Out of state investing, travel/time investment with a job.

[Joe DeSimpliciis]

Hello BP! I'm new here and have a goal of making my first real estate investment by the end of 2020! Given the market in my area (SF Bay Area) I'm mostly looking at investing out of state. 

I work a full time job and was wondering if anyone could share their experience when initially investigating out of state locations/looking at specific properties. Manly in terms of the time management and flying out to the prospective cities.

For example...

How often did you travel to explore prospective neighborhoods?

How did you manage the budget for these trips?

How long do you stay for each trip? Does your job give the affordance to work remotely while on the trip?

Do you try/are you able to group multiple property showings together for a single trip?

etc..

I'm mainly looking to get an idea if the initial lifestyle impact I should expect when diving into out of state investing. I have David Greene's Long-Distance Real Estate Investing book on my reading list as well, but I want to hear what others have to say about their own experiences.