How do you afford to travel so much?

The Matthew Family (Duke, Dan, Kiwi and Trista) in front of our modest home in Oklahoma City

We have been slacking on our Croatia blogging but I did want to make one post before we get into that. Probably the question we get asked the most is some variant of how do you afford to travel so much.  I can tell you the answer is not that we are wealthy by any stretch but basically many conscious decisions are made that help us travel more.  I am going to talk about the two big things that have helped us to be able to afford travel easier in this blog.  The first one is obvious which is if we spend less money travelling we can travel more.  The second one is that we spend less money while we aren't travelling so that we can travel more.   Easier said than done, right?  Bear with me for a bit while I walk through how we save money in multiple areas and prioritize spending.

How We Save Money While Traveling

I used to have a major misconception that travelling to other continents was horrifically expensive.  As a result Trista and I spent basically a decade going to Hawaii, all-inclusive Resorts in Mexico and the Carribean and Las Vegas.  While these types of trips can be fun and have a time and a place, the redundancy and lack of actually experiencing different cultures gets very old.  The line of thinking that international travel has to be expensive doesn't have to be correct.  Our recent trips to Portugal and Thailand which spanned two weeks both cost about the same or less as spending five days in Maui.  So lets talk about some ways to make your travel both cheaper and in many ways more rewarding.

The biggest hang up for a lot of people is flight prices.  You decide hey I want to go to Paris.  You get on Expedia, put in specific days, and up pops the price to go and OH MY GOD IT IS $800 TO FLY TO PARIS!!!  From personal experience, I used to think that was the case many many times years ago.  I would then go look at flight prices to Cancun and they were half as much in cost and before I knew it I was going to Mexico for the 7th time.  Mexico is an amazing country, don't get me wrong, but as I've said before, doing the same or similar trip over and over is not very enriching and can be a waste of one of the most precious commodities we have in life, our time.  We don't live forever, we only get so many vacations so you need to make them count.  And this is coming from someone who has been to Mexico almost 10 times and Las Vegas over 20 times.

The biggest key to finding good flight deals is flexibility.  On both dates and on where you are going.  Start by making a bucket list of places you want to go.  Make it a long list.  That way when a deal for one of those places comes up you are ready to pull the trigger.  Also realize that in almost every part of the world there is a regional airline that is dirt cheap (especially if you are just doing a carry-on bag although more on that in a bit).  In Europe there is RyanAir or EasyJet.  In Asia there is AirAsia.  In South American there is Avianca.  These airlines will often times have one way flights for less than $50.  So if you find a flight deal to London for a good price but you really want to go to Spain, book the flight to London and hop over to Spain on a regional flight for dirt cheap!  I will save this for another blog post and go into more detail but sites like Google Flights and Skyscanner allow you to easily search through tons of date options to find the best price that works for you.  Also don't be afraid to drive to your nearest large airport if you don't live in a city with one.  We have flown from Dallas to Amsterdam and Dallas to England round trip for under $350 twice now.  Of course it is a pain to drive 3 hours each way but when it saves $700 or so it is definitely a way to lower your cost which again is the goal so that we can reach our goal of traveling more.

Pick a destination that is not that expensive.  The best website to see how much stuff costs is www.numbeo.com.  If you go to Paris or London or Iceland things will be insanely expensive.   But we've come to realize there are so many other incredible places out there that are very cheap.  In Portugal for example beer was around $1 and a seafood dinner for two with a bottle of wine was $30-40 including tax and tip.  If you are on a budget search around for a place that has prices that are in line with what you can afford.  If you are traveling for two weeks the difference between paying $40 vs $150 for every dinner is around $1,500 in and of itself.

The next thing I will say is travel light.  Those bag fees add up especially if you are going to multiple locations on multiple flights.  Get the maximum sized backpack you can get that actually fits carry-on sizing for all airlines.  I suggest the Osprey Farpoint 40 liter backpack for this which fits the sizing requirements for even the more strict airlines like Ryanair, etc.  The other thing this does is make you pack lighter and realize you need less stuff while you travel.  Which makes you save money because you aren't buying tons of stuff for your upcoming trip. You don't need all that stuff, you KNOW you don't use everything you take so stop doing it.

