How can you travel every month?
A question that I get quite frequently. How is it that I’ve been able to travel every month, or even every couple of weeks?
The truth is, that it’s been HARD work making this happen. Traveling isn’t as easy, or glamorous, or affordable when you do it so often and while also working a full time job, but I had a goal in 2021 and that was to visit a new place every month. Here are my top 4 tips for making it happen:
Why do you want to travel?: Are you looking to adventure outdoors? Get lost in a city you don’t know? Or try a unique experience only found in a certain place in the world? Don’t spend on a trip for the sake of going on a trip and instead identify why you want to travel. For example: I want 90% of my trips to be active, as I’m happiest when I’m pushing and challenging myself physically. Combine that with a love of photography and you’ll find me in a mountain somewhere! The other 10% of the time? I know I want to be laying on a beach somewhere. Know what you want out of a trip. This ensures you don’t have any regrets when you get back from it. Knowing what you want to do also dramatically narrows down the locations you should be visiting.
Prioritize - Traveling every month is important to me, so I treat travel as another monthly bill! Just like you would any other monthly expense, I count this as part of my budget and set money aside every month to make the trip happen. Now, I know that sometimes life can get rough and you may not be able to set as much money aside, so another option I have is to leverage a credit card to pay through a trip! Be careful with this one as it may be easy to get carried away! My rule of thumb? Have one credit dedicated ONLY to travel and don’t let yourself put more than one trip at a time on it. Once you’ve paid that trip off, then you can use your card again. If your trip is important to you, you’ll make it happen.
Leverage your time off - A lot of people think that you need many days off to go and enjoy a vacation. That’s not true. If you’re off weekends, then leverage those weekends. If you have PTO days, then take a few at a time. If there is a holiday this month, plan around that day off. If you plan everything carefully you can really maximize your trip in as little as 3 days! Don’t be discouraged to go somewhere even if it’s just for a few days. At the end of the day, you’ll be walking away from that experience feeling richer. Trust me, I take my own advice… I once took an 18 hour flight to Australia and was only there for 3 days!
Plan ahead - Ask me at any given time where I’ll be traveling to in 2 months and I’ll have an answer! The truth is, I know where I want to go and when I want to go. While this may be an easy tip, be sure of your decision so you can plan ahead! This allows you to keep an eye on flights and research the best prices WAY ahead of time. My recommendation is to search for your destination in Google flights and set an alert so Google emails you every time prices go down! I’ve booked many flights this way. Trust me, it’s not silly to have an idea and check prices to see if it’s doable.
Let me know if anything resonated with you!
Ben