Winning the startup lottery would be awesome but probably requires some amount of luck. If you save (for example) 80% of your savings you can retire after 5 years and never have to work again. Its not for everyone but you might be surprised at how little suffering is required. There is a community of "early retirement extremists". Try MrMoneyMustache or the Networthify blog if you are interested:

    http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/
    http://blog.networthify.com

Travel is cheapest when you live abroad rather than taking short trips and staying in hotels. I'm from Minnesota and I've lived and worked in Beijing, Singapore, and London.

Disclaimer: Networthify is my side project and my savings rate is not 80% but its a lot higher than 25%.