Do you daydream about traveling to exotic places? Do your dreams come crashing down when you think about your current financial situation? We don’t think that a lack of funds should ever stand between you and travel. After all, trips to foreign lands are often the most rewarding experiences in life. To help you get on board with these experiences, we’ve put together a few simple steps for financing your travels.
Create a Budget
The costs of traveling may seem so astronomical that you haven’t even taken the time to look at the actual prices. The first step to figuring out how much your trip will cost is to break it down into its component parts and see how much airfare, accommodations, car rental/public transportation, food, activities, and more will cost you. There are several sites, such as Kayak, that will give you good estimates of how much you can expect to spend.
Set Money Aside in a Sinking Fund
Once you have a good idea of how much your trip will cost, you can start setting money aside for travel by placing it in a sinking fund. This is a savings account in which you squirrel away a specific amount of money from each paycheck to help pay for your upcoming trip. You should avoid touching this money. At first, it may be hard to set aside part of your income in this way, but it gets easier with time. Frequent travelers often have a permanent sinking fund.
Sign Up for Travel Credit Cards
Travel credit cards are a must for frugal traveling. When you sign up for a quality travel card, you instantly get a huge bonus of several miles. For instance, with the Alaska Airlines card, you get 25,000 miles. This is almost enough to get a free flight. When you are choosing cards, be sure to look for these sign-up bonuses as well as category spending bonuses and low spending minimums. Also, watch out for the annual fees, which are usually unavoidable with these cards.
Cut Costs
There are several ways you can cut costs in your daily living, so you can contribute more to your sinking fund. This includes getting rid of cable, going with a more affordable phone, or selling your car. You can also reduce your travel expenses by taking advantage of the sharing economy.
When you consistently follow the above steps, you will have no problem visiting places throughout the world.