Traveling when you’re broke.
“We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.” – Jawaharial Nehru
Stated the former prime minister of India.
Personally, I couldn’t agree more.
As someone who has traveled to over 20 countries, words cannot even begin to explain some of the amazing things I’ve seen and experienced, foods I’ve tried, and fantastic strangers I’ve met along the way. Traveling is one of, if not the most enriching thing you can choose to do for yourself. When you expose yourself to the world, it can change you and inspire you in ways you never thought possible.
But this isn’t news. Most people realize the value of traveling, and have an intense desire to do so. But do they….?
The unfortunate statistic is no.
“I’m too busy to travel right now,” “I don’t have anyone to go with,” “I don’t speak the language there”…
I’ve heard every excuse under the sun, but the biggest one has to be ⬇️
“I can’t afford it.”
Now, maybe 100 years ago, this answer would be valid. Traveling for leisure was really only something available for the wealthy and elite ~ they would board luxury ships or sleeper trains and travel in style, using their riches to see parts of the world that the majority could only ever see off the page of a book.
But a hundred years later, is this still the case? Absolutely not! But that mindset is still alive and kicking!
In our modern age of technology and convenience, traveling can and is accessible to all, regardless of your income.
Remember how I mentioned earlier I’ve traveled to over 20 countries? Well, I did that while working minimum wage jobs, and part time.
I also wasn’t living at home! I had to pay rent & utilities, my car note, get groceries, take care of my phone bill, splurge on the occasional margarita, etc.
But regardless, I still managed to…
Spend a month in South Korea, sang karaoke with the locals, ate out at every meal, went to a spa, got my hair done, and came home with a chunk of my budget still in tact.
Travel to Iceland, swam in the blue lagoon, rented a car and drove to the black sands beach, saw the northern lights, and rode Icelandic horses over volcano fields.
Paddleboard in Barcelona at sunrise, eat paella to my hearts content, and flamenco with strangers on a rooftop!
……among other things.
So, how can you do it?
Well, I’m here to teach you how.
First of all, lets list out the 5 main components of a trip:
👉🏻 Flights
👉🏻 Transportation
👉🏻 Where you stay
👉🏻 Food
👉🏻 Experiences
I’m going to tell you how you can get some if not all of these things either heavily discounted, or completely free. But first, lets start with some of my favorite travel hacks that don’t quite fit into a category:
1. Hacks and discounts 🤑
Over the years I’ve discovered and tried many different ways of saving money on a trip! Here are some of the top ones I’ve discovered to be tried and true.
First of all…
What if I told you that there was someone who, if you just asked, could get you…
Hotels & resorts
Flights
Concerts
Events
Excursions
Restaurants and dining
For literally hundreds of dollars cheaper than if you were to just book it yourself? All at no extra cost to you?
That’s us.
I’m talking about us, lol.
If you’re like me, you thought Travel Agencies were a thing of the past, and didn’t really see the use in booking travel through them. But again, if you’re like me, you try to save as much as you can on travel.
Now that I work for a Travel Agency, I wouldn’t never go back to booking my own travel!
Travel professionals have special access to wholesale prices for flights, hotels, excursions, basically everything we listed above. On top of that, if you book “packages” (flights in addition to accommodations) the entire price is discounted! We also have first pick on flash deals, special contracts with tour operators and hotel personnel, etc.
Basically, we have access to the cheapest prices for anything to do with travel, that you could never get on your own.
On top of that, most travel agencies charge a fee for their services, but we dont!
So instead of wasting hours, if not days planning and booking your own trip, its a no brainer to let us do it for you. We save you time and money, no added fees ✨
OTHER ESSENTIAL MONEY SAVING TRAVEL HACKS 👇🏻
Travel on an extra paycheck month! You know those months that have an extra Friday? Travel then! That way you’re still making the same amount of income that month, even though you’re not working for a week of it. No need to sacrifice your precious PTO.
Only pack a carry-on. Traveling with a suitcase can be quite the headache in general. It can get lost, you have to lug it around everywhere, and if its overweight you have to pay extra fees! If you simplify what you pack and just bring a carry on, no need to worry about any of that. You can check in on your phone, and just bring your luggage on the plane with you! 🙌🏻
Bring a reusable water bottle or LifeStraw. I’ve traveled a lot in and around Europe, and something I’ve noticed is that water is not free like it is in the US! Oftentimes you have to pay for it, and that cost can add up. Save yourself that unnecessary expense and either fill up your water bottle with water from your stay, or drink tap water from a LifeStraw!
2. Flights ✈️
Fly for free.
