving from America. Maybe it’s too soon. But at the same time, when I came back from that trip I felt like I’m living a life that I don’t enjoy it.”

A dog in the trailer

Tyminas flew from Denver to Paris with his dog — an 82-pound Borzoi, once known as a “Russian Wolfhound,” named Cosmo, who stands over 6 feet tall on his hind legs.
“They gave me three rows of seats and the dog was just laying on the floor,” she said. From there, the couple traveled frequently — to places like Italy and Iceland — but not yet full-time, they said. Ernests Tyminas and Darina Karpitskaya have taken their dog, Cosmo, to 26 of the more than 40 countries they’ve visited together, Tyminas said. Cosmo is a great networking tool, added Karpitskaya: “We meet a lot of people who walk the dog.” Source: Dream Team Travels Then Karpitskaya got what she called her “dream job” – a position at Emirates airline. She moved to Dubai, but the couple continued to meet and travel together. Then Covid hit and Karpitskaya took four months of unpaid leave from her job. “We said: We have four months – we can go explore everything that’s open,” Tyminas said. The trio — including Cosmo, who traveled in a huge bed in the back of his SUV — traveled first to Croatia and then slowly across much of Europe, including several former Soviet states, Karpitskaya said. She never returned to her job and the couple has been traveling ever since, she said.

What does it cost to travel the world?

At first, they spent between $1,000 and $2,000 a month — all from savings — staying in cheap accommodations, cooking at home and looking for free activities, Tyminas said. As money began to dry up, Tyminas took several online jobs, which earned between $2,000 and $3,000 a month, not far from his $3,300 salary in Colorado, he said. Timinas said the couple stayed longer in Romania because “we saw how nice the people are … how much they have to offer. Sometimes you Google and say, ‘There’s nothing to do here,’ and then you get there and [realize] that’s only because nobody travels here.” Source: Dream Team Travels But the work was unwieldy and “I felt like I still had a job,” she said. So the couple decided to open a marketing and graphic design company, despite the fact that “we didn’t know much,” Tyminas said. They reached thousands of people, they said, often working late into the night. Potential clients would ask, “Can you design book covers?” “Can you promote music?” Tyminas said his answer was always the same, “Of course I can.” In fact, he was learning on the job, he said, relying on YouTube, Google and online research. But customers were very happy, he said.
“They paid me half of what they would have paid other marketing agencies, and the results, they said, were better than before,” Tyminas said. In the first month, the couple made $6,000, he said. Now, they sometimes earn several thousand dollars a day working with real estate companies and music labels, he added. “We blog for people — we do everything,” Tyminas said. Plus “we don’t have to report to anyone. We’re our own bosses.” Over the past six months, the couple said they spent an average of $4,000 a month. More than half goes to accommodation, which varies by location — from $3,100 a month in Dubai to $1,500 in Lisbon, Portugal, they said. They limit stays in expensive locations, such as Switzerland, to no more than a week, they said. One way to save money is to book a monthly stay on Airbnb, which lowers average nightly rates and lowers service and cleaning fees, Tyminas said. But even when they hopped from place to place to visit Europe’s Christmas markets last year, they ended up paying about $2,500 this month, he said. Karpitskaya said she doesn’t want those costs to scare people away because they spent much less to begin with. At the time they spent about 80-100% of their income, but now Tyminas said “we spend about 30% and … save the rest.” The couple told CNBC that they still travel moderately — no five-star hotels — and still cook most meals at home. But they spend more on activities they film for their YouTube channel Dream Team Travels — another “completely self-taught” venture, they said.

Hiccups on the way

A life of constant travel isn’t all fun and games, they said. They encounter dirty Airbnbs and hosts who cancel reservations at the last minute. They’ve also had their camera equipment and clothing stolen twice – once in Mexico and more recently in France – plus an attempt to steal their belongings from their car in Barcelona while they were sitting in it. They’ve also considered settling down when they find a place they really love, like the beaches of Portugal or the French Riviera, Tyminas said.
“But then … we drive somewhere else and we’re like this place is just as good,” he said. When Russia invaded Ukraine, quickly seizing the Kherson region where Karpitskaya’s parents live, Tyminas emailed CNBC to say they had stopped traveling for now.
Tyminas and Karpitskaya (pictured here in Abu Dhabi) stopped traveling at the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war. Karpitskaya’s family is now outside of Ukraine, except for her brother, who “has signed up to be in the army to defend his country,” Tyminas said. Source: Dream Team Travels “For the first few weeks we didn’t even leave our apartment,” she said. “We have spent a lot of time arranging the transport of civilians as well as many dogs from shelters to be taken from dangerous areas for adoption in Europe.” By summer, they had resumed travel, but were still helping to evacuate Karpitskaya’s family. “Just a week ago we finally managed to get Darina’s parents from Ukraine,” Tyminas said, adding that they are currently at his family’s home in Lithuania. “We also made a trip to Romania to pick up her sister Darina and her five-month-old baby from the border and take her to live in Germany.” The couple is now in Malaysia, they said, and plans to explore Southeast Asia for the next two months.