Where you stay is obviously going to be another huge expense when traveling.  We have really gotten into valuing location over pristine 5 star accommodations.  If you expect or need 5 star accomodations that's fine but it can be something that really limits your ability to travel because it eats up a ton of your budget. Often times that $50 Airbnb or hotel will actually be in a better location because you are among the people who actually live there rather than in the center of the tourism crush.  You will see and experience more of how a person who actually lives there lives.  You also many times have easier access to restaurants that the people who live there eat at. One thing I have realized over the years is that if you spend your whole trip surrounded by tourists and the only locals you encounter are the ones driving your Uber, hosting your AirBNB stay or serving you food/drink you are doing it wrong.  The biggest purpose of truly traveling is experiencing culture, which is hard to do when you never interact with people/food/housing, etc. of that culture.  We use a few booking sites regularly (hotwire, booking, Airbnb).  Hotwire we almost always use their unnamed hotel option,  use this link if you're interested! https://partners.hotwire.com/Gdm66
We've used that option a hundred times and had only one minor issue.  Just make sure that the stars, location match up with what you're wanting and has a 80% or higher user recommendation.  It has saved us a ton of money throughout the years.

Recently we've started using booking.com and have found some great deals on there (as always, price shop between several sites to get the best deal).  With booking the more you book the more deals you'll unlock.  Currently we get 10% off some hotels because of how much we've used their site.  And that extra 10% saved helps,  right?  For their site, check out this link (you'll save $20 and we get a $20 credit, win/win!):
https://booking.com/s/2cf4aa36


That brings me to my next topic, food.  Again if you are at a restaurant or bar and the only people there are tourists and you do this for your entire trip you are doing it wrong.  There is nothing wrong with doing this some, we do, as some of these places are really cool.  But typically the better food and better priced food will not be in these places.  Venture off the beaten path, eat street food, go to that restaurant that looks "scary", don't be afraid of navigating a restaurant where no one speaks English you will make it through I promise.  Hit the grocery stores and buy some food that doesn't exist in the states to try for lunch.  All of these will be experiences that you will not forget.  Speaking of grocery stores, one of the best ways to save money and experience a local culture is to hit up the local supermarket or fresh air market!  The prices are so much lower, and if you're spending a day hitting up the sites, go buy some snacks and interesting non perishable type foods into your bag and have a picnic or whatever in between or at the sites you're visiting.

Lastly I think one way to save a lot of money is don't pay admission to do tons of museums, tours, palaces, etc.  Do some of this because it is really cool, just don't make your entire trip about seeing the inside of some ancient building while listening to a tour guide or a guide on tape.  Not only is this not the best way to really experience what a culture is like it is extremely expensive in many places even cheap destinations.  They also tend to be extremely crowded and painful experiences.  Go walk around town, take in the vibe of a place, find a random place to have a beer on a patio and watch the world happen around you.  To me these are much more valuable and enriching experiences and they cost next to nothing.

How We Save Money At Home

Ok now on to how you save at home to travel more.  It seems simple on the surface but spend less money by not buying stuff.  Trista and I both drive cars that are approaching a decade old, with only one car with a car payment that is thankfully not long from being over.  We live in a house that is far less than what we could afford in a part of the United States that has a lower cost of living. We don't buy fancy clothes and mostly shop at the outlet mall.  I know for me I have gotten in the habit of having 2-3 niceish shirts and the rest of the time I mostly wear jeans/shorts and t-shirts.  I had the same cell phone for over 3 years I just finally had to replace because the battery needed to be charged three times a day. Trista and I haven't bought a piece of new furniture since before we got married almost ten years ago. Don't buy the latest and greatest gadget, it won't make you happy and you don't need it.  Learn how to cook so you don't feel the need to eat out as much.  Drink craft beer at home where it is four times cheaper than the bar.

Kiwi and Trista hiking the McCauley Hot Springs trail in Sante Fe National Park

Also if you don't have much money you can find amazing travel here in the United States that isn't expensive at all.  One of the best trips Trista and I took was driving out to the Santa Fe National Forest and just camping in the mountains for four days.  It cost next to nothing and was amazing.  Go visit a national park, etc.

 Hopefully this has helped give a few of you who have had that question some idea of how we do it and given you some idea of how you can travel more as well.  As always, feel free to hit us up on Facebook or comment below if you have any questions.  Until next time...