Of the 21 countries I’ve visited, five of them I’ve flown to for free. One of them usually being a $1000 flight!
How did I do this?
Three words: Credit card points.
I don’t mean spend $3000 you don’t have just to get a couple thousand points. We’re not talking about getting into debt here.
Here’s what you do 👇🏻
The most common credit card bonus I’ve seen (that is reasonably within someone’s budget for an annual fee) is you spend $3,000-$4,000 on the card within three months, and they grant you around 75,000 points. Those points are equivalent to somewhere between $800-$1,000. Depending on the card you get, you either have full freedom to spend those points on anything you want, or specifically use those points on a flight.
Now I don’t know about you, but personally I don’t usually spend $4,000 within three months.
Buuuuuuuuut, do you know someone who’s just moved and has to buy all new furniture? Do you need to buy a new phone or laptop, or does someone else? How about if you and a big group of your friends go out to eat, and the bill is a couple hundred dollars?
PUT IT ON YOUR CARD!
You heard me! Put it on your card! You’ll reach that spending limit goal in no time, but its not your dime you’re spending.
Now, you do run the risk of putting expenses on your card and people not paying you back. But if you collect the money right away (like, immediately when you pay for something), then it really works to your benefit.
Collect points on your own purchases, as well as the purchases of others.
Get the points, get the flight. Its as simple as that.
I’ll be writing another blog soon on exactly what cards I recommend and my experiences with them, so stay tuned!
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Now, another saavy way to fly is to…
Find cheap flights!
If you’re someone who doesn’t have specific needs when it comes to a flight (like extra legroom, luxury seating, etc.) and you can deal with back of the plane economy seats, this is how you find the cheapest flights possible:
Hopper
Scott’s cheap flights (now “Going”)
First lets talk about Hopper!
Hopper is a cute, fun and easy to use app that finds you the absolute cheapest flights possible.
You just type in where you want to go, and what dates, and it brings up for you the cheapest flights that are available at the time. But, we all know that flight prices change daily, even hourly. Hopper knows that too. So you can opt to “monitor the flight”, so when that exact flight’s price goes down, it notifies you so you can book it at the cheapest price possible!
Also, when you type in a destination, it shows you a color coded calendar that tells you what months are cheapest to fly there.
For example, your preferred departure airport is JFK. You want to fly to Paris next year. BUT, you want to fly at the cheapest price possible. You go on hopper, and the calendar shows you its cheapest to fly January/February, slowly climbs up in price in the spring, and is most expensive in the summer.
You put in your dates, you monitor the flight, and a month later they notify you your flight has gone down to $250. Now you’re flying to Paris for hundreds of dollars cheaper than usual!
Love love love Hopper. Highly recommend.
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Next, lets discuss Going.
Do you have the desire to travel, but don’t really know where to go? Or care?
Going has the answer.
They’ve been featured on Good morning America, The New York Times, The Washington post, etc. For good reason! But what exactly do they do?
Basically, you just plug in your closest or preferred departure airport, and they send you deals on super cheap flights departing from your city! I know of people who have gotten flights to Iceland for as cheap as $100, Portugal for $200, Italy for $250, and so on. If you want to travel for the half the price and are open to any destination, Going can definitely help you out!
3. Transportation 🚗
More often than not, when visiting somewhere new, you can’t rely on your own two feet to get you from place to place🚶🏻♀️ What is the most money savvy way to get from place to place then? 🤔
Take public transport 🚎
This is probably the cheapest way to get from place to place on your trip! In most bigger cities, they have implemented some kind of public transportation system. Some are more developed and easy to understand than others, but most you can rely on! (Pro tip: Before you leave for your trip, watch some YouTube videos on how that specific city’s public transport system works, it’ll help tremendously)
Now, here are some numbers to help you understand the difference taking public transport can make on your travel budget.
I recently traveled to Istanbul, Turkey. Unfortunately, with the way things happened to work out, we only ended up taking Ubers and taxis the whole time. I tallied it up, and we could have spent $400 less if we had just taken public transportation! 😱
We had a great time regardless, but maybe I could have afforded a little extra Turkish delight had we gone the public transport route when getting around 🤷🏻♀️
Rent a car 🚘
Now sometimes you travel somewhere that’s a little more remote, and you can’t rely on public transport to take you around. For part of my recent trip to Turkey, we had to rent a car since we visited a bit more of a remote city in Turkey called “Cappadocia”. It was very touristy, but the public transportation system was next to non-existent. Since we had tours booked, very specific spots we wanted to check out, and an hour drive from the airport to our hotel, it was definitely more cost effective to rent the car!
Now, renting a car is not the most cost effective solution for every and any destination.
