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Tips on How to Save Money to Travel the World
Travel while you are young and able.
Don’t worry about the money, just make it work
Experience is far more valuable than money will ever be.
This was an anonymous quote that stared down at me from the unlikely walls of the bank that I was in and set me thinking. The more you travel, the more you want to travel, but though it was so romantic and idealistic not to worry about money, practical necessities dictated otherwise, I thought. I looked at another poster that seemed more appropriate to a bank, it said, apply credit cards online while another urged you to invest in an airline credit card.
Easy Tips on How to Save Money to Travel the World
Though on the face of it, travel, money, savings all seemed to be part of a dichotomy of divergent objectives, I felt that they were inexorably inter-related too. The thoughts about travel, money, savings, income whirred in my mind and snowballed into thoughts about how to travel more through better management of personal finances.I started thinking about easy ways to save money to travel the World
A Travel Fund is the first step
You need money to travel and one cannot wait for a legacy from a far-off relative to hatch a grand travel plan. A more practical and prudent approach would be to set up a travel fund and ensure a portion of your monthly income religiously flows into it. A travel fund is what you need to consider when thinking about how to save money for travel.
Focus on Income
A travel budget is fine, but you need to have a regular and steady source of income to ensure that your fund is healthy and growing. Look for means to increase your regular income. If that is not possible, look at possibilities to have other income streams.
Earn while you travel. Look at harnessing your travels to earn some extra income by say taking up part-time writing jobs or maybe selling your travel pictures, or even getting paid to travel the world. Explore, there are endless opportunities out there. Any extra income earned thus, goes straight into the travel fund which results in saving for travel.
Sell unwanted stuff
If you are thinking of that dream trip and how to save money for a trip. Take a good look at the stuff in your home. Identify things that you have not been using for a long time. Sell all the unwanted stuff on eBay or craigslist and funnel the proceeds to the travel fund.
Bring your expenses under the scanner
If you are wondering how to travel the world with limited resources, you must strategize. Your strategy when it comes to money and saving should always be double-pronged. On one hand, we have talked about increasing income, the obvious next step is to take a look at your expenses and classify them as necessary, wasteful, and wasteful but necessary. Try to eliminate the wasteful category of expenses completely and focus on optimizing the other expenses.
When it comes to the actual travel too there are many ways one can bring down the expenses without compromising on the travel experience. Here are a few areas that can be addressed to gain more savings. Needless to say, the savings thus accrued go straight back into the travel kitty!
Transportation Costs
Transportation to and from the destination accounts for a major chunk of the travel budget. But there are many ways how to travel cheaply and save on travel costs. Look out for the cheapest but convenient option here. If a train or bus works out cheaper than a flight with substantial savings, then opt for it. With the growth of budget travel airlines, there are many avenues for cheap travel. If you are flying check out for the most economical routes. Use available apps to zero in on the cheapest airlines, flights, and travel time. Fly at odd hours and you may be able to save substantially.
Accommodation Costs
Accommodation eats away another major slice of the travel expenses. Try to optimize your hotel accommodation. If backpacking is not your style and you are used to luxury accommodation check with various sites for the best prices. Book in advance and look for deals. The same hotels have different rates on different sites, research for the best price on hotels before finalizing.
Travel Off-Season
It literally pays to travel off-season. It is our experience that when you head in a direction that is opposite to where everyone else is going, it is a real bonanza. Flights are cheaper, accommodation is cheaper, you get great deals on everything. Everything is lesser, even the crowds.
Food
Food is a basic necessity and we do not advice to starve yourself just to save a few extra dollars. Eat healthily and eat right while traveling but do not yield into temptations to splurge lavishly on food just because you get carried away. Eat local food rather than heading for those familiar international outlets. This way you not only end up saving money but also get a feel of the local cuisine.
Getting Around
Nothing is more painful than shelling out a huge amount for an airport transfer. Do your research for the cheapest and convenient modes of transport to and from airports. Most airports have shuttles, trains, or public buses which are way economical than hiring a cab. For moving around the city use public transport as much as possible. This works out very economical and is also a great way to get an understanding of how the locals live. Check out for City cards or any other cards which work out economical for transport if you are going to be there for a few days.
Another expense that we have found which eats away lots of funds which can be easily saved is the cab fare to the home airport and back. It may actually work out better to drive your own car and opt for the long term airport parking option available at most airports. This not only ensures savings but is also a highly convenient option.
Planning is the key
Planning your travel in advance ensures cheaper air tickets and hotel accommodation. The nearer you book to your travel dates, the more you are likely to pay on flights and hotels. Though it may always not be possible to plan well ahead, one should do this as much as possible.
Do your research and get the most economic options. Find out the most optimal itineraries, cost-effective hotels, routes, activities and much more.
