• Helen Zhao quit her dream job and spent $34,000 of her life savings to travel.
• In a CNBC article, Zhao wrote that she wishes she had continued saving while traveling.
• Zhao said she could have also spent less on fancy restaurants and shopping for clothes.

A woman who quit her dream job to travel says she regrets not saving enough money for a house or retirement.

In an article for CNBC, Helen Zhao wrote that she quit her dream job as a video producer at the news outlet in 2022, after working there for four years. Zhao wrote that she traveled to 18 countries in Asia and South America over the course of a year and a half, on a budget of $34,000.

In the article, Zhao outlines her biggest regrets from the experience. One of those was that she spent a substantial amount of her life savings.

“Now, at 34, I have very little saved for retirement, I’m far from a down payment on a house in my hometown of Los Angeles, and I’m not ready to have kids,” Zhao wrote for CNBC.

Zhao added that while she doesn’t regret spending money traveling, she wishes she had been better prepared for the trip financially.

“Had I studied personal finance and started saving, investing and career planning in high school, I believe I could’ve taken my sabbatical without significantly delaying other life goals,” Zhao continued. Zhao did not respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.

In 2022, more than 54 million Americans traveled abroad, per a report by the International Trade Administration. The average person spent $1,783 on their trips abroad that year.

Not all travelers have financial regrets after spending big on traveling abroad. In 2019, a woman told BI that she was planning to spend $50,000 on travel in a single year, and had no regrets doing so. And in February, another woman told BI that she spent all her savings traveling across Europe and that she encourages others to do the same.