11 Proven Ways to Save Money for Travel

Saving money for travel is THE best way to save. It’s not easy, as you likely need to save for other priorities before you allocate your budget to travel. So, we’ve got you covered with some fun, unique ways to save money for travel.

Saving money for travel is a challenge. It’s not easy to save enough money for your dream vacation, but it doesn’t have to be difficult. There are lots of ways you can save money and still enjoy the trip of your dreams.

Remember saving money means more for more trips or meeting your budget for the year.

• You could save by packing light and only bringing essentials on the plane. This will save you from paying baggage fees or checking in luggage!
• Another way to save is by staying in hostels and renting apartments instead of hotels when possible. Hostels often offer private rooms that cost less than $20 per night, saving you hundreds, if not thousands, over time!

Before we get into the various ways to save money to fill up your next travel fund, we’ve compiled some great tips on saving money for travel, so you’ll have an easier time planning your next trip.

How to Save Money for Travel

Let’s get into a step-by-step guide on how to save money for your travel fund.

Step 1: Over typical obstacles in saving money

Money problems are equally important as personal barriers travelers face while saving money. The biggest challenge is that spending money is A LOT easier than saving money.

When it comes to making changes in approaching your money-saving goal, it’s incredibly important to know what people mean by this phrase.

Let’s look at areas where you may find resistance as you take on your savings journeys, such as car payments, debt repayments, medical debt, mortgage, and many others—often valid—the reason for saving. Here are some common obstacles that can make it harder to start saving money:

Materialism

Consumption- or maybe excess- is a massive barrier to saving money. Many people who live in poverty tend towards mindless consumption. Saving money for travel is your ultimate chance to exchange tangible possessions for experiences that are a part of your history.

This is a balance between pure minimalism and willful consumption, and by analyzing your budget and saving goal, we can find areas to improve.

The reward may still be months or years down the route but keep your end-of-day goal of spending money on the travel experience you decided to pursue. It is important to save for an extended trip

See Related: Must-Know Vacation Tips to Maximize Your Trip Experience

Income

Making more money is an extremely efficient means to increase your travel budget. While some of us may think about negotiating a raise, many others will choose to start a side business.

It’s a developing specialty, and there are lots of online resources on how to establish a new source of income.

See Related: Why Are Flights So Expensive Right Now? Factors to Know

Debt

As you enter the red, saving time and transportation may be more difficult. As debt grows, so does the emotional strain on a person’s life. If you’re in serious financial hot water, you might need therapy.

But if you’re having trouble cutting your debt and increasing your travel budget, then budgeting could help. You’ll want to consider counseling for such a course of action, and it was a major step to fall back on another option.

See Related: Things to Know When Flying with Cash

“Life is good” syndrome

The Optimism Bias is a cognitive bias that fuels the belief that bad things tend not to happen to others. It can take time to overcome the hump of saving and paying off debt.

To do so, you must step back, take inventory, adjust plans, and start reducing debt and saving money. Do not let it prevent you from fulfilling your travel dreams. Start taking action.

Step 2: Budget Ruthlessly

Suppose you do what you say you will do, saving your hard-earned money gets much easier. A budget is exactly that. It is a plan for spending your money. Without it, you have only goals.

You save money automatically when you save towards specific goals known in advance. By saving towards a future vacation or another milestone, you can see how much closer to your goal you get every day.

As you save, you know how much you can spend on daily items without pushing yourself back from your ultimate objective.

“Saving for a rainy day”

This phrase is often used as an excuse not to save money. The problem with this mentality is that the rainy day often comes when people are least prepared for it.

Make a budget for your trip and have it account for each day. Start with lodging, food, transportation, goods, and any other expenses. So in 6-month backpacking, a minimum of $9,000 should be in your bank account or savings account before you leave.

See Related: Best Places to Travel in December on a Budget

Step 3: Develop habits that save money

Repetition is the key to success if you want to save money. Once you start developing better habits with your money, you’ll have no trouble meeting your travel savings goal.

