Flying High For the Low: Tips and Tricks to Afforable International Travel
If you follow me on Instagram, you’ve probably noticed that 2018 has been the year of travel abroad for your girl. While some could have attributed my travels to an unnamed sugar daddy or secret lottery winnings, I am here to tell you that my travels have been completely self-funded and budget friendly. How do I thot internationally you ask? I’m sharing my top 3 tips for low budget international travel below!
1. Plan ahead
Aint nobody got time to go into debt for traveling! Planning is essential to achieving travel and financial goals simultaneously. Planning allows you to be prepared to leap into the abyss of affordable travel at a moment’s notice cause these travel deals come without warning.
You don’t wanna lose your source of coinage trying to travel. To ensure you still have a job when you return from the trip of a lifetime, research you job’s vacation policy so that you have an idea of the constraints you can opporate in when booking travel. This includes knowing the smallest amount of notice you can give your manager to take vacation, work from home policies, and your annual vacation day allowance. These flight deals don’t pay for themselves honey!
Once you’ve researched the specifics of your vacation policy it’s time to start saving for your travel fund. By the time you’re ready to book you’ll need to have at least your flight money saved, (I would save at least 500 to be safe) and ready to go when you find that amazing flight deal. I know that 500 bucks isn’t easy for everyone to come by, so remember there is no set timeline. Trust me, there is no shortage of flight deals! The bulk of my travel fund I usually carve out in the beginning of the year from my tax return, this method is great for those who struggle to save or those who really don’t have extra monthly income. I also love this method because it encourages me to make the most out of my travel experience with the least amount of money, because once it’s gone my travels for the year are over. Another way to save is to add a travel budget line item to your budget and begin monthly contributions. Saving is sacrifice so figure out small things that you can forgo for you future travels. For example, I managed to contribute and extra 50 dollars a month to my travel fund by making more efforts to eat out less.
Finally and probably most importantly, you need your crew! Before taking the greatest trip of a lifetime, you wanna have your friends on ready so not only will you have traveled internationally for a really affordable price but you’ll have amazing people to share it with. Chat with your friends about their respective vacation time allotment, budget, and overall availability so when that flight deal hits you won’t have any hesitations.
2. Be Flexible
It was freezing in Paris…but that flight deal tho!
When you’re committed to the deal, you won’t let any commitment to dates, airlines, or location stand in the way of affordable international travel. Every international flight I’ve flown on has been with a different airline because I will fly any airline that will get me to my destination at the lowest price. These deals ain’t loyal! If you use airline specific credit cards, you may be able to use the flight benefits to shave a couple of dollars off your ticket price, but in my experience airline credit cards just help you cover the regular cost of a flight purchase using your regular spending, not necessarily providing you the lowest price.
Time is of the essence when using a flight deal. Most flight deals are published with a few weeks of the actual trip and most of the trips listed are off season. So in order to leap into the never-ending pool of cheap travel, you’ll have to shed those dreams of traveling to tropical destinations during peak time. Travel during holiday weekends and warmer months tend to be way more expensive than traveling off season. To save money I typically travel during the off season and during weekdays. While I may not maximize my vacation days I end up saving so much money on travel expenses. My friend and I both went to Paris the same year, she in the summer and I in early spring. I was able to secure a round trip flight and add in an extra city by train for 600 while she spent 1900. (be sure to check out my recap of my European adventure.)
3. Mix it up
The key to affordable travel is all about mixing your highs and your lows. If you are staying in a city with higher food and travel costs, try to subsidize those expenses by staying in more affordable housing accommodations. I love a good air bnb honey but when I saw the dollar to pound conversion I knew something had to give. Which is why I ended up having my first hostel experience, I still reserved the women’s only semi private dorm because I wasn’t quite ready to dive off the deep but I ended up saving so much money by deciding to live in a shared space. For those of you reading this and whispering to yourself “That can’t be me!”, I felt the exact same way! But my time in that London hostel was by far one of the most fun times I’ve ever had while traveling. Not all hostels, are slumming it. The hostel I stayed in while visiting Japan was very much like a hotel and it included nightly group activities for guest. Mix it up and do something different. You’ll save coin AND have an amazing time.
Oftentimes we see people flexing their travels on the gram but we don’t see the patience, work and sacrifice it takes to get there. You too can be perched pretty on a yaht in a tropical location, just be sure to plan, incorporate both high and low expenses, be flexible, and most importantly HAVE PATIENCE. Be sure to keep up with my latest travels on my Instagram and comment your dream vacation below!
-Tasia