How to Afford Travel Even With Inflation

After a global pandemic, with rising prices and interest rates, an impending recession, and increasing inflation, how can you even afford travel? Here is a list of ways you can still afford travel even during an economic inflation or recession. Remember that travel is a luxury, and should only be second to the bare necessities in life.

However, it is still possible to spend on travel and other things that make you happy even if your money doesn’t seem to go a long way. All it needs is more advanced planning, budgeting, and time.

Have a separate savings account for travel

The first thing to do when you have decided to have travel as a priority in your life is to have a separate savings account for travel. We usually have this on auto-pilot. Having full-time jobs means that we have a set amount of money coming in every month as paychecks. From there, here’s our automation strategy.

• Retirement account contributions (401k)
• Health Savings account contributions (HSA)
• Any remaining money after taxes then gets divided into two accounts: a savings account for travel and a checking account for bills and everything else.

We tend to live off whatever is left behind in the checking account which has been budgeted for beforehand. We have a set budget for monthly housing bills, groceries, utilities, internet, phone, childcare, gas, and other car maintenance and insurance.

If a bill has been unusually high recently, we tend to move whatever we may need in the travel fund to the checking account. This strategy only works if you already have a fully-funded emergency fund as well as if you don’t have any debt aside from a mortgage. If you have consumer debt, try to lower your contributions to the travel savings account and concentrate on paying off any credit card or car payments first.

Be flexible with travel dates

The downside of not having to travel on a weekend is you will have to take more days off work. However, the best way to find cheaper airfare is to fly on a weekday. Traveling from Tuesdays to Thursdays means cheaper prices or better availability when redeeming points.

Hotels and other accommodations are generally cheaper on a weekday unless you are staying in a downtown area where business travelers tend to visit. There are also fewer crowds on attractions on a weekday. While everyone is at work with a 9-5 job, whether in an office or from home, you are out and about exploring.

Off-season travel vs peak travel season

Consider traveling during shoulder or off-peak season. Not traveling during the holidays or summer break considerably lowers the cost of your trip. Some people don’t have a choice of when they can travel – either because of work or family members’ schedules, and that’s perfectly fine. But because of supply and demand, everything is generally more expensive when more people want to go someplace at the same time.

Did you ever notice how crowded a grocery store is when you visit it at 5 pm or at noon? And how there are absolutely no lines when you go at 9:30 AM on a Tuesday? That logic is the same: if you go somewhere when it’s not expected to be busy, you’ll get to do more and pay less.

A list of the busiest (and most expensive) times to travel are:

• Spring Break (usually in March)
• Christmas and New Years Week (December 24th to January 1st)
• Thanksgiving Week (Last Thursday of every November)
• Summer Break (From June to August every year)

Consider alternative transportation

Long holiday weekends are generally more expensive to travel than any other weekend on the calendar. However, if you consider alternative transportation, you can discover more places without spending much. We tend to go on driving trips whenever it is a long weekend in the US.

For example, if you booked a hotel with points on a holiday weekend a few months in advance, there is a high chance that you can get a decent point redemption on a room. By driving to a destination closer to where you live, you won’t have to pay for inflated airfare costs or car rentals.

You can also look for bus trips if you are young enough and can handle being uncomfortable for a few hours. Buses like Megabus and Flixbus offer cheaper rates (even as low as $1) whenever they extend their bus schedule or announce a new route. I have slept overnight on a Megabus from London to Scotland because it is a cheap way to get somewhere new without having to pay for a hostel or a hotel room for the night. I slept pretty well and just woke up once during the stop in Liverpool.

Overnight buses are a great way to save on accommodation while waking up in a new city. The seats may not recline, but if you can rough it out and be able to sleep on the way there, then it should be worth the trouble (and cost savings).

Look for hostels or other shared accommodation options

I have stayed in my fair share of hostels since my backpacking days in Southeast Asia and love them. Now that I’m in my 30s, I’ve recently stayed in hostels on solo adventures (without the husband or the little one), and still love it, but have been pickier with which hostels to stay in.

Hostels also offer private rooms that are typically cheaper than hotel rooms since some of them don’t have ensuite bathrooms. If you are interested or want to read more about hostels, you can read our complete guide here.

With the rise of AirBnB in the early 2010s, we also decided to rent rooms from AirBnB hosts as a way to save on travel. We managed to go to Brazil during the 2014 World Cup and rented a room in the Santa Teresa neighborhood for much cheaper than a hostel was charging. This also gave us the idea to rent out a spare room in the first house we bought in 2015. Renting a room through a host on Airbnb can also help lower your costs while supporting a small business owner too.

