How to Travel More in 2022

How the hell can you afford to travel so much! That is probably the question I get asked the most in person and on social media, so we’re going to answer that today! If you’ve been following me or reading this blog for a while, you know that I have traveled a ton, and lived in 2 different countries as an expat - first Milan, Italy and now currently Beirut, Lebanon. 

I have traveled to about 20 countries including Spain, Switzerland, Bermuda, Colombia, South Africa, and most recently Zanzibar! Before covid, I would usually do about 3 or 4 big trips a year plus a few smaller weekends in the US or Caribbean. Things obviously came to a complete halt in 2020 then very slowly picked back up, and I hope in 2022 I’ll be able to get back to my normal travel speed. 

So here are some of my tips to help you budget to travel more. If you are looking for short term hacks this is unfortunately not the blog for you, but keep reading if you are interested in changing your lifestyle to make your dream of frequent travel part of your reality. 

How to Travel More in 2022

Get Your Basic Finances in Order

So first and most obvious - make sure you have the disposable income that you can use to fund your travel. That means that you have stable employment, you are not struggling to pay off debt, and you have emergency savings. If you don’t have those things covered, then you need to focus on finding your financial footing before you start planning and paying for trips.  Even if you travel cheaply or on a budget, travel is still a luxury and financial responsibilities are more important.

So if you know you want to be able to have more financial freedom to travel more next year, spend the time now to take steps to work toward that goal. 

Consider a Career Change

Number 2, consider a career change. If you want to travel more, there are just some jobs or career paths that are more conducive to that lifestyle. Having a salaried job with a generous PTO policy will make it much easier to get those vacations in, as well as jobs that still allow remote work so you can work from anywhere. The one good thing that came out of the pandemic was how normalized remote work has become, so definitely take advantage of that! Many employers are much more willing to negotiate remote work or a hybrid half in the office half at home model than ever before. 

Again, a career shift will take time, which is why I said this video isn’t about quick little hacks, and it will take time to find a new job that will give you the pay and flexibility that you want, so keep that in mind. 

But if you want to be able to travel frequently as a lifestyle, this is kind of an essential part of it. 

Start Saying No More Often

Most people don’t have an unlimited amount of disposable income, so you need to decide what you are going to spend it on. If you say yes to every birthday dinner, party, girls night out, wedding, and whatever else, you are easily spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars a year that could be funding your next trip. 

Think about how much you can reasonably afford to spend on your social life without compromising your goal to save more for travel and stick to that. Even things like your beauty maintenance can be cut to help you pay for travel, if that is more important to you. So yes I traveled a lot, even before I moved abroad, but I almost never get my nails done, I have still never once had eyelash extensions, and I may set foot in a hair salon 3 times a year at most. 

Take a look at how you spend socializing, on beauty or other miscellaneous stuff like that, and think about what you can reprioritize to make more room in your budget for travel. 

Make it Part of Your Job or Side Hustle

Making travel part of your side hustle is a great way to travel more and save on travel. And I don’t mean becoming a travel influencer because that is a long and competitive journey that is not for everyone. 
But you could start a side business in hospitality consulting, team up with companies that host group trips and offer your services as an assistant or find conferences or events in your industry that you can travel to.  And if you are a content creator or aspiring influencer, there are a ton of ways you can work with brands for free or subsidized travel.  

I have been able to work with brands and tourism boards to go on sponsored trips, but I have also used my own personal travel to pitch brands for sponsored posts. 

For example, when I used to go to Miami Art Basel, I could never get a brand to cover the cost of my travel. But I could book my own travel and negotiate enough sponsored posts from fashion and beauty companies who wanted product placement at that big event, that I ended up getting my expenses covered and had a profit. 

Making travel part of your business also gives you the opportunity to deduct some of your travel expenses on your taxes, but the key here is they have to be deemed necessary and reasonable. 

So for example travel for a conference and staying 2 nights at the hotel where the event is held or somewhere nearby would probably be acceptable. Staying a week at a 5 star luxury resort probably would not be! But I am not an accountant or tax preparer so check with the experts on that one! 

Start a travel account

I recently started a separate travel savings account to make it easier to save for and fund my trips. Usually I would just use my normal bank account and one of my preferred credit cards for booking, but I want to travel more, especially small weekend trips around the Middle East so I decided to get more organized. 

I had a second savings account that I used when I was planning our destination wedding since it charged no fee for international wire transfers. 

Since the wedding is over, I decided to use that account as my travel account, and fund it with a small direct deposit every week just to keep it active and build my stash. It’s small for now, but with my regular contributions and interests that will accumulate I will definitely have enough to put towards travel in Spring and Summer.

I also like having a separate travel fund because it helps keep me from having travel related debt. So even though I use my credit cards for booking travel, I can always fully pay off my balance using my travel savings account. And I can also use that money for expenses when I’m on the trip, since I do have a debit card attached to it that doesn’t charge international fees. 

Plan Trips That Fit Your Lifestyle

This one is important, and don’t get caught up trying to compete with other people’s lifestyle! Not everyone can go on a 3 week long adventure through Europe in the summer, and that is nothing to feel bad about. You can start planning trips that make sense for you and where you are in your life. If you have a super tight budget, try traveling in an off-season to make it more affordable, or even taking road trips instead of flying everywhere. If you have limited time off and can’t take an extended international trip, think about domestic destinations or places that have easy direct flights that you can take in a quick weekend. 

