How to Navigate a Budget Travel Lifestyle 101:
What do you like doing for fun? As many would respond, traveling is one of their top responses. So my follow up question is, what kind of traveling do you like? Do you enjoy to budget travel? If yes, what do you like most about budget travel? If you’re not a budget traveler, what type of traveler are you?
Because of the conventional, work routine, most people are limited by the number of days out of the years that they can travel. Depending on how many PTO (Paid Time Off) days most have for the year, traveling can be tough. On the flip side, some choose not to travel as often due to expenses. Which is why I chose to pick up how to budget travel.
Coming from working in a corporate setting for 2+ years, I totally understand why you can’t travel as often as you’d like. You need to work a certain number of hours in order to gain that additional day off from every paycheck. And because you have projects and deadlines to meet, your days aren’t the most flexible, which leads you to miss out on really cheap, affordable flights. Not your fault, so I totally understand. Trust me. I’ve been in corporate and always felt stuck due not being able to plan out my destinations due to the number of vacation days I didn’t have. But this didn’t really stop me from traveling as often as I’d wanted to. So I picked up on how to budget travel in order to take long-weekend vacation days and miss only one or two days from work in order to have the flexibility to travel as often as I wanted to.
In 2019, I’ve been traveling consistently month over month, whether it was in my local backyard (hello New York City), or whether or not I chose to fly out to another city. And as I’ve been recently exploring mainly within the United States, many have been asking me how I’m able to afford traveling as often as I do. My immediate answer is because I’ve been practicing how to budget travel.
For that reason, I’m going to sharing a couple of my personal tips and tricks on how to budget travel in order to travel as often as I do. Picking up a lifestyle of minimalism and how to budget travel is my style of traveling. As it is not the right fit for everyone, there are a few things that you could potentially consider if you want to learn how to save a couple of extra dollars on your trips. These tips will no doubt help you save you a couple of dollars and like the saying, every single dollar counts. And since I’m currently budgeting as a full-time freelancer, it finally hit me to slow down and control my spending habits. If knew me back at home, I used to swipe my credit card like there was no tomorrow. But now that I’m actually living up to that budget travel lifestyle in order to survive, listed are a few minor tips and tricks that have personally been helping me survive my travels.
1. Never pay for water again
I’m a few days out of New Jersey and guess what? I still have never paid for a single water bottle yet. If you know me, I I drink a lot of water and refuse to leave a watter bottle out of my bag. On average, I drink around 20 cups of water a day because I used to have a really hard time digesting my food, and I want to stay hydrated all the time.
So how in the world have I not spent a single penny on water yet? As I’m actively living a budget travel lifestyle, I know that water is one of my bigger expenses. In my backpack, I carry around my 001. Vacuum Bottle Polaris stainless steel water bottle from Proof Exists. With this water bottle, every time I go into a coffee shop, restaurant, or any dessert place that looks like they have clean, filtered water, I always ask them if they can refill my water for me. I’ve never been told no so every single time that I’ve been visited one of these shops or restaurants, I purposely try to chug at least an entire water bottle while I’m there so I stay hydrated for a while and immediately ask them to refill my bottle up for me again. This way, you can stay hydrated and have more water to drink from for the rest of the day. Plus, when you chug water, you become full because you’re filling your stomach up with liquids. Plus, you don’t have to worry about your hunger for a good amount of time, too.
Additionally, if you like going out to bars and enjoy night life, always ask the bartenders for a cup of tap water. Most bars will always give you a cup of water with ice, so take advantage of that and balance out your drinks while drinking water at the same time. This not only helps with not getting too drunk at the end of the night, but it also prevents hangovers the next morning. What a win-win situation!
Fun Fact: the best place to get even free water is at Starbucks. People think I’m weird, but I love drinking hot water by itself. So when I go to Starbucks and ask them to fill up my water bottle, I always ask them for a cup of hot water too. Try to get additional water in a grande cup, and now you just got two free sources of water. This is the best way to stay hydrated as you’re trying to budget travel because we all need water to survive, right?
