Many people ask me how to save money for travel. “What’s your secret?” they ask, as if I’d say I actually had a money tree growing in my backyard all along to which they would reply, ‘ahh, it all makes sense now.’
I have a lot of creative ways to save money for travel, and most of them involve giving up some of the everyday pleasures that a lot of people don’t even consider foregoing. I wish there was a juicier answer, but there’s not – you’re gonna have to give up some stuff, or downgrade some luxuries. But it will be worth it!
I’ve been on the road for 7 years now – working different jobs in different countries, budget traveling, and working online/digital nomading. I’m able to travel a bit more comfortably now than I did when I started, but luckily I have ALL my top money-saving tips for travel saved up from my backpacking days.
When I first started traveling I was REALLY frugal. Like, insanely so. I would often have small temporary moments of wishing to be a normal non-nomadic human with the luxuries of a settled life. But, those moments were always followed quickly by the memory that life on the road is awesome and it’s worth pinching pennies for your dream trip. Here are some ways you can do the same!
Creative Ways to Save Money For Travel in Your Routine
Here are some simple changes you can make in your daily routine on unnecessary luxuries to help you keep some extra cash left over for your dream trip.
Not Getting a Membership at a Pilates, Yoga, or Spin Studio or Nice Gym
Gym memberships can add up, and fancy workout studios can add up even MORE. I know we love our cute spin studio, but $30 a class? Really? That $30 could go a LOT farther abroad. This makes me sad, but it’s true, and I have foregone these memberships for many years of my travels.
Seriously, do you guys have any idea how much I love spin?!? It’s my favorite workout in the world. I love all organized workouts really – gym classes, pilates, zumba, yoga, etc. I’ve done many a free week at gyms when I can as well, and I feel like a freeloader sometimes, but hey, what can you do?
Workout reality while saving money for travel is going on runs, doing bike rides if you have a bike, swimming in the ocean or local pools, doing online workout classes (youtube has EVERYTHING), or using free workout apps while laying on a towel in the park or your backyard to stay fit. You can do it!
Say No to Buying Lots of New Clothes, No Matter How Cute.
No, you do NOT need that top…. or jacket… or shoes. Do you have something already at home that would work for the same function? Yes? Then walk away slowly. Trust me, you can do it. Your plane tickets are waiting on the other side. What are you even doing in the store anyway?
Yes, it’s true, cutting down on shopping is a MAJOR way to save money for travel. This specific point is about retail of course, but cutting down on ALL shopping can help you save more and more. Save yourself the heartbreak and skip your trips to the mall. Why not go on a walk instead?
I remember wandering through some shops while traveling and laying my eyes on a pair of REALLY CUTE ankle boots. Like, really cute. I needed them. But then I remembered that all I had was a backpack and that it was summer. Damn it, ankle boots, why don’t you make sense?! Although I’m pretty bad about shopping sometimes, I am still as frugal as it gets and never buy anything that I can’t use on the road.
When You Need to Shop, Do it Affordably
Of course, there will be times where you NEED some things. When you need things, get them affordably! Don’t shop at expensive stores unless it’s an investment item like a suitcase or winter coat that you will use for years. And even if it IS an investment item, can you get it at Ross or Marshalls or TJ Maxx for a discount? Have you looked?
Most of my clothes are from garage sales I go to with my om when I visit home. I dream of the day when I can walk into a shop like free people or LF or a surf shop or something like that, and be able to wander around and browse with the actual possibility of buying something. These days I still wander around these shops, chuckle wide-eyed at the prices, and leave when my lust for the clothes becomes too overwhelming.
Don’t Go to Brunch Every Weekend
BRUNCH IS THE BEST. I think we can all agree on that one. Brunch, to me, is one of the best modern cultural activities (okay maybe I shouldn’t go that far but…). Bottomless mimosas and make-your-own-bloody-mary bars are my absolute jam. There’s nothing better to wake up to after a night out than to put on a cute romper and keep drinking with your friends.
BUT, that being said, brunch is not exactly the most affordable thing in the world and is, therefore, something we mustn’t do in excess if we want to afford to travel. Going out to expensive brunches and lunches is a massive money-suck that would be a massive money-saver if you stopped doing them for a while.
Grocery Shop Intelligently
Now what we have agreed that we aren’t buying expensive meals out and aren’t shopping at expensive places, I have to reiterate that the same goes for groceries. You might be able to save THOUSANDS swapping Whole foods for Aldi or similar.
Try out the budget grocery stores (if you aren’t already) and be AMAZED at how affordably you can get a week’s worth of groceries. It’s really hard to spend over $100 at Aldi or Lidl, even if you try.
Stop Going Out for $15-20 Drinks with Friends
“Let’s Get Drinks!” is said so casually these days, but do you even know how much you spend when you ‘get drinks?’ You might as well say ‘let’s go spend $200 on something that will disappear within minutes and might even contribute to my loss of memory of even spending that $200 in the first place.’ See some data on how expensive it is go to out.