Additional quick tip
A great way to save money and stay connected is to buy an international prepaid SIM card. You can save up to 85% on data costs and airtime!
These are some means to ensure that you save more and travel more. We hope all your questions like the ones mentioned below are answered in this post:
- How to save money for travel
- How to travel the world
- How to save money for a trip
- How to Travel the World
- How to Save Money for a Vacation
- How to fund my travel
- What is the cheapest way to travel the world
- What is the best way to travel the world
Travel is a passion that blazes its own trail and one will always find ways and means to fuel their journeys. When it comes to travel. Where there is a will, there definitely is a way!
Do You Love To Travel?
Do you want to know how to travel the world? We have put together a very useful travel resources page with best travel tips. Go check it out now.
Thanks for visiting our site Voyager – imvoyager.com and taking the time to read our post!
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All of these are wonderful ideas on ways to save or earn money toward traveling. We always use our points for airlines and hotels which saves us tons of money.
My husband and I have a savings plan just for travel. Plus, we save all of our change throughout the year and right before we travel, we cash it in and I’m always surprised at how much we have saved up from this one simple plan.
I love the quote
Travel while you are young and able.
Don’t worry about the money, just make it work
Experience is far more valuable than money will ever be.
Now that I have a family it is much harder to do!! This quote is so true!
Planning on a tripa ahead of time makes you save a lot compared to going on trips immediately. This is one what I do, from then I can save enough just before my travel period.
These are all great tips and I miss traveling but life gets in the way. Planning early and getting deals far in advance is the best advice on flights and hotels.
I love reading about ways to save money on travel! We just moved to Key West, FL and plan on doing a lot more traveling.
Great tips to keep in mind when you want to travel but may not have the budget for it. Planning well ahead is very helpful.
I really enjoyed reading this post. This is great information to keep on hand. I love the idea of creating a travel fund.
These are great tips and suggestions for saving money for traveling AND saving money WHILE traveling. This is a helpful post for anyone wanting to explore the world.
We love to travel, but like most families, we’re on a budget. I love tips like this!
Good list of tips….
We choose to save money on flights, but spend money in activities. We do like to stay at well appointed resorts.
Totally agree with all of this, great tips! It’s good to plan ahead to know how much cash you might spend so you can save as much as you can
This is something I hope to do more of when my kids get older. But, it seems so hard to find affordable transportation for travel.
Some good tips here especially for young people who want to explore the world. My style is not budget / backpacking but we have figured putting all expenses at home on the right credit card gives us a huge points base that can be used for travel (flights, accommodation)
We have a travel fund that we do every year but sometimes it becomes an emergency fund lol. That doesn’t deter us from going somewhere though.
interesting travel diary thanks to sharing
These are all great tips on how to save money to travel. We always find that life likes to throw us curveballs, and the money we saved to travel, ends up being needed elsewhere in life.
YES to all of these!! I love to travel but it can get SO expensive! I need to try a few of these so I can travel more!!
I love travelling so much. And I would love to travel more. And your ideas are so useful to save money!
These are great tips. I need to start saving some money, I miss traveling and need to get out there again sometime soon.
Thanks for the great tips on how to plan for travel. I agree that if we plan carefully, we can really makes our budget stretch to get us a lot farther than if we literally fly by the seat of our pants.
Before I quit my job to start travelling long term, I actually sold MANY things on the ebay. Things that I had no belief that anyone would pay for! EBay was a major help along with few apps! Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this extremely important thing!
When our kids are a tad older we hope to do this! Filing this away for later!
Some very useful tips here. I’m always trying to find new ways to save money for more adventures.
I have just started housesitting, that’s a great way to save money on accommodation plus live like a local and get to hang out with pets.
Airfare is our biggest expense as we are a family of 5. Other than that, these tips are so key and so important. Thank you.
I will be writing a post on my blog shortly about how we are saving for our travel adventures. Your post gave me options that I hadn’t considered! Thank you for sharing and enjoy your future travel adventures. Keep saving! 🙂
It’s always the eternal battle, to save as much as possible for the next trip whilst not being too tight to enjoy life at home in between. Some great tips on saving money, especially the advice to reconsider your daily spending habits to identify ways to reduce.
Excellent tips. I think the one about spending wisely is just as important as saving in the first place. Also expensive accommodation is overrated. You are barely in there so get a cheaper place and spend more time out exploring!
Great post! Traveling in the off season is always a big one for us.
A good post to remind people early to privatize money for travel. Selling stuff is one thing. But really asking yourself if you need something is the other part of that. I see so many spending so much money eating and drinking out all the time. I understand the convenience but it does come at a cost. We have the flexibility now to travel when we want so we always look for the cheaper times to book. Also travelling off season helps for us. We also like to picnic for one meal a day when we are travelling. Gets us into local grocery stores and markets which is always fun.
