Yeah fire definitely requires a good salary as I said.
I think it depends, you’re not always hurting the locals. Often there’s expat areas in cities that are more expensive but more local areas stay cheap. Also you can support locals by buying from there businesses. I’ve been travelling southeast asia lots and the majority of locals tell us they like the tourists and expats because they allow them to make much more money.
Here’s a few options I have…
Save as much as possible and take it all to much cheaper countries. Vietnam, Indonesia, etc you can live for years on the savings from a year or so of work.
Buy cheap land and homestead
Monastery or communal living
Volunteer with WWOOF or workaway long term
Work seasonally take the rest off. Firewatch, ski bum, etc
FIRE as mentioned in another comment. Takes a longer time but if you are super frugal and have a high salary actually very doable in 5-10 years. I suggest looking at mr money moustache.
Also dropping out. Look up how to drop out there’s an old famous article about it.
Overall read Early retirement extreme it gives lots of good ideas too.
After looving at various possibilities for a few years I am much more hopeful cause I realized there are tons of realistic options!
Yeah that could definitely be an issue. On the other hand though its a great way to learn a language and meet people living very different lives. Also most young people nowadays speak english and want to speak it with foreigners so its easy to mave friends that way. Plus there’s lots of expat groups and meetups so actually pretty easy to find likeminded people.