Overseas Travel - Totally Doable on a Budget!

I love traveling but it always seemed to me that traveling overseas was way outside of my budget. I know I was not alone in my thoughts, the cost is one of the first things people comment on about overseas travel in conversation.

Before we got together, my guy had traveled extensively, I had seen his adventures on FB and was SO jealous. When we got together, his travels and my desire to travel was definitely a big topic of discussion for us.

When we planned our first big trip, I couldn't believe how inexpensive it really was by planning pretty much everything ahead of time.

In the last 6 years, we have spent 3 weeks in Europe twice, 3 weeks in Thailand, and right now we are gearing up to head to Spain for 10 days.

Venice!

I am a teacher and my guy opened his own law practice in our small town a few years ago. Just to be clear, we are not rolling in $$. Travel is a priority for us and we do make concessions in other areas of our life. We drive used cars, live in a small house, and put extra money toward our travels when we can.

Plane Tickets on the Cheap!

We start planning our trips between 6 months to a year out. By we....I mean mostly him. He is the pro for sure! Our trip to Spain was planned in the least amount of time because he happened to notice in January that the tickets over to Madrid were around $300 round trip for each of us! You can't beat that price! I will say..... it helps to live in a constant state of wanderlust and to be checking airline prices on a regular basis, just in case a deal like this pops up!

Travel within Europe is incredibly inexpensive. We have traveled by plane, train, and automobile. Budget airlines like Ryanair and Easyjet within Europe are the way to go. Flights can be cheap as 20 euros for each person!

$$ saving pro-tip - Carry-ons only! The two of us only bring a backpack and one bag with us, no matter how long we plan on traveling. No baggage fees and saves a ton of time since we don't have to wait at baggage claim. Research airlines for their carryon policies!

Accommodation!

Once we lock in our airline tickets, is when we start seriously looking at accommodations. We are pretty flexible in regard to accommodations and by flexible I don't mean we compromise in regard to cleanliness and comfort. We have stayed in a variety of hostiles, apartments, B&B's, hotels. The accommodations in Europe do tend to be less expensive than in the States.

This is the part that takes up the most time. There is extensive research in regard to location, proximity to places we want to see, public transportation, places to eat, etc. We read reviews from multiple places and try to look at as many photos as we can find. Once we narrow it down to 2-3 places in each of our destinations it is time to really look at the details and our must haves list before we make a final decision.

We use Bookings.com to reserve our accommodations. Most places have a book ahead and pay later policy. Some places give a discount if you pay ahead. Be sure to check for those sorts of discounts to save big! Up until about a week out from our departure, my guy checks every few weeks to see if there have been price drops on any of the other places we looked at. If there has been we change to a different place to stay. We have been able save a fair amount of money doing this.

Things To Do!!

The next step is making a loose itinerary of the things we want to do and see. Make a list of museums and tourist attractions, places to eat or certain foods you want to try.

For Spain, we are planning on taking it pretty easy but we do have a few must see places. We are in Madrid for 5 days and then we are traveling to Mallorca for the rest our vacation. We are planning a day trip to Toledo from Madrid but other than that we intend on seeing some sites in Madrid and keeping it pretty low key in Mallorca.

I know for sure we want to eat paella, iberico ham, tapas, and churros. We have researched the best places to try all of those things and where the best places are for tapas bar crawling! The Culture Trip.

Where ever you plan on going and whatever kind of vacation you want, you definitely need to have some kind of itinerary, knowing you will need to be flexible. There is never enough time to do it all, make sure to account for jet lag, weather, and time for rest and relaxation!

$$ saving pro-tip: some museums and tourist attractions have free or reduced admission days. Check your list to see if any of the places you want to visit offer these types of deals and take advantage!!!

Sunset in Santorini

If overseas travel is something you have been dreaming about, stop dreaming and start planning and saving!