Here are some habits that you should embrace to save money for travel:

• Use cash instead of credit cards and save in a jar at home.
• Save in a specific bank account (call it travel savings account to keep you extra motivated) and avoid paying overdraft charges. Ensure that it is an interest-bearing savings account. Even though interest rates are low, additional money to your savings goal is a huge plus.
• Save on friends and family gifts for birthdays and holidays by creating gifts or providing experiences around travel
• Save time (and extra cash) by cooking meals at home instead of going out to eat.
• Save space in your apartment/house by using the library, swapping books with friends, or subscribing to magazines online. You save that one initial investment cost of purchasing a magazine or book. Then you save on transportation because it’s already in your library. If you save time, save space too!
• Save energy by buying items that save on electricity bills (LED lights and other energy efficiency improvements).
• Use ridesharing (like pooled rides) or micro-mobility, like electric scooters, to spend less on essential trips.

By following these rules, you will save money for travel and be well on your way to your next dream trip, without breaking the bank.

Step 4: Start tracking your spending

It’s critical to track your spending to determine where you may reduce or even eliminate it. With free personal finance tracking software such as Personal Capital, you can track your expenses.

You might be shocked by the amount of money you spend every day that feels like it adds up.

When you track your spending habits and expenses, you can get smarter about where you can spend less and what monthly expenses are essential.

See Related: Cheap Castle Hotels in Ireland

Step 5: Make extra money on the side

This is my favorite step, but it should only come after you’ve saved money, created a monthly budget, and even hit your savings goal for your dream trip. Before you embark on a trip to your dream destination, craft a potential plan and roadmap to earning extra cash while traveling.

This is my favorite option, especially if you are going on a long-term trip, because why not monetize your travel experiences? You should view this extra money as an additive to your financial situation (meaning don’t bank on it).

But there are many great ways to make money while you travel. You can sell your photography and videography from drone footage on stock photo sites such as Shutterstock. Alternatively, you can write about your travel experiences by starting a blog.

I knew I always wanted to get paid to travel, so I started ViaTravelers by signing up for a cheap hosting plan on Bluehost, and I was up and running in a matter of minutes. It costs only $3.95/month if you join using our link.

This travel blog ended up being like a journal for my friends and family to track all the awesome destinations that I visited. From there, I was able to build traffic and place advertising to start earning extra money.

Before I knew it, I started doing this full-time. Blogging your travel experiences is a great way to document it and get paid. Who knows, it may even turn into a full-time online business.

There are several proven ways to save money for travel so you can save up sooner and start planning your dream vacation.

See Related: Amex Membership Rewards vs Chase Ultimate Rewards

Best Ways to Save Money for Travel

Let’s get into the top ways to save money for travel so you can enjoy more vacation time and less office time.

Print Out a Travel Cost Map

From Christopher Liew of WealthAwesome

As a visual person, I need to see my goals to help achieve them. While planning for my last trip, I made a list of my top three travel destinations and researched the approximate cost of it.

I then printed out a world map and colored it in those countries. I also put the dollar amount of the cost of the trip in bold red letters over each country. I then hung it up in my office, where I knew I would see it several times daily.

I found that this helped motivate me to save more money for travel and influenced my spending decisions throughout the day in a positive way.

See Related: Priority Pass Review: Is It Worth the Price?

Start Travel Hacking

From Kevin Payne of Family Money Adventure

Travel hacking can be overwhelming if you’re starting, but it’s not that hard to figure out. One way to make it easier is to have a destination in mind before you start planning how to earn points and miles to pay for your trip.

Knowing where you’re going will help you pinpoint the best credit cards to sign up for and how many points/miles you’ll need to cover trip expenses.

You can also focus on getting part of your trip paid for with points, like your airfare. As a family of six, it takes a ton of points and miles to pay for an entire family trip, so often, we try to focus on earning enough miles to cover airfare first and go from there.

Consider the Nomadic Van Lifestyle

From Lauren Keys of Trip Of a Lifestyle

Our favorite way of traveling is by taking road trips in our van. In 2019, we decided to visit every National Park in the US, which would take us from Florida to Alaska and back (along with a few flights to further-flung parks like those in Hawaii, American Samoa, and the Virgin Islands).

When planning our trip, we were trying to find a way to spend 6-8 months on the road without having a nightly lodging cost (hotels, campsites, etc.), so the idea of van life became pretty attractive. We opted for a very small van with excellent gas mileage, given how much we’d be driving.

Our van was bought used, we did very little to it in the way of converting it (literally just a bed on top of storage space in the cargo area), and we mostly slept for free by parking in National Forests, at travel centers, and at places like Walmart.

It worked out surprisingly well, and we actually kept the van even after that National Parks trip as our main method of travel (it’s also our only vehicle, so sometimes we get funny looks loading groceries on top of a bed).

