Do you dream of travel, but think it’s just not in your financial realm of possibility? We have a few ideas that make travel more accessible than you think! Would you believe that we’ve had multiple ocean view accommodations for only $35 USD/night or that we’ve found a way to have the cost of our flights almost entirely covered? We love travel and have no plans of slowing down as our family grows, so here are a few ways we have found that we can travel without going into debt for it.
1. Prioritize where you spend your money
There is no right or way to spend your money. Everyone’s financial circumstances are different. Not everything that we do will work for you and your family, but we want to share the ideas and beliefs that we have in our family that place traveling as our number one priority. We live in California. It is insanely expensive to live here. Not only is our real estate incredibly high, so are our taxes. Not just our income taxes, but our car registration, our gasoline, our property and sales tax. If you live here, you do not have much money left over after you pay your bills, so prioritizing your disposable income is paramount. We are not millionaires. We aren’t trust fund kids. We are real, normal every day Americans who need to budget and plan if we want to stretch our dollars.
Our family mantra is “collect memories, not things.” The emphasis is on family. We are united in this effort. If one of us collects memories and the other collects things, we aren’t gong to make much impact and we should find another mantra. We don’t care about status or having nice things. We don’t spend our money on tattoos. We don’t drink or go out dancing. We drive two Kia cars. We don’t buy expensive clothes or jewelry. Our kids also have very modest wardrobes. Our idea of a date is getting a $5 California burrito and eating it at the beach. We rarely eat out. We have a small and old house that we work on ourselves. We don’t go out much. We are pretty simple people who live well within our means. To many people, this is boring. We are okay with that. Why do we live the way we do? Because we want to see the world, and given our circumstances, we cannot afford to do all of the aforementioned things and have money to buy four plane tickets and experience the world. Some people may be in that situation, but we are not, so we need to sacrifice our status and our possessions in order to be able to make this dream a reality. When you see us around town, we look like we are just getting back from the beach and some people even mistake Mike for a homeless person from time to time. Those dollars that could be spent on hair highlights, fake eyelashes, expensive purses, nice cars, expensive toys, a nice wardrobe are better saved for flights and hotels.
2. Be flexible on WHEN you travel
If you are trying to travel in peak summer or around Christmas, you will have a very hard time finding travel deals. Traveling during off-season, is your key to saving big time. Sometimes it is cheaper to leave a day or two or a week or two before or after what you were hoping. Using low fare calendars that sites like Kayak and Google Flights have, will allow you to see how much you can save by adjusting your desired travel dates just slightly. We have saved hundreds of dollars per ticket by just booking whenever it is cheap. One day earlier or later can mean hundreds of dollars saved.
3. Be flexible on WHERE you travel
We want to see so many places in the world. There is at least one country on every continent that we are constantly looking at prices. When we find good deals, we book tickets. Maybe we wanted to go to Portugal, but South Africa popped up on our radar for a steal of a deal. Portugal isn’t going anywhere. We can go later. If you have to go to a certain place during a certain week, the chances aren’t as great of finding cheap flights.
4. Stay at AirBnBs if you are a family
Hotels are great, but they’re expensive. AirBnBs are less expensive and typically have kitchens and much more room. We typically prefer these to hotels, as they are more affordable and allow us to save money by cooking our own meals. Having a separate room from the kids is nice too! Our goal is to spend less than $100/night on average in each country. In some countries, this is easy: We never spent more than $30/night in Cuba, Sri Lanka or India. In some countries, its much more difficult (ie: France, Spain). A great way to offset vacationing costs is to rent out your house or apartment while you are gone. This may not work for everyone, as it definitely has its risks and drawbacks, (it is a lot of work and you never know what kind of people are staying in your house and what exactly they are doing while they’re there) but it is a great way to offset the costs you accrue on your trip. This method has paid for the flight portion and sometimes more for a few of our last vacations. We would not recommend basing your trip off of this plan, because you never know if someone will rent out your house during the dates that you are gone and keep in mind that the would be renters may also cancel their reservations. It isn’t recommended as a strategy, because there are many uncontrollables, but there are definitely perks if all of the stars align!
