Five Beginner’s Tips For Cutting The Costs Of The Travel Lifestyle

If there’s one excuse for not traveling, it’s usually because of the cost of doing so.

Sure, traveling isn’t the cheapest thing to do in the world, but that doesn’t mean it has to be extraordinarily expensive either. And considering the fact that there are literally millions of people in the world who travel all the time and manage to do so while staying financially afloat, what is there to think that you can’t do the same as well?

Here are five beginner’s tips for cutting the costs of the travel lifestyle:

Tip #1 – Travel To Cheaper Countries

 In other words, travel to countries or cities where your money will get you farther. It’s well known that Europe is an expensive destination to travel to, and so are places like Australia, New Zealand, and China.

In contrast to this, you can always consider visiting places like Latin America, southeastern Asia, or Africa, each of which are far less expensive to travel to.

In addition, remember that the cost of airfare is always changing as well. Every person boarding your flight will have purchased the tickets at different costs, and you don’t want to be the person who purchased the tickets at the highest price.

Keep yourself up-to-date on the cost of airline tickets, and eventually, you’ll come across a good deal.

Tip #2 – Accumulate Rewards Points

 Do you have a credit card? If so, and assuming it has a rewards system, for every dollar you spend you should get anywhere from 1-5% back on your plan that can be exchanged for rewards points.

Better yet, some credit cards will have awesome sign up bonus offers, where if you spend a certain amount of money within a certain amount of time, you’ll receive an extremely large amount of points to spend on airfare or hotel rooms. For example, you may have to spend $3,000 in the first three months, and in exchange for that you’ll get 50,000 points for travel.

Credit cards are definitely a superior choice for buying things overseas than pre-paid debit cards, which also have fees per transaction in addition to forcing you to pay a sign-up fee and a monthly payment too.

Tip #3 – Use A Cheaper Remittance Service

 A remittance service allows you to exchange one currency to another. This way, you can exchange your American dollars for the currency of your destination. It’s always a good idea to have cash on hand in the local currency in the event of emergencies.

To use a remittance service, you’ll have to pay a small percentage fee (usually 1-3%) plus a margin on the currency exchange rate.

You can research remittance services to find out which ones offer a small fee in addition to a guaranteed exchange rate so you can figure out how much you’re going to need to spend.

Tip #4 – Be Selective About Your Credit Card(s)

 The easiest way to buy things while traveling abroad will simply be to use a credit card. While most credit cards to allow foreign transactions, the problem is the fees are often very high. It’s not uncommon to have to pay between 2% to 5% for every transaction that you make. While that may not sound like much, it can add up very quickly.

Fortunately, some credit cards don’t charge any fees for foreign transactions at all, while also enabling you to accumulate rewards points to exchange for hotel rooms and flights.

Tip #5 – Eat Out Less

 There are few expenses that will add up as quickly as eating out repeatedly, especially when you’re traveling and don’t have much food (or perhaps none at all) in the pantry or refrigerator.

Furthermore, you may be understandably tempted to eat at restaurants that are marketed specifically for tourists. These kinds of restaurants are almost always more expensive, and sometimes the quality of the food isn’t any better.

Instead, use restaurant travel apps ahead of time to research the cheapest restaurants in your area, or better yet, just buy food at a supermarket and eat in your hostel or hotel room.

Cutting The Costs Of The Travel Lifestyle

 These are just a small handful of the many different ways that you will be able to cut the costs of traveling and spend time seeing more of the world.