But for this country and this specific city, it was the best choice for us.
Good news for you, booking a rental car through a Travel Agency can get you a huge discount!
Use the train system 🚂
What if you’re visiting several cities in one country, or maybe even country hopping all in one go?
Using the train system would definitely be your best bet in most cases! You could fly of course, but most of the time flying will be twice as expensive than taking ground transport. (Getting from place to place will take longer though, so keep that in mind)
Most countries have some kind of local train system, but one of my favorites is the Eurail system that goes through 33 different countries throughout Europe! Their website design is clean and simple, so planning out your trip is an easy and seamless process. This is how it works.
You can go on their trip planner, plug in the specific countries you want to visit and when you want to visit them, and they give you one price and one ticket! Or, you can opt for the “Global Pass”. This is a prepaid ticket that allows you a certain amount of travel days within a certain amount of time, and you can travel as much as your heart desires within that set amount of time. For example, their most popular “pass” is the 15 days within two months pass. This could get you to 14-16 different destinations, all for only $416!
Traveling for two months is a looooong time though, and most people don’t have that much time off, but not to worry! They have shorter terms passes as well as day passes to choose from.
Traveling by train is not only cost effective but super fun, and you get to see some pretty amazing scenery along the way. Highly recommend!
Compare transportation costs on Rome2Rio 🤔
Like I had mentioned earlier, not every destination has a well developed transportation or rail system. Or, maybe the price of a flight would actually be cheaper than taking the train! Even taking a bus could be a better option. Sometimes, you have to get a little more creative on how you get from place to place, especially when your destination is a bit more remote or underdeveloped. An amazing tool I discovered a couple years ago is this website called, “Rome2Rio.com”!
Here, you’re able to plug in where you’re coming from, and where you would like to go. It then takes your destinations, and gives you every option of transportation you could take including pricing! It shows you what route is cheapest, shortest, most simple, etc. From there, you can choose what option is best for you, and book it through their portal as well. It really helps you know exactly what’s available to you so you can confidently go ahead planning your travel.
4. Where you stay 😴
After the cost of flights, usually the next biggest expense is the cost of where you stay the duration of your trip. There are a few different ways to cut this cost, here are my favorites…
Split the cost with friends! 👯
Most people don’t like to travel alone anyways (even though I highly recommend, but that’s a topic for another blog) So what better way to save a few bucks than split travel costs with friends!
For example, maybe the cost of staying in a beautiful double bed hotel room in Paris, France for one week comes out to $1000. If you travel with just one other friend, each of you has to pay $500. BUT, what if you invited two other friends with you? Now the individual cost is cut in HALF! More money for cappuccinos and croissants. Yum 🥐
Stay in Hostels. They’re not scary, I promise.
This is a bit of taboo subject for some. I get it! I used to also be very wary of hostels! Sleeping in a dinky room with 30 other strangers? No thank you 👎🏼
But trust me, they’re not like that.
(I mean, some may be, but we don’t stay in those 😂)
Staying in a hostel can be super fun! Not awkward, or dirty. I like to use Hostelworld.com to do research on the hostels available in the area I’ll be traveling to, look at their reviews and pictures, and what kind of rooms they offer. Personally, I don’t like to stay in mixed dormitories, so I opt for small female only dorms.
I stayed in an amazing hostel in Amsterdam back in May. The room was super clean, the beds were comfy, I stayed in a room with only three other women, and the door had a magnetic padlock! I felt very safe and comfortable. On top of that, the hostel itself had a fantastic restaurant & bar on the ground floor, as well as a library, rec area, and daily free activities!
What I spent to stay there was a THIRD of what it would have costed to stay in the cheapest hotel or Airbnb in that area. Definitely worth it, and I sure as heck enjoyed my stay.
Take a housesitting job in a foreign country! 🏘️
This one I have yet to try myself, but after looking into it, I absolutely plan on doing so!
There are a couple different sites you can find these housesitting gigs on, but I think by far the most reputable and trustworthy site would be workaway.info.
This site allows travelers and hosts to connect! Hosts in foreign countries will list their need, and travelers can apply to go and help them out.
For example, last week I saw the cutest listing for an Italian family in need of some travelers to help them out with their chestnut harvest! In exchange, you get free room and board, and food was provided. In this case, all you would need to worry about is your flight there. By offering some of your time, you’d get to travel to a new country, meet the locals, and truly immerse yourself in the culture! How cool is that?
Stay tuned because I’ll definitely be trying this out soon, and I’ll document my entire experience on an upcoming blog post ✍🏼
5. Food 🍽️
Another huge expense when it comes to travel is food. On average, the typical tourist spends about $30-$40 a day on food. But that number can double or even triple depending on the country you’re traveling to! (I’m talking about you, Switzerland 🙄)
Are there any ways around this?