2. Carry around mints and granola bars and practice intermittent fasting
During the Summer of 2019, I’ve practiced intermittent fasting for about 3 months. Yes, in the beginning it was really hard adjusting to not eating for hours at a time, but I’ve learned to cope with my hunger by being more productive with work at the time, along with my extra-curricular activities.
If you’re not familiar with what intermittent fasting is, it is simply a practice of eating only for 8 hours of the day. To many, intermittent fasting might just sound like a diet, but there are countless number of health benefits of this fast. Not only does intermittent fasting help with getting you lean again, but it also forces you to learn how to gain energy from your natural body. Talk to any other budget travel expert, and they will probably give you the same advice.
Back at home, it was more uncommon for me to buy food because I wanted to save money to travel. I saved a lot of money by eating at home and packing my lunch from home all the time. And now that I’m traveling, I initially thought that it was going to be tough for me to start eating out all the time. To be quite frank, it hasn’t been too bad after all. And since I don’t have a singular place to stay in order to cook, I knew that I had to start budgeting on food.
With the help of intermittent fasting and having a budget travel mindset, I don’t really start getting hungry until around 3PM – 4PM. It helps that I’ve never been a huge breakfast person as back at home, I’d technically skip one to two meals per day. I’ll eat once around late afternoon and then will snack on a granola bars at night to sustain my hunger.
The longest I’ve gone without eating has been 16 hours but feel like this number will go up soon. However, I’m not entirely strict on my fast. If I break the fast and need to eat outside of the 8 hours per day, I will. If I feel really weak in my bones, of course I’ll go out and eat. But unless my body gives me these types of signs, I naturally have a lot of energy to sustain me throughout the day.
3. Eat at restaurants that serve big portions for reasonable pricing
Adding on top of intermittent fasting, choose to eat a restaurants or hole in the wall joints where they give you bigger portions for a fraction of the cost. The cost of food adds up quickly, and you want to heavily consider those expenses because that is what will give you your energy, right? This tactic benefits not only your stomach, but also a shift in appreciation and mindset.
Learning to control food intake helps a ton with portion control. The less food options available, the more it helps you appreciate the value of food. As I’ve been learning more about budget travel, I’ve realized that gluttony is a sin and is something that I’m now actively meaning on getting better at.
I’ve been so spoiled with my mother’s amazing cooking back at home that I’d eat till I hit a food coma. Not only is this bad for my stomach, but sometimes it also makes me feel selfish about my food intake. Growing up around New York City, my heart aches because of the number of people on the street with who have absolutely no idea when they will eat again. Back at home, I’d eat till my stomach pops since I binge eat a lot. I mean, now that I don’t have the privilege to do so, the beginnings of my new, budget travel lifestyle has been mentally training myself on how to control the intake of my food.
Although it’s only been a few days since I’ve been traveling full time, I feel like I have a lot more energy not eating half the amounts I would back at home. Maybe it’s because I’m learning to appreciate the value of food these days, but I’ve never felt so good about my personal health. I mean hey, they say that you are what you eat, right?
4. Learn how budget travel by backpacking your trips
Don’t you ever feel like whenever you go on a trip, you realize that you don’t wear half the clothes that you bring? Don’t you end up shopping in larger cities? And you realize that you just paid an additional $40 to check in your bag at the airport? Unless you want to showcase that you have a different outfit everyday on social media, I get why you feel the need to pack a lot. At least for myself, there are times where I forget that I pack certain things, which prevents me from being able to bring back items purchased back home.
Start to budget travel and calculate the exact number of things that you need to allow you to survive the amount of days that you’re away for. Some of these things includes, how much lotion and face appliances do you need for a week? How long can you go with wearing the same jeans or leggings? To be completely honest, I’ve been wearing the same leggings for the past 3 days and I feel perfectly fine. I mean, don’t you do that anyways at home? How many debit or credit cards do you actually need on a daily basis? Instead of bringing your entire wallet, try to only bring one debit card, one credit card, and maybe a backup credit card in that case.