When we do need hotels, we always head straight to Hotels.com. While the pricing among all those comparison sites is the same (the same 2-3 companies mostly own them), Hotels.com has a rewards program gets you 10% off (stay 10 nights, get the next one free).

We’re also big fans of using travel credit cards, but not to get a ton of travel points. Instead of signing up for specific hotel or airline brand cards, we stick with cards with a huge signup bonus, take it as cash, invest that money, and then pay more efficiently for travel expenses as needed.

Airline points could have never been redeemed for our van.

Start a Vacation Savings Fund

From Kristy Marshall of MoneyBliss

In our household, traveling is a priority. It is something we enjoy, and we want to explore as much as possible. We set aside the same amount of money each month into our vacation fund.

The first money-saving tip on travel may surprise you! It does most people when I tell them. This tip applies to bigger trips like all-inclusive vacations, Disney, Hawaii, or many international destinations.

Find a travel agent you trust and vet their price versus what you can get online. From our experience, we have gotten a better deal from our travel agent and have not spent hours scouring for the best prices. Plus, we can start our vacation sooner without all the vacation planning stress!!

For local travel within the US and quick getaways, I prefer to subscribe to a few travel deal newsletters. This is a great way to explore a new place without paying full price. And you can get some screaming deals of 30-50% off!!

Lastly, we prefer the low-cost airline to save on air travel. However, the flight times are either super early in the morning or late at night. Since our airport is a hassle and expensive to park, we pay for a driver to and from the airport.

We pay less than getting preferred travel times and parking fees. For us, part of vacationing is enjoying the whole process. Save money where it makes sense, with little stress in planning, and enjoy the destination with quality time as a family.

See Related: Best Ways to Earn Delta SkyMiles

Cheap Flights Might Not Mean The Best Deal

From Riley Adams of Young and the Invested

If you’re planning a holiday, it can be tempting to go for the cheapest available flights and accommodation. However, this may not always end up being the best choice!

The travel industry knows travelers looking for cheap deals and will often increase prices accordingly. If you want to get the most bang for your buck when traveling on a budget, then follow these tips:

• Be flexible with your travel schedule; don’t leave booking too early or too late in advance.
• Choose to visit during the off-peak season (January/February) or low season (April/October).

By electing to travel during an off-peak time of year, you can save yourself significant money. My wife and I recently chose to travel to Yosemite National Park in time for the final week of off-season travel. We saved over $400 on our 3-day hotel stay due to open bookings available and low competition.

By having the ability to flex our schedule around the busier times of the year, we managed to see the natural beauty of the national park and also save a significant amount of money.

See Related: GetYourGuide vs Viator

Don’t Forget to Negotiate

From Andrew Shrage of MoneyCrashers

Our guide to saving money on travel reminds travelers that everything is negotiable. Yes, including hotel and car rental rates. Book directly with the vendor rather than a third-party booking site (online travel agency or OTA), and you could realize significant savings if you’re willing to ask for a lower price.

You can save more on hotel bookings because the daily rate will increase. Hotels that pay 15% or 20% commissions to Expedia or Hotels.com are often willing to return part or all of that commission to you via lower room rates. Even 10% off the final bill adds up quickly — that’s $50 off a $500 stay or $100 off a $1,000 stay.

See Related: 13 Reasons Why Traveling is Important

Best Smart About Booking Sites

From Daniella Flores of Hiking and Roadtrips

I love using apps like Southwest, Expedia, and Airbnb to save money on travel when I don’t have many points to use. Southwest is best for domestic flights, Expedia for rental cars, and Airbnb for accommodation.

Bonus points if you use Airbnb referral credit for your booking (start sending that link to friends and family!) I give my referral credit to my friends and family for Airbnb, so if I know I have credits to use, I will first book for accommodation because I can get some free nights.

If not, I look through the cheapest accommodations (but with a good location with good walking ability for shops and essentials) on Airbnb, look for good rates for longer stays, and always pay with a rewards card so I earn points for future travel.

I use rewards credit cards for everything in our life, so we are always earning points. If Airbnb or VRBO has no good options, I’ll see if I have any Chase points or Hilton points from past stays to see if I can get a good deal that way.

Then if all of those fall short, I always turn to Expedia because I’ve used them for so long and have had a good experience. The thing with Expedia, though is you won’t always get the best view or room…that’s why they are always a bit cheaper.

