Many people assume that travel is too expensive and too difficult to pursue. However, the truth is that with a little effort and creativity, anyone can make travel a priority and explore the world without breaking the bank. At the center of all we do lies the simple fact that we prioritize travel, seek out great deals, and stay flexible and open-minded. By following a few key steps, anyone can learn to incorporate travel into their lives and make unforgettable memories along the way. So whether you’re dreaming of a solo adventure or a family getaway, don’t let the perceived cost or difficulty hold you back. With a little determination and the right approach, the world is yours to discover
1. Mindset!
All it takes to travel more is a little determination. It’s so easy to rationalize that it’s not the right time, there’s too much happening, or you don’t have the money. You’ve got to tell yourself you want to travel and then really do it. You’ve got to commit and put aside all the reasons to stay home. If you always have excuses, you’ll never go anywhere. As we’ve committed more and booked flights, we’ve been to more places, seen more things, and had far more fun than we ever thought we would. Set your mind and don’t have regrets.
2. Learn about travel and find your flights.
Now that you’re committed, it’s time to get started. The first thing you need to do is to get yourself acquainted with the world of travel. You don’t buy a car without doing a little research so you shouldn’t buy tickets without understanding prices. There are so many ways to do this. Start by familiarizing yourself with airlines and average ticket prices. Stay caught up on travel news and get on email lists, even if they are annoying. Continue to familiarize yourself with destinations, and the different airlines that fly to areas you may be interested in. Follow travel pages on Instagram and become frequent flyers with different airlines so you don’t miss out on information.
There are dozens of different resources on the internet, but we have narrowed down a few that we really like. They’ve helped us find lots of deals over the years, and they’ve helped us to know what good deals look like.
Flightsfromhome.com – It’s a part of Pomelo but sends deals specific to your home airport.
Flytraverse.com – (Agency in Morgan that often sends out package deals.)
Being familiar with travel news and prices will help you be able to recognize good deals vs bad, and you’ll keep yourself from spending more than you should.
Want to learn more? Check out our post on finding cheap flights.
3. Get Free Flights!
Now that you’re keeping your eyes open for deals and you’re staying up to date on prices, destinations, and airline news, it’s time to make these flights free! The secret? Wait for it… Credit cards!
Credit cards can be amazing! If used correctly, they can build up airline miles and be the solution to free travel. They often have great, easily attainable opening bonuses that eliminate the costs or dramatically reduce the prices, and accumulating miles is super easy. These bonuses and accumulated miles have allowed us to see many parts of the world. We have been able to go to the majority of our destinations for free and have used credit card miles to cover hotels and other forms of transportation.
Our go-to has been the Capital One Venture card. Find out why. I won’t go into detail because there are plenty of other sites that do a better job than we could, but I highly recommend looking into it. We’ve had it for about three and a half years and it’s been great. It’s easy to get miles with and it’s easy to redeem, making it a great card. The Chase Sapphire Preferred is also a great credit card and is probably the best overall travel card you can have. It’s a little more complicated when it comes to redemption and it doesn’t earn points at the same easy base rate as the Venture Card, but it takes the cake in redemption value. When done right, its point redemption has far more worth than that of Capital One.
The other card we have is the American Express Delta card. There was a special bonus with the card and with a little work, we now have 150,000 miles or roughly $1500 to use with Delta.
Credit cards are the way to go if you want to fly free and save money on travel. Of course, pay them off each month and never spend more than you have. If you use them poorly it defeats the whole purpose. Use them wisely and unlock free flights!
There’s so much to discuss with credit cards, and I’ll probably go into more detail at a different time, but don’t hesitate to reach out or do a little research on your own.
4. Book that Flight!
This is the easiest step! Your mind is set, you’ve seen lots of deals, you’ve got miles to use, so now it’s time to book that flight. It’s as easy as that, so what are you waiting for? Don’t hesitate or come up with reasons. You’ve told yourself you want to travel, so do it. Book the flight and figure out the details later.
Staying flexible will make this step a lot easier. Deals come and go quickly and they’re always for random times. If you wait, they’ll be gone, so be open-minded and jump on what you like. You’re flexible, you’re committed, you’ve been following these steps, so book that flight!
Travel does not have to break the bank. Anyone can and should do it. Using these few tricks anyone can travel! Don’t hesitate and don’t come up with excuses. Book that flight and go see the world!
So once you have the flight booked, how do you get good housing rates or rental cars, let’s say in Cancun?
Hey Janice!
There are a couple of different things we’ve done that have seemed to work fairly well. The simple answer to both of course is to just compare everywhere. Look at all the different sites. We like Expedia and Hotels.com but there are plenty of other sites out there. Car rentals are a little more difficult because they don’t have deals or sales. Being loyalty members of certain agencies can help, booking 3rd party, or going with local rentals instead of the big-name places. As strange as it is, Costco actually has really good deals on car rentals and vacation packages. It’s definitely worth looking into. If we can help it we never book cars from the airport. We’ll Uber or metro to an offsite rental agency and it saves a lot of money. Not as convenient but always cheaper. There’s also a site called Turo that is becoming more and more popular. It allows you to rent cars from regular people rather than agencies for a lot cheaper. We’ve not used it, but I’ve heard of good experiences and would like to give it a shot sometime. Booking hotels is a lot similar. We look at multiple sites. One little secret that has helped us a couple of times is we find a cheap rate on a 3rd party site like Expedia and then we call the hotel and ask them if they can go cheaper. It’s worked a few times in the US and in the Dominican Republic it saved us quite a bit of money on an All-Inclusive and they even upgraded us. Airbnb/VRBO is often our go-to though as it can be far cheaper than hotels and has a larger range of low-end to high-end. Hopefully that helps!