5. Always ask for discounts
It doesn’t hurt to ask others if they have any type of discounts, right? What’s the worst that can happen to you, someone saying no, right? If you think about it, most stores don’t market or want to showcase that they have an additional 10% off their products for the day, unless it is a limited promotion going on in order to increase foot traffic into their store.
When I was picking up my rental car at ACE Rent-a-Car, I simply asked the guy who was helping me out if there were any discounts that he could give me since the price of my rental was extremely expensive. I can’t wait till I’m 25 years old so I don’t have to pay the underage fee anymore! But since there was nothing I could do about it and as this car has been the biggest expense of my trip thus car, he actually went into the system and looked into all areas where he was able to give me a potential discount. Luckily, he was able to give me a small discount and I saved $8 on my car rental! Now, $8 doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you have absolutely no idea when you’ll ever get paid again, $8 is a lot. That is the price of one Chipotle bowl that could last me two meals. And yes, because I love food and Chipotle, I do reference all my money savings to how many potential Chipotle bowls I could’ve bought.
Another way to take advantage of discounts is asking stores if they have student discounts. My mom doesn’t like it when I do this because she doesn’t think it’s authentic, but I always carry my student ID card from Rutgers University with me at all times. Especially when I’m shopping at the mall, I never forget to bring this card because a lot of stores will give you student discounts than you think. A few that come in mind are Loft, Ann Taylor, J. Crew, etc.
6. Budget travel to cities where you have family and friends
My first stop during my travel series was the DMV area. DMV is the acronym that stands for Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia. I think it was a coincidence that I happened to find cheap flights that departed from Maryland as I have a lot of friends in the area. And since I’m close to a lot people down here, they were able to house me for free. To be quite frank, I had absolutely no idea where I was going to stay until the day I went down to Maryland. It’s awesome being able to know people in certain areas that you want to visit because if they are open enough, they probably will want to house you regardless.
If you visit cities that you have family in, that’s even better win-win situation because they’re definitely not going to charge you for housing. Plus, they are probably going to want to treat you out to food too!
7. Don’t be scared of strangers and download the CouchSurfing app.
If sanitary isn’t an issue for you and if you are open to reliable strangers, the CouchSurfing app will be the most valuable app that you’ll ever download. CouchSurfing is an app that people use to either open up their homes for fellow travelers on a budget (like me), or as obviously written out, for travelers looking for a place to stay. A couple of my friends have used the CouchSurfing app to find places to stay while traveling and have become best friends with their hosts. On the flip side, I’ve even met people who host on CouchSurfing and they love it so much because even when they’re not traveling, they feels like they are traveling because of the type of openness and bonds created with likeminded people.
If you’re sketched out about the app or do not feel safe using this app, every single host and traveler has reviews and ratings on their profile page. It’s really cool because when you sign up to use the app, you will be asked mandatory questions that show your interests, such as, “What is your favorite book?” “What music do you listen to?” “What’s the craziest travel experience you’ve had in your life?” This is one of the most genius travel apps out there, especially for people who are budget traveling. Plus, if you’re an extrovert like me, it’s a great way to meet people from all around the world.
8. Travel to cities with your family’s gym membership. If not, here’s how you can work out at a gym for free.
Back at home I’d use my sister’s gym pass at Blink Fitness since she only uses it on the weekends. Instead, my sister works out through a program called Class Pass, which allows you to book various fitness classes all around the world at gyms that partner up with Class Pass. And since my sister opted in for the package that includes the gym membership at Blink Fitness, I’d take her pass during the weekdays while she took classes in the city. Obviously, you want to make sure that your gym is not just a regional gym, but international. I love how Class Pass is offered internationally so that if I’m traveling abroad, I am able to still get a workout in while traveling.
When signing into Blink Fitness, all I have to do is state my sisters phone number and I am now able to use the machines at the gym however I like! On the other hand, since every single gym offers showers, you can budget by taking empty tubes to refill your shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. Sometimes while you are traveling, I’m sure you don’t know how long you will stay in each country for so you don’t want to buy a huge bottle of shampoo. And even if you’re budgeting a couple of dollars on travel sized shower appliances, being able to fill up your tubes with shampoo, conditioner and body wash will be the best blessing of your life.
