Travel the World for (Almost) Free

There are so many people who complain that money is the reason they cannot travel. Even some of my friends express their desire to travel and they wish they had the resources to travel. I try to encourage people to just take the next flight to wherever and just go for it because if you have $1,500 in the bank you can make a pretty nice trip to almost anywhere in the world, including the flight if you start looking early enough.

Now if you need 5 star hotels and resorts when you travel you can stop reading right here because you are right, if you need all of that, money will always prevent you from traveling and there is nothing that will change that except more money. For the rest of you who just want to see the world, it’s very possible to travel on a small budget. I know that travel can be scary especially on a small budget. I often find myself thinking, "what happens if I run out of money" or "what if my prefectly timed I'm only going to sleep on trains for a week plan goes horribly wrong." But I know this adventure will be worth every second I push through this fear. Hopefully, my travels can encourage you to take that next step toward the trip of your dreams. Life is too short to wait for that perfect moment, you just have to do it.

I will not only share tips but document how I save money on my own travels. But I am not an expert. I am learning as I go and will make some mistakes. Full disclosure: I have actually been abroad since August but as a study abroad student I was paying rent etc. so I decided I would start tracking my money spent traveling once I started traveling without rent and school. Now you all might be thinking, “Oh, she’s a student, her parents must be financing all of this.” Well actually that is not true. Since I have been abroad my parents have sent me a whopping $500 (okay, it’s actually a good amount of money but it’s not getting me a week stay at a resort anytime soon) and honestly I don’t really even need much money at this point. I worked over the summer and after taxes made about $6,000. I came abroad with a little over $4,000 after paying my rent, deposit, general purchases, and round trip flight to Spain from NYC costing $886.96. I used flight matrix to find the cheapest possible flight. If you aren’t tied to flying on a particular date I suggest using a flight Matrix to save money on your flight. I will be keeping track of my budget for every country so you can see how much money I end up spending.

Happy Travels!