Advertiser Disclosure

Untitled design 12 how to travel on a budget

How to Travel on a Budget? Cheap Travel Is Easy

Last updated: January 12,2023
Originally Published: March 13,2020
by Jameson Lamie

Points Panda has partnered with a variety of financial companies including CreditCards.com for our coverage of credit card products. Points Panda and CreditCards.com may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities. Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers. Enrollment may be required for select American Express benefits and offers. Visit americanexpress.com to learn more.

The content on this page is accurate as of the posting date; however, some of the offers mentioned may have expired. For more information please read our full Advertiser Disclosure.

How Do I Travel On A Budget? Easy ways to travel without spending so much.

I often get asked two questions about how I travel on a budget for so cheap.

  1. How do I afford to travel so much?
  2. How do I find the time to travel so much?

My answers are pretty simple, and I’m no different than you other than my hobby is travel hacking.

1. How do I afford to travel so much and for so cheap?

I’m good at finding cheap deals on flights, hotels, and travel in general. Getting the right travel credit cards and airline credit cards also pay off because you get member-only deals that’ll get you award flights. If you research travel hacking enough, you’ll get better and better at finding deals.

Sometimes I contribute to frequent flyer websites where I review airlines, flights and travel experiences where I will get paid to do this, but that’s rare.

An even smaller amount of times where I work with different companies where I review their hotel and give them business consulting advice. However, 90% of the time, I’m paying for things out of pocket.

I try to put about 10% of what I make on an annual basis into a travel bank account. This may seem like a lot, but this is my hobby. You may choose to spend these savings on cycling instead. Everyone’s hobby is different.

Untitled design 11 1 how to travel on a budget
Leave right after work and get a return flight for Monday morning.

2. How do I have enough time to travel?

I used to work remotely on a few businesses while in college and whenever I had a break, I would choose to travel. It’s obviously a lot easier to travel when you are working remotely, however as I’ll mention in below, it’s just as easy to do when you have a full-time job.

I make time for it. I actually am working a full-time job at Amazon currently, and sometimes work up to 60 hours a week. So how do I still have time to travel?

Well, one of the main benefits of travel hacking is I can sometimes find $30 round trip tickets to cool cities I’d like to spend the weekend in like Denver.

Maybe there’s a concert I really want to see, or I just want to get out of Houston for the weekend.

 To be honest, this is relatively easy for me is that I’m young, I don’t have kids or a family. A lot of times I’ll fly right after I get off of work, and sometimes return the morning of Monday. A lot of people don’t like doing this. It freaks them out!

But let’s remember the cheap deals that you can get as a travel hacker. Round trip tickets for basically the price of a dinner.

One more thing, make sure you take your paid time off! I have a lot of friends that don’t use their PTO.

Don’t sit around and watch Netflix, go live it by traveling!

Advertiser Disclosure

  • Earn 75,000 Bonus miles after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
  • Earn 2X miles on everyday spend.
  • Earn 10X miles on hotels and car rentals, and 5x on flights booked on Capital One Travel
  • Receive 10,000 bonus miles every account opening anniversary.
  • Get a $300 credit to use on Capital One Travel each year.
  • Unlimited Access to Capital One Lounges and Priority Pass lounges internationally.
  • $395 annual fee.
Learn More

Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser’s responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

Leave a Reply

Leave a comment