But let’s just say that you don’t have access to any membership, most gyms have a trial period that will let you work out at the gym for a couple of days for free. If you’re traveling to a city for only 5 days and you don’t want to break your workout schedule, find a gym that offers a free trial membership and inform them at the end of your trial that you want to cancel. Easy as pie.
9. As awkward as it may sound, always ask for free stuff.
This is my absolute favorite one because some people don’t understand how I get so many things for free. My motto is that if you don’t ask, how will you receive? When you’re at restaurants or at coffee shops, don’t you sometimes see mistake orders? Or food lying around the side that isn’t touched for about an hour? I mean, the worst that can happen is the cashier or waiter saying no, but you learn to own up to that no. Make sure that you show authority over someone saying no to you and continue to work around getting what you want, wherever you are.
One of my biggest life expenses is coffee. I focus the best when I can sit in a coffee shop and pump out content, but that obviously means that you have to buy coffee in order to use their space. Unless you are at Starbucks. But, if you really need to save that $3 for a bigger expense, ask the barista if they have any mistake orders lying around the side. This sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But I’ve gotten so much free coffee and pastries this way. Yes, there are times where I feel awkward doing this, but you’ll never know if you don’t ask. It’s crazy to even think to even do this since almost every single barista who’s ever given me anything for free has become my friend. No joke. Sometimes it sounds silly asking for free things, but if you come off in a way where you’re approachable and friendly enough to hold a short conversation, these workers will feel your sympathy and out of empathy, will start giving you things on the house because of your genuineness.
10. You need to build up a sales-y type of personality to survive a budget travel lifestyle
This is probably not an easy tip to offer, so I’m emphasizing this more to all you introverts. Do me a favor and do your absolute best to break out of your comfort zone. Start off by challenging yourself to make conversation with strangers and start asking ridiculous questions. Not only will you learn how to break out of your comfort, but it will also teach you how to network and build up relationships you never thought could flourish.
So now that you’ve built up the courage to break out of your shell to create conversations with strangers, I’m going to tell you first that I’m honestly so proud of you. It’s not an easy thing to do but if you’re desperate, you’ll make it work somehow. Now use your magic and start reaching out to brands, companies, people, hotels and other small to large businesses if you can create a partnership with them. Instead of just learning how to budget, don’t you also want to somehow make money while doing so? Assuming that you are trying to grow and leverage your social media platforms, use that to your biggest advantage. Show brands what kind of services you can offer as if you were worth equivalent to the biggest guy within your niche. Convince brands and companies that would potentially be missing out on the biggest marketing opportunities if they chose not to work with you.
I am so thankful that I didn’t listen to all the voices around me that I should learn to just put all my focus onto one platform. People would tell me to focus on blogging and then once I master that, scale on YouTube. Some people would tell me that I’d have to focus on growing my Instagram account to 10k followers or else brands wouldn’t want to work with me. CUT ALL THE BULL! You are your own person, you have your own opinions, so if you find enjoyment from editing photos, creating videos, writing and networking, why give up ANY of them?
I am so thankful that I have been consistently pushing out content across all my channels so that when I do reach out to brands, I show that I can add more value than my competitors because of my scalability and skills that I’ve acquired to reach a bigger audience. So as I am continuously reaching out to brands to work with someone like me whose just trying to survive out in the wild, why wouldn’t brands want to work with my hustle?
LADIES, YOU NEED TO HEAR ME OUT ON THESE TWO BUDGET TRAVEL HACKS
11. Cut your makeup wipes in 4 pieces
This might sound like the silliest advice but is the most efficient form of budgeting. I personally use the Neutrogena makeup wipes to take off my makeup and as someone who doesn’t ever wear a full face of makeup, I use only ¼ of one makeup wipe per day. Not only does this allow me to quadruple save on beauty expenses, but I also get all of my makeup off of my face! No joke.
