I would like to invest in startups, but I have no idea how to find them.
Living out of a backpack - would love to hear where you are traveling! Isnt it lonely to travel fulltime?
I do invest in the markets, I tend to do very aggressive options strategies. I like to take something fundamentally sound or strong, and then use options to increase returns while reducing risk. Specifically I use spreads. Options are a very rich area of exploration, and I'm always working on seeking out that perfect arbitrage or no-risk strategy, but mostly I just buy LEAP spreads in "sure things".
We started traveling around the USA, just to make sure we could get work done while doing it, and to make sure we could live out of our backpacks. It was a bear getting rid of all of our stuff before leaving- that was probably the hardest thing we've done. Since then we have been traveling in the european area. It isn't lonely because I'm not alone.
But, if you are single, and you start traveling seriously, and do the hostel thing where you find yourself with other travelers regularly, it usually isn't that hard to find compatible fellow travelers, especially if your itinerary is totally flexible. I took some time off in the past and did this, and found that after awhile on the road I started hanging out with people for segments of travel... it was easy for me, and I'm normally not someone who is social at all.
If you're planning to spend several months in europe, and you're in a good financial position, likely you can find a local romantic interest who is up for a once in a lifetime trip like that... a lot of concerns can be covered by covering the return ticket if things aren't working out. Someone taking you around europe is attractive to anyone, and the person who is capable of making such an offer is going to be more attractive themselves....
Then again, there's the fact that, at least for me, its a lot easier to meet women in other countries than in the USA. You start off more exotic and less threatening by nature of the fact that you're a traveller.
PS-- I didn't actually do the "hostel thing". Where I said "when I did this.." I was actually talking about traveling with the backpacker crowd, but when I was single I wasn't going to europe and hostels weren't so prevalent and I was doing it via camping, renting RVs and in the states I had a little pickup camper.
PPS-- Where in the states you wouldn't just talk to random strangers, say, go up to them and say "are you heading to houston?" or whatever... when in europe it isn't uncommon to do this with other americans. It is almost as if, by virtue of being americans (or even travelers, actually) you just have an immediate rapport. It is kinda hard to describe. But people are always sharing information about places and everyone wants to know where you've been, and tell you about where they've been... so people can find interesting places to go.