Traveling to new places can be exciting and thrilling. Research indicates that exploring new places helps boost your immune system and mental health and can help you live longer.
There is no doubt that traveling is good for your physical wellbeing. Traveling is a great stress buster, boosts happiness and satisfaction, enhances creativity, and can help you reevaluate and reinvent yourself.
While we can say good things about traveling, it is imperative to note that traveling can be stressful and expensive for some. If you’ve been worrying about how your need to travel exceeds your financial resources, realize that you are not alone. Fortunately, there are solutions to help you travel to new places as you want on a budget.
Plan in Advance
When you plan to travel on a budget, you need to be creative. Planning ahead of your travel is key here. Planning your trip means taking advantage of travel deals, cheaper air tickets and seat sales, and finding accommodation that suits your needs and budget. With all the time in your hands, you can afford to shop around, wait for flash sales, and only pay where it makes sense to do so.
Traveling on a budget means taking advantage of every little opportunity that comes your way. Sometimes you may need to sacrifice some comfort and convenience to extend your stay as long as you want. Planning in good time will give you the right mindset and budget to work with. Even if your earnings are little or have vacation loans for bad credit, you can still make your travel dreams a reality.
Planning your travel early also gives you time to craft a perfect itinerary. When you have limited time, plotting out your ideal day-to-day can be challenging. Taking time to craft how you’ll move between destinations, which days you’ll be traveling from point A to B, and what will be your plan B can help you have a clear vision of what to do on your trip.
Find a Job Abroad
If you are an adventurous person, work and travel can be perfect options. The good news is that there are plenty of opportunities overseas that you can grab as long as you are not picky. A job overseas doesn’t have to be a new career you are starting, but just a means of earning money for travel. The opportunities you can take advantage of include au pair, bartender, hostel worker, waitress/waiter, dive instructor, and yoga instructor, among others.
As an au pair, you’ll be taken in as a live-in caregiver to help your host family look after children and conduct some housekeeping duties. In exchange, you get free accommodation and a small salary. If you are a skilled bartender, you can easily land a job overseas.
Working as a hostel worker can be a great way to interact with other travelers while adjusting to your new location. The great news is that you can start as a volunteer to earn a free room and avoid visa complications.
With tons of seasonal restaurants around, you can easily land a waitress/waiter job if you have experience. Hold onto your dive instruction certification as dive instructors are needed almost everywhere. Whichever job you choose, be open. Most of these jobs don’t require prior experiences or advanced degree qualifications and often come discounted as they are considered hard to do.
Find a Travel Partner
A travel partner is someone you can share some of your travel costs with and save heaps during your travels. Traveling with someone can be fun and useful as you get a chance to take the pressure off you. Traveling with someone takes patience and requires a lot of compromises.
You’ll have to learn how to bite your tongue and brush off some arguments. Since you’ll spend a lot of time together, it’s important to choose your travel partner to make your journey worthwhile carefully. If you plan to travel with someone with no shared history or background, it is impossible to predict their behavior while you are away.
Have some common interests with your travel partner, as common interests will determine how you’ll spend your time on your vacation. Avoid extreme people, agree on expenditures before leaving, and keep the age difference between 5-10 years.
Time to Go!
Now that you have a perspective of all things that make traveling exciting and affordable and all the wonderful things traveling does to your brain, it’s time to pack those bags and go! Remember to hold on to aspects that you’ll find pleasurable. For instance, if you loved the food in Paris, recreate such feelings you had during vacation by learning how to cook French food.
