Travel Tips

10 Ways to Pay for Travel

Traveling is obviously something I love and have since forever. This is a list of 10 ways you can pay for travel to all the places your heart desires you go. I have friends who tell me I’m lucky for all the travel I am able to do and that they could never afford it. It started me thinking of alternative ways to pay for travel, besides mooching off of your parents.

Before I get to the list, I should tell you that I know of travel bloggers that pay for their travel with just their blog. While this is a great way to pay for travel, it’s a little out of a lot of people’s comfort zone or even desire. They work super hard for their travels, even though it looks like they are only having a great time. Is this something I’d love to do? Absolutely. However, I’m just starting on this journey, so I have an alternative list for the rest of us.

Everyday Ways to Save Money

These are mostly simple ways to save money that don’t take too much of your time. I said mostly because some do take some time.

Save all of your change in a jar – You may wonder just how much money you can actually save if you’re just saving change. I will tell you our experience with saving change. We save it all. At the end of every day, we put it in a jar and we don’t take it out. With our change we bought 8 acres of land in Alaska one time and another time we bought a riding lawn mower. Neither took too terribly long either. We’ve done it. It works.

Sell unused, unneeded or unwanted things – Just be sure if you do this, you actually use the money for your travel. Not only will it help you save faster, but you will feel better about less clutter and junk in your life.

Reward credit cards – I know a lot of people are totally against credit cards and that’s okay, just skip this suggestion. However, if you aren’t totally against them, you can investigate to get a credit card that offers you travel perks. For example, we have a Delta Airlines American Express card and we get miles for every dollar we spend. Delta is a great airline for us because it’s one of the few that flies out of our tiny airport. We have paid for trips to Alaska a few times with our miles. The trick is to use it for every day expenses, like groceries , gas and certain bills, like your phone bill, medical expenses and internet with the card you select. Be sure to pay it off each month. You don’t want to carry a balance and have to pay that interest.

Cut unneeded expenses – Expensive coffee runs, lunches out, gym memberships and cable are just a few expenses you can cut. We haven’t had cable in 5 years and honestly haven’t missed it. You can stream just about everything you want to watch.

Ways to Save that Take More Time

Get a second part time job – If you decide on this route, prior to looking for a job, decide how many hours you can work and when. When you decide this, look for jobs that fit that timetable and stick to what you feel you can do. Most of the time these will not be high paying jobs, but if you save all of the money, your trip will be paid for before you know it!

Are you crafty? Sell your talents – What are you good at that you don’t hate? If you like to sew, see if you can take in sewing for people. There are so many people who will pay you to do their mending. Maybe you make something that others will buy. Maybe someone needs help painting their house or you can sell painting you have done. Can you crochet? Make dishcloths or scarves. Dig deep and determine what will help you the most. Again, save every penny you can.

Earn While You Travel

Travel Job – My husband’s job takes us all over the world. It’s pretty fantastic really. We are able to explore new places and really dig in to them. Spending a year somewhere, like we did in Martinique, allows you to find your favorite restaurants or snorkeling beaches. Oddly enough, it also allows you to introduce your local friends to their own country or state. Seriously, it happens.

Become a Tour Guide – Becoming a tour guide might sound like getting a job, but really, it’s a good idea. You can organize tours and charge each person a fee to cover the cost of your trip. You can explore your options here.

Join the Peace Corps – I’ve never been in Peace Corps, but I’ve read about it a lot and while it seems like hard work, it also seems like an excellent way to see parts of the world. It will keep you in a specific area for a period of time, enabling you to really get to know the people and place.

Teach on a Cruise Ship – Again, this isn’t something I’ve ever done, but I have talked to people who have and it sounds great. Basically, if you are an expert or just know something about a given topic, you can trade a cruise for a lecture or two on the trip. Sometimes they even give you a paycheck for your ‘trouble’. One person I talked to said you don’t even have to know a lot about a topic, you can just learn about it for the cruise. How fantastic is that?! If I didn’t get physically sick talking in front of people, I’d be all over this opportunity. My husband would be excellent at it though.

Where Will You Travel

As you can see, there are a lot of options to help pay for your travel, without putting yourself into the poor house. These are just my ideas on 10 Ways to Pay for Travel that I think would not be too difficult. Do you have some other ideas? Leave me a comment below because we’d all like to know.