How We Travel Like We Do

I get asked from time to time questions like “How are you able to travel like you do?”, “How can you have a job and travel like that?” and “How can you afford it?”. While there are different circumstances in everyone’s life and some that you just can’t control that would hinder the ability to travel but in many cases you can do things that allow you to travel a little more. I’ll explain some of what I have that gives us the time to travel and some tips that could help you travel as well.

Things Specific to Our Situation

There are a few things that allow us to travel a little more often that are specific to our situation. Some of that being we do not have kids at the moment so we do not worry about school holidays which tend to be the most expensive travel times (we limit summer travel). I also have a job that gives me a 9/80 schedule. This schedule allows me to work extra hours Monday-Thursday so I can take some Fridays off as part of a normal schedule. This allows me to go on trips from a Thursday Night to Sunday Evening and I will not miss any work at all. I also have a job that provides paid vacation so I can take some time off during the year. This gives me a little more flexibility to travel. Even if you don’t have some of these items specific to our situation you can still find ways to travel a little more like we do as we are not wealthy by any means.

Tips and Tricks We Use to Travel More

We use multiple ways to earn miles and point for us to make our trips cheaper. Outside of earning miles through flying and staying in hotels there are many other ways to earn miles. One common way that we use to earn miles in through our credit cards. We have multiple airline and hotel credit cards that we put our bills on. We pay the cards off at the end of the month and earn all the miles from those bills. Depending on what credit card you get they also have other benefits like the Delta Airlines credit card gives you a companion pass each year (buy one get one airfare), British Airways gives cardmembers 10% off flights when you use the card, Frontier gives you a $100 voucher if you spend $2,500 in a year on the card and you can get airline lounge passes as well amongst other benefits. Sometimes you can get massive bonus offers for getting a new credit card. There are also programs such as Rapid Rewards Dinning (for Southwest, other airlines have them as well) where you can get extra miles for dinning at certain restaurants around the US. We use also shopping programs from time to time that gain you miles. For United Airlines there is an app called MileagePlusX that allows you to earn miles from buying gift cards to everyday places from AMC Theaters, Jiffy Lube and so many others. We have earned thousands of United Miles that way. You can also take short marketing surveys to earn miles (I do it on the bus to work work example). These are some of the ways we earn miles that has helped us over the years. It can be a lot but if you are serious about traveling on the budget this is a way do it.

Watch for flash special deals from airlines and hotels. For example Southwest has offered companion passes if you fly in a particular month that is good in January and February. If you can make it happen you have buy one get one free airfare for a couple months (we have done that before but this year we got a year long companion pass). United Airlines Visa card is offering bonus points if you complete certain things like using your card internationally, swiping the card a certain amount of times and other bonus activities. Every mile and point helps.

We try to book our trips off peak (lower prices and less crowds) so know the peak travel times to the places you want to go. Shoulder seasons are the best options for cost while not dealing with as bad a weather. For example we went to Costa Rica in May and November (the shoulder months right before and after rainy season) and to Iceland and Alaska in October at the very beginning of their winter but before things got too cold for travel. We went to Austria, Czech Republic and Hungry in January. Yes it was cold (9 degrees at times) but we got to see everything we wanted to at a much lower price. We were upgraded to a presidential suite in Prague and had some private tours as well.

To maximize your miles and discount your trip consider if you have two or more passengers paying for one passenger and using points for at least some of the others. Some airlines offer Miles+Cash where you can pay partially with money and miles. If you do something like this you can discount your flight without using all your points on one trip. You can do this with hotels like Hilton where you can use points and dollars. We do this often to discount trips as much as possible without using everything we have points wise. We can then go on more affordable trips.

Before we book a trip we look at multiple factors before making a decision. Just because airfare is affordable doesn’t mean the destination is right for a budget at that time. We always check airfare, hotel and rental car (if needed) before we go on a trip. We have decided against going on some trips due to high hotel and/or rental car prices even though the flight was very cheap.

Look into places like Costco when it comes to booking rental cars as you can get a discount that can help a little bit. Rental cars can be the most expensive part of a trip so any bit of discount helps. At times you might consider skipping the rental car as we do in some destinations and booking tours such as through Viator that pick you up at the hotel and take you on guided tours. Sometimes this is more cost effective than doing it on your own. Also look into destinations that have good public transportation where you might be able to skip a rental car. East Coast cities and in Europe in many cases there just is no need for rental cars. Hop on-Hop Off Buses can be a great option to affordably see a city as well.

Look to fly out on days like Tuesday-Thursday or Saturday as they tend to be the cheapest days of the week to fly. For our weekend trips We take advantage of cheap Thursday fares but sometimes run into higher Sunday fares we might use points for.

Looks at other travel options such as taking a cruise if you really want to go some place. A cruise might be much more cost effective than outright flying somewhere. The trade off is you spend less time in a location but sometimes the cost is worth it.

The last bit of advice is all about choices. When we are at home we usually only eat out once or twice in a week and its to lower cost restaurants like Chili’s or maybe a fast food restaurant (not all ways but in general we follow this rule). We do not get drinks at restaurants or at bars usually since its higher cost and we look for deals and save on things like groceries (coupons and sales). We watch our electricity usage by keeping the air at 78 or higher during the day and we re-cycle our cans at a scrap metal yard to get a little cash. Most of the clothes we buy is from Costco on sale or from sales at Kohl’s or a discount store like TJ Max. The moral of the story is while at home we generally live frugally so we can have the money to travel and save up for things like retirement at the same time. It is all about choices but if you are interested in traveling more think about that before you rack up a high restaurant bill or go and buy expensive things. Its not to say we don’t splurge from time to time but travel is more important to us than a lot of expensive things. For some that might not be for you but we are happy with how we live.

In Conclusion

Most people would probably consider us extreme travelers having already been to 49 states, two US territories and 42 countries before we have made it to 40 years old. For us to be able to do that we have had some factors in job schedules that have helped us but we also have used a lot of different ways to make things more affordable and living frugally at home. While traveling as extensively as us might not be in the cards for all but you can travel more in some cases if you use the tools out there wisely and you try to live frugally at home. I hope some of this helps you all out there!