So many great ideas here already! I especially try to take advantage of public transportation when I’m in a city. The advent of food trucks makes eating local foods less expensive and a bit of an adventure! I also join reward programs for the big ticket items (airlines & hotels) to earn points to use to save on future stays.
Ah money, as important as travel money is, it is (imho) a desire that can make or break the travel plans. As “they say” when there is a will there is a way. I personally am in favor of working while traveling. Happy travels.
Opening a travel fund is the first and foremost thing one must do in my opinion as well. And to re-look at your expenses – sometimes we do not even realise where all we are spending money that can easily be saved! People often ask me how I afford to travel so much and this is what I tell them – save on the unnecessary expenses, priorities where you want to spend your money and then while booking your holiday, there are so many ways you can do budget accommodation and flights and use public transportation such as buses and trains instead of taxis. Travelling does not have to be an expensive affair!
Great tips! I always say that if you want to travel, make that goal a priority, and it is amazing how quickly you can save for a nice travel experience. Thank you for also including the link to your Travel Resources page at the bottom. Those resources are very helpful.
I think planning is the key. All the other suggestions are also vital but if you don’t plan your travel goals and how you will achieve them, you are doomed.
Thank for sharing these, we are inspired to tighten up our money plan to get more travelling done!
Thanks for sharing. Keep travel blogging. Adventure is better shared with friends!
These are all fantastic tips! Off-season travel is one of our favorite ways to enjoy destinations on a budget – and without the crowds. Thanks for sharing all of these!
Yes very helpful and practical tips to save for travel. I find it hard to send unused stuffs though, I keep clinging on to them. Transportation costs are really high and I too feel the urge to save. We too look out for off season deals.
Every penny, cent, roupiah,… counts, whatever the currency is. Good tips for saving, whether for traveling or budgeting in general. We usually eat and sleep cheap, but spend on activities like diving.
That was quite an interesting well thought article. I totally agree even while travelling you should think about the plans and sources from where money keep on pouring. And the tips like advance booking, being local, finding homestays always help to save a lot.
This is always my fav subject to search for on internet. I am yet to travel so much and two biggest constraints are time and money and you have again helped me realigning my financial goals. And this right on time, as appraisals are on the card and firs thing I am going to do is start a travel fund. Like you suggested, I spend 100% of what I earn through travel and this is a big cushion.
Great post! I didn’t start traveling until later in life and wish I hadn’t waited. I save a lot of money by walking 4-5 blocks away from the city center/tourist area.
I am a huge fan of off season travel. It is an amazing way to save money and get some great deals. Selling unwanted items is a great way to make extra cash when you have stuff to sell.
The best part is to save the flight and hotel cost by traveling off season. And it is true one steady income is must to continue traveling. Somehow need to save a little. Thanks for sharing your tips!
These are all great tips. My goal this summer is to sell stuff that I no longer use and put it toward a “fun fund.” I’m a huge fan of offseason traveling as it is usually much cheaper and that way I can spend more money on food as that is a big part of traveling to me.
Wow! These are really great tips for travel savings. I need to give a closer look to the stuff I do not use and sell that unwanted stuff. Also, I’ll make sure a part of our income goes to the travel kitty each month. I agree with you on the offseason discounts and early bird flight prices. We generally book tickets in advance except for those last minute plans. We love to try local cuisine and I agree what’s the better place to eat an authentic meal than at the local vendor. Thanks for sharing this great post! 🙂
Great post! I love your lead and how the quote in the bank inspired your thought process. Saving to travel, yes. One less latte a week and suddenly you have $4 more per week to put aside … it adds up. Planning is also key, but sometimes, the plan is to be flexible and look for last minute deals. For example, a a young couple on a recent Antarctica trip we were on saved a bundle and only managed to afford what is ordinarily a very expensive trip simply by waiting until the last minute to look for last minute fares for unsold berths. You can do this for airfare, hotels, theater tickets and much more.
Some good tips, although obvious ones for the seasoned traveller. Would have been good to read in a bit more detail – for example, how to get cheaper airport transfers, but I suppose this is so unique to each country
Awesome, I think that off the season is usually makes a big difference and also we can avoid the huge amount of tourists too.
With the food, I agree that local is the best to eat. Never understood why some people stick to Mc Donalds or the same food that they can have in their country. I love travelling smart and the best price for the best comfort! 🙂
Being a frequent traveler, I can easily relate to this blog. I am a backpacker so I always stay in cheap hotels. That saves a lot of money for me. I also eat from street and not fancy cafes. And of course, nothing beats traveling in off season. A penny saved is a penny earned which translates to more money for more travels.