Typically, a 2-pack of Neutrogena wipes at Costco holds 25 individual wipes for each pack. With tax, this will cost you about $9+. Assuming that you wear makeup every day, this means that it cost you $0.18 to take makeup off your face every day. But, if you cut each individual makeup wipe into four pieces, divide that number by 4 you now have 200 days of makeup wipes to use from. Now, it only takes you $0.05 to take off makeup off your face every day. You just saved yourself buying makeup wipes every 1.67 months to 6.67 months. Crazy amount of savings, that’s a little more than half the year!
So the next time you choose to use an entire makeup wipe, do me a favor and just look at the amount of the wipe on the wipe that you aren’t using and are throwing away. Obviously, if you wear a full face on every day, you might want to cut your makeup wipe in half instead of in fourths, but at the end of the day, you’re still budgeting on additional beauty expenses!
12. Buy large pads and cut them in half
The struggle is real, isn’t it? Especially while you’re traveling, it is the most annoying hindrance having your monthly visitor coming to say hi. And since our period flows heavier in the beginning of our period than towards the end, we don’t know how many pads, panty liners and tampons to bring with us. Who knows exactly what I’m talking about? And doesn’t it seem like we always tend to get our periods right before we leave for a trip?
So instead of buying pads in all different sizes, just buy large pads. When it’s the beginning of your period, feel free to use larger pads as a whole and as you are ending your period, cut your pad in half and use only half a pad at a time. I’m telling you right now, this works so well and will save you dollars. Feminine hygiene products are expensive and adds up over time and there is absolutely nothing we can do to avoid this expense. Ever since I could remember, I’ve always had really heavy periods. But throughout time, I’ve learned how to budget by learning different ways to not waste feminine care items.
On average, a pack of large 20-pack of pads from Always will cost you about $6. A pack of regular 18-sized pads from Always will cost you on average $6 as well. So what I do is buy the large pack, skip the regular size pads, and buy a pack of panty liners. My favorite are the Panty liners from Kotex, which are amazing when you are ending your period and will only cost you $5.12 for a 129-pack at Walmart. And because you’re only using a panty liner when you are ending your period, panty liners can last you up to an entire year. If you’re a tampon user, honestly girl, hold in your pee for as long as you can. I’m the type where I need to change my tampon every single time I use the bathroom but if I know that I need to use the bathroom twice in an hour, I’ll hold in my pee for the entire hour so that I don’t have to waste another tampon. The feeling is annoying, but your wallet will start pleading with joy.
13. No matter how much doubt comes your way, do NOT ever give up.
I do admit that there have been plenty of times where I question myself if I can actually make it. As these false lies have been attempting to put me down, I always remind myself why I decided to quit my job to travel in the first place. I do my absolute best to feed myself with uplifting information, or simply ask others to keep me accountable and pray that I will never give up. If you feel like you’ve been called in this world to share your dreams and passions with the world through budget travel or the higher like, why on Earth would you let anything, or anyone bring you down?
Overall Budget Travel Experience So Far
As it’s only been a couple of days of traveling full time, I’m sure that I’ll add more onto this list. However, these are my 13 budget travel hacks that’s been allowing me to survive my journey so far. Overall, living a minimalistic, budget travel lifestyle has allowed me to appreciate things I used to take for granted. Some of these things include binge eating, spending money on materialistic items and learning to be even more open to hearing people’s stories.
Although I do crave certain foods at times, I’ve been learning how to deal and cope with my taste buds in ways that I haven’t had to consider in the past. Throughout your minimalistic, budget travel journey, remember to always be open minded to all the possibilities around you. There are people who are more open and willing to talk to you than you think, and who knows? Maybe that person is the next person you meet will be the reason why you are able to travel for the rest of your life, budgeting or not.
You might also be interested in…
>> Read More: Why You Should Travel More Often
>> Read More: Feen Coffee, Huntington Beach, California
>> Read More: Things To Do In Jejudo Island, South Korea