I don’t like to waste too much time searching for the cheapest possible accommodation because my time is just as valuable as my money.

But what you can do for an added bang for your buck is when you get to your destination, be nice, and polite, and see if they can throw in an upgrade for your room (every time I did this in Vegas, I got a larger room with a better view by slipping them a 20 and asking if there were any upgrades available and they did it free of charge).

See Related: Do You Need A Rental Car in New Orleans?

Try to be Completely Flexible with Booking

From Catherine Alford of MillennialHomeowner

I recommend using Skyscanner and being completely open and flexible about your destination. With Skyscanner, you can select a week or even open dates within a month you want to travel.

Then you can see which destinations are the most affordable to travel to via flight. You might be surprised to learn that there are cheap flights to Washington, D.C., or a random city in Utah you’ve never considered. Use that information to help you build trip ideas. It’s a fun way to plan, remain flexible about your destination, and save.

See Related: How to Find Hacker Fares

Diversify Your Types of Travel Credit Cards

From Katie Oelker, a money coach for KatieOelker.com

My favorite way to save for travel is to combine different types of credit card rewards. Utilizing different travel rewards platforms allows you to mix and match and save yourself a lot of money.

For example, my husband is a Delta Platinum cardholder, and a lot of times, we will use his points to book some of our family’s flights and my points through a reward platform (such as Citi or Chase) to book the rest.

Or we will use my Southwest points to book flights and use a reward platform to book hotels (like we did for our trip to Hawaii last year).

It can feel intimidating to open a new credit card that will give you points on a unfamiliar platform. Still, we’ve always benefited by having points in different places and combining them to save on travel.

See Related: Best Credit Cards for International Travel

Make Airline Miles a Priority

Holly Johnson, travel expert at ClubThrifty.com

As a family of four, we travel internationally, so we mostly maximize travel savings by earning airline miles to pay for flights. Getting flights covered with miles saves us thousands of dollars on every trip we take, making it easier to spend money on food and activities during our trips.

Our favorite program is Chase Ultimate Rewards because we can transfer points to Air France / Flying Blue for affordable flights to Europe or use points for flights to the Caribbean or Mexico on Southwest.

We use a combination of cards – Chase Sapphire Reserve, Chase Freedom Flex, and Chase Freedom Unlimited – to earn as many points as possible over the year.

We also use Chase Ink Preferred and Chase Ink Unlimited for all our business expenses, which helps us rack up points even faster.

See Related: Best Travel Hacks for Families

Stay Flexible During Your Travel

From Chris Linger & Maricela Soberanes of Up Plex Institute

Do you need a rental car if you’re going into town for a one-day business meeting with no stayover? If you’re doing a one-way trip, the rental car will have an additional drop-off fee.

Speaking of Uber, when traveling through from an airport, there will be an airport fee attached to your Uber ride that is linked to the entire ride, so if you’re traveling a reasonable distance, the airport fee is exponentially increased… think about a short Uber ride out of the airport and reconnect to a different Uber for the long-haul.

Another option is to grab the offsite rental car shuttle to the rental agency and then call for an Uber. No airport fee is involved, and depending on the distance, it can save you a lot of money.

We used this personally as the airport fare for a 2 hr ride would be over $450 for a one-way trip, we did the second option of a ride to the rental agency and then called for an Uber, and the trip was only $130. The flight was just paid for with the savings!

Using Priceline for your travel arrangements: you get added discounts after a certain number of reservations it’s tiered to increase the more reservations you make, but those discounts add up.

Money saved is money earned for you and your business! If you’re trying to save space and only do carry-on luggage, you can downsize your economy bottles of make-up and hygiene items by purchasing smaller containers less than the three-fluid ounce size, using them, and refilling them as you go…

With the travel toothbrush and toothpaste, you can lay out a small portion on wax paper, let it dry, cover it with wax paper, roll it or cut them into individual use pieces and place them in a Ziploc bag.

If your travel plans are flexible during high traffic, be prepared to give up your seat for a credit to the airline. Never take the first offer and ask for a voucher for a hotel or food to add to the savings.

Additionally, some airlines allow you to get on a flight earlier in the day with no fee if you have a boarding pass for a later flight. So if the later flights are cheaper, that flight and then show up at the airport early to get the other. If there’s no room on that flight, you still have your ticket for the later flight.

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