Look for and do free activities

After looking for places to stay and how to get to a destination, it’s time to research and plan what to do when you get there. The first thing we usually do is research what are the must-dos in the place we are visiting. A lot of the most touristy places require entry fees, but there are some places that may be free. If you are on a budget, definitely look for these free things to do and visit them all! We find a lot of free things in parks and some museums.

If you can’t find a lot of free things to do, set yourself a budget for every attraction (i.e. $10 or less), as an entry fee. This can help you control your budget more whenever you travel.

Cook your own meals or eat ready-made meals you can get from a grocery store

After you have budgeted for getting to a destination, your accommodation options, as well as activities, you have to think about meals. If you feel that the cost of groceries has gone up during a time of inflation, think how much eating out would cost. A typical lunch out costs $10 to $15 for a fast food chain, while $20 is a minimum for fast casual if you included drinks, taxes, and tips.

That’s why if you can get a kitchenette in one of your accommodation options, make use of it! Cook or buy ready-made food from the grocery store to heat up and eat.

Join team carry-on or pack light with just a personal item

A lot of airlines now charge for carry-on bags on top of the airfare you have already budgeted for. There are certain airlines that still include a carry-on bag with your fare, so compare prices and carry-on rules before you book your trip.

If you are going for only a few days, see if you can survive by just packing your items that can fit in a small backpack. Think of clothes that you can reuse and mix and match to create different looks throughout your trip.

Going to a warm destination? Pack really light clothes that you can roll and don’t crease easily. This helps you lower the number of clothes you will need to bring to a destination.

Travel where the deals are

We have a rule for our trips: if it is not a trip to visit family, we go where the deals are. If the price of airfare to Columbus OH is $80 round trip, we go there. Mistake fare to Japan? We are booking it and hoping we can make a family trip out of it too.

We don’t have set travel plans; instead, we go where the deals are. If it is a place we have never visited before, then makes sense for us to book the deal and figure out what to do in a destination later.

Use Travel Rewards Credit Cards to Generate Points for airfare or hotels

As immigrants to the US, we still have families in our respective countries. My mom is still in the Philippines, while some of my husband’s family still reside in Slovakia. Instead of us paying for flights to both countries yearly, we use airline miles.

These airline miles are accumulated through credit card purchases and sign-up bonuses. We try not to pay cash for our airline tickets unless we are flying a low-cost carrier or there are deals that cover destinations we need to get to.

Similarly, for hotels, points redemptions help us save money especially if prices are high. By using points and miles, we save thousands of dollars yearly which could be spent investing or for other necessities.

Stay close to home – explore nearby cities or your city itself

You don’t have to go far from your city to travel. In fact, why not explore your city itself? Your city or town has parks, activities, events, festivals, and other things to do that you may not have done before. There’s always a preconception that travel has to be somewhere far from where you live, but why not do a staycation? Pick a place in your town or city that you have never been before. Who knows, you may just be surprised at all the offerings your city has to offer.

I find it funny how people tend to overlook the offerings that they have in their city thinking “it will always be there”. But what if it won’t be there? What if you lived in Paris and avoided going to Notre Dame? All it took was that freak fire incident and you can’t even enter the premises anymore since it would need massive restorations. You may need to relocate because of a job opportunity, or something or another can force that attraction to close down indefinitely. Go now instead of putting it off for later!

Ways to generate more income to help you travel

You can only save as much as you can, but you can keep generating more income to help you travel more. Here are ways to generate more income to help you travel even during a recession or in times of inflation.

Invest in index funds to earn dividends

Instead of traveling now, save money and invest some of them to index funds. These index funds will then earn quarterly dividends (or monthly or yearly, depending on the index fund you invested in), which you can reinvest to hopefully grow your money. This can be a cushion for the future – you can use this as a retirement fund or a college fund for your children (if you have any).

If the dividends you earn are enough for you to live off on, then you can use it as an f– you fund so you can quit your job and travel the world if you want to. You don’t even have to invest all of your disposable income now, you can set aside a little bit and let time and the market do its magic.

Start a side hustle – freelance, gig economy, or a small business

Another way to make money to travel is to start a side hustle. You can do freelance gigs – offer your skills, find clients, and start using your spare time to earn a little bit of money. You can even join the gig economy by driving for Uber or Lyft, renting out a spare room on Airbnb or you can even rent out your car on Turo. There are a few other ways to make extra income but you’ll just need to free up a bit of your time to do so.

We gave up a lot of binge-watching TV just so we can have more time to do more productive work. This means working on our side hustles as well as other pursuits that bring us joy!

How to Afford Travel Even During High Inflation or a Recession

You don’t have to stop what you’re passionate about even during a cost of living crisis, times of high inflation, or a recession. All it takes is planning, changing your routines and habits, and a little bit of saving and self-discipline.

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