Take Advantage of Credit Cards with Perks

I am not advocating building up credit card debt, so if you know you cannot use your credit card responsibly and pay that balance off in full, then ignore this tip and just skip to the next chapter. But I am a big fan of using credit card perks to finance travel. Almost every airline has a credit card that usually offers perks like free miles, free checked bags, and gives you more flexibility with booking and cancellations. My favorite card is the Delta SkyMiles, which gave me about 75k miles when I opened the account, which is already more than enough for a free trip. 

Plus it also gives you a free companion certificate every year, so every year I basically get a buy one get one free flight. Do some research on credit cards that might make sense for you, and remember to use them responsibly! 

Loyalty Pays Off

One approach to traveling frequently is to just always look for the cheapest or best deal, and the other is to focus on your preferred brands and build loyalty/status with them. I do a little bit of both, and can see that there are definitely perks to showing a brand a little loyalty.  I use Amex and my Delta card exclusively for booking travel, so I always have a ton of points and miles and my husband has status with both Hilton & Marriott, so his points come in handy for booking hotels. 

Before covid we planned to honeymoon in the South of France, and booked the entire week just on points! I’ve recently become a fan of Booking.com for hotels because I love their no prepayment and flexible cancellation policies, and their loyalty program gives me additional room discounts and room upgrades at check in.

Unfortunately there aren’t any Delta flights out of Beirut, so I’m either going to have to find a new preferred carrier while we are here, or stick to Skymiles partners that do serve this area. But the biggest perk of showing loyalty to an airline or hotel chain is not necessarily saving money, but just having more small perks and being treated better as a traveler, so that will make your overall experience a little better. 

Find a Travel Community

If you don’t have friends to travel with it can be a little harder or more expensive to travel more, just because you don’t have anyone to split expenses with and hotel or AirBnB costs can add up. 

And a lot of people, especially women, are afraid to travel alone. Facebook groups, Instagram group travel pages, and themed retreats are all great ways to find travel buddies or go on group trips without having to do all the legwork and planning yourself. 

Guided group trips tend to be more expensive because of the service they provide and of course because the organizers are taking a cut, but if you want the convenience and can spend the money enjoy it! 

And you can get to know people through those experiences that can become your future travel friends, if you find people you hit it off with and want to plan your next trip together. 

Consider a Move Abroad

Moving abroad does come with some big initial budgeting and planning, but living in a new country is one of the best ways to increase your opportunities to travel more frequently. 

I know expats who have moved to Portugal, which has some of the lowest cost of living in Western Europe, and I myself spent 3 years living in Italy and now I live in Beirut, Lebanon. Living in a new country opens up the opportunity to take amazing long weekend trips for a fraction of the price. 

From Italy I was taking cheap weekend trips by train or on low cost airlines for like 50 euro round trip. From Beirut I’m planning weekends to Morocco, Jordan, Turkey, and even all over Europe since there are many flights to major European cities for under $500 and it will only take about 4 or 5 hours to get there. 

If you are interested in moving abroad, check out some of my other videos on planning for your move abroad, and budgeting for that as well.  

Timing is Everything

Everyone was shopping on Black Friday and you wanna know what I bought - trips! There are unfortunately never airfare deals out of Beirut, so I wasn’t looking at anything like that, but there are always flight sales and specials from the US to almost anywhere. 

But since I can’t take advantage of those, I spent more time looking at hotels and other travel perks. I booked hotels for a week in Southeast Asia that were 50% off, and a few small European weekend trips because the hotels had free cancellation and did not require prepayment. Yes, I locked in unbelievable pricing at some luxury hotels and I don’t have to pay for it until I check-in. 

I also got some miles on my preferred airlines because they were 30% off and didn’t expire, so I can use them towards award travel pretty much anytime. 

If you are trying to travel more, taking advantage of fare sales is absolutely essential, but in many cases you do need to have the money ready at the time of booking, which goes back to my earlier point on maintaining your travel fund. I’m going to leave a few of my favorite places to book discounted fares in the description box as well. 

And remember a lot of cities and countries are going in and out of tourism lockdowns, but that can work to your advantage. 

These places will be trying to lure back tourists, and get high occupancy rates, so you may find that you have more flexibility or added perks to sweeten the deal. I think the hotels I booked for my upcoming Asia trip were all ridiculously cheap because the countries I’m visiting had such strict tourism restrictions for so long and they need to entice tourists to come back as soon as they can.  

Get Vaccinated

I know some of y'all are not going to want to hear this, but if you are still unvaccinated, travel is not going to be easy for you. Covid is still a serious problem and most countries that have reopened to tourism are only allowing vaccinated visitors. 

Even if you don’t care about public health, ending the pandemic, stopping the spread of a preventable disease, etc, you probably care about how the restrictions affect you. 

So if you have been vaccine hesitant but want more flexibility and freedom to travel, you’re probably going to have to get jabbed sooner than later, because most countries will continue to have restrictions on unvaccinated travelers. 

So that’s it, thank you so much for watching! I hope these tips help, and if you have any other travel tips I didn’t mention, let me know in the comments below! Are you planning to travel more this year?