Absolutely. I gotchu ✊🏼
Stay somewhere that provides meals!
Now if you’re staying in an Airbnb, this most likely will not apply. But a lot of hotels, resorts, and even hostels provide meals in some kind of way! Taking advantage of this will save you hundreds of dollars over the course of your trip.
For example, there’s a capsule hotel in Japan that offers 'round the clock bread and pastries, coffee, tea, soup, rice, and snacks, all complimentary! So virtually anyone who stays there doesn’t have to spend extra money on food if they don’t want to. Quiteeeeee a steal if you ask me 💯
Eat street food 🍢
Street food is a GREAT way to save money on a trip!
Most countries have a few traditional dishes that are quick, easy, and cheap to make. For example, while I was in Korea I could get a bowl of rice cakes and fish for under $2 USD!
You can find street food vendors in most bustling cities around the world, especially in or around popular tourist spots. Its a great way to try new flavors, immerse yourself in the culture, and save a buck 💵
Buy groceries and cook 🧑🏼🍳
This option is available to you if you’re staying in an Airbnb, hostel, or anywhere that has some kind of kitchen you can use. In most countries, buying ingredients and cooking yourself is way cheaper than going out to eat! To save on a meal or two, why don’t you try getting some simple ingredients and throwing them together yourself? You’ll know what you’re eating is fresh, and made just the way you like it 🤌🏼
Pro tip: If you do go out to eat, share meals with friends!
6. Stuff to do! 🎉
Lastly, lets talk about how to keep yourself entertained while on your trip abroad.
You’ve been dreaming of traveling to this specific country for years, and you’re finally here! What do you do? Sit in your hotel room all day and smile?
Of course not!! You want to get out and experience as much as you can!
So let’s talk about how to keep yourself entertained without breaking the bank.
Take advantage of free activities! ✅
Most bigger cities and popular destinations have tons of free activities available to tourists! You just need to do a bit of research. (Or, have your travel agent do it for you *cough cough*)
One of the best things you can do is take a walking tour with a guide who explains the history of the city, gives restaurant suggestions and tips, and can point out some spots you really can’t miss. Oftentimes these walking tours are free, occasionally because they’re a language exchange! I suggest doing this the first full day of your trip, so you start out being more knowledgeable about where you are and what’s available to you.
Some other free activities available in most destinations:
-free museums & attractions (some are available through the purchase of a pubic transport ticket)
-Look up photo op locations and take pictures
-Enjoy nature! Go on a hike, visit a beach, etc.
- Google “free events this week in ____”
-Ask your tour guide for suggestions!
Book excursions on Airbnb 👩🏽💻
After you’ve exhausted your free options, maybe you want to try something a little more niche or special to that area. For example, riding horses through the mountains of Barcelona! Or a hot air balloon ride in Turkey….maybe tickets to the Vangogh museum in Amsterdam? 👀
I highly suggest plugging in your destination and dates on Airbnb’s “experiences” before booking or planning anything.
Most people just use Airbnb to book their stays, but did you know you can also book excursions with them? Its fantastic! Locals will list activities they offer for pretty reasonable prices. Its also a great way to see what things to do are most popular in that area, so even if you don’t book it through Airbnb you know whats available to you.
Some activities I’ve seen include…
-making fresh pasta with an Italian grandma $15 per person (pasta eating included! 😱🍝)
-Touring a coffee plantation including a coffee tasting ☕🫘 $20 per person
-Traditional pottery class 🪴$10 per person (and you get to take the pottery home)
Super cheap, you get to interact with the locals, and even have food included sometimes! It’s a no brainer 🧠
Have a travel agent book your excursions! 🤓
Now Airbnb is great, but depending on what you’re interested in booking, booking it through a travel agent can shave off hundreds of dollars from your total trip price!
Maybe you’re interested in booking several different tours or excursions on one trip. Maybe even something including a tour guide, transportation, meals, etc.
You could go and book that yourself, but you’d be wasting a good chunk of money.
As previously stated, travel professionals can get you the same product for hundreds, if not thousands of dollars cheaper! We work with different vendors and tour operators to get special rates for our clients. And again, we don’t charge fees for our services ~ so we would book your excursions for you, for waaaaaay less.
Less money AND time on your end? Again, it’s a no brainer 🧠
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So, do you still think you can’t afford traveling to your dream destination?
I didn’t think so.
If you’re ready to get the most bang for your buck and travel the world, you know who to call 😉📞