Unless it’s some crazy happy hour or I am in Bali where they are cheap, I try to limit my going out for fancy drinks. Grabbing a few drinks in large cities is one of the most costly things you can do these days.
One drink turns into five into ten and all of a sudden you have spent the amount of money that a flight costs on one night out. I dream of the day that a $15 cocktail ain’t no thang for me, but right now it really is…. I could survive a whole day traveling on that much!
Leave Your Home Plain For Now, or Forego Buying Decor for It
Whether you have a home or not, it can be incredibly tempting to pick up little things for it here and there. A poster here, a plant there. A tapestry here, a painting there. It’s nice to pick up different cool things for your house, especially when you travel. But is this really necessary when you are saving money for travel?
This is true ESPECIALLY if you don’t have your own place long-term – like me. I often get tempted to get cute things for the ‘house I may own one day’ but then I come back to reality and realize that is NOT practical at all.
Save as Much as You Can on Subscriptions and Monthly Bills
Do you realize how easy it is to accidentally spend hundreds more dollars a month on subscriptions you forgot about or hardly use? Firstly, it should be a big priority to cancel any that you don’t use – obviously. Next, a lot of services come with free subscriptions to things like Amazon Prime, Apple TV, or even email service providers or news services. Make sure to know about these.
It’s also easy to save money on things like your phone bill. Sometimes, it’s cheaper to subscribe to international data plans with eSIM than some phone plans in your home country. Or, try getting annual subscriptions to services that offer an annual discount rather than paying monthly. Hint, it’s more than you think!!
Not Owning a Cool Fancy Car
This is not quite a creative way to save money for travel, but more like an OBVIOUS one. Nice cars cost money – not only to buy but to maintain. If you can keep your old car running or get around in other ways, this will open up a ton of money for you to put towards your trip.
I will probably drive my 2008 Nissan until the day I die. Hell, I’m not even home to drive it most of the time. This one kind of goes without saying, but having a nice car is the absolute least of your worries if you want to travel. If it gets you from A to B, you’re golden.
Skip Out on Nice Brand Name Makeup
Another HUGE money-suck? Makeup. It’s absolutely insane how much some makeup can cost, and I know some girls that SPLURGE on it. If you re one of those girs and are looking for creative ways to save money for travel, I know you won’t like it, but consider downgrading to cheaper brands for things that make sense.
I love walking through Sephora and Mac and pretending to consider buying their outrageously priced products. I would love makeup from these places, but I actually own all CVS (the local drugstore) makeup that my mum had coupons for. For general things like mascara and bronzer, the cheaper brands work FINE.
Forego Some Luxurious Self-Care For the Time Being
How much did that highlight job and mani/pedi cost? Can you let your hair and nails grow out for the time being? Do you REALLY need those eyelashes, massages, laser, facials, and/or other procedures that are really nice to have but (sorry to break it to you) not necessary right now?
Try to keep it to only the NECESSARY self-care for one of the BIGGEST ways to save money for travel. PLUS, if you save up enough for a trip to Bali those things are WAYYYY cheaper there (and MOST other countries) anyways 😉
Creative Ways to Save Money On Travel
Here are some things that could save you money on travel itself.
See if You Know Anyone Who Works for the Airline
This is another massive one. If you know anyone who works for the airline, you could reap some flight benefits from them! Different airlines work differently: some have what is called a ‘buddy pass,’ some have different names, and some allow you do go ‘standby’ on flights in a various order or priority.
My dad was a pilot and mum was a flight attendant for my whole life, so I have been blessed with these flight benefits too and trust me they’re VERY beneficial! Standby essentially means that you can take up a spare seat on a plane that is not fully booked (but it is a lot more complicated than that – there’s a whole priority list and hierarchy but you can usually get places with good planning and plenty of patience).
If you have any airline friends, see if you can get in their good graces so you can do this too! But trust me, do NOT use anyone for this or pursue friendships for flight benefits… airline employees will see right through you! If you ALREADY have an airline employee good friend or family member, you may be in luck.
Stay at Home or With Friends When You Can
If you are visiting your hometown, stay with your parents. If you are visiting another town, try to stay with friends. It’s no secret that one of the BIGGEST expenses these days is accommodation, so if you can save on an Airbnb or hotel at times by staying with friends or family, that could be huge.
I stay at home with my parents, in the house I grew up in, whenever I am home. I stay with friends when visiting any city where I have friends. Staying with good friends and family for a bit shouldn’t be a burden – if you’d do it for them they’d do it for you!
Put Some Money into a Travel Savings Account Each Week
Each week, you can even TRACK your savings progress by putting some money away into a travel savings account at the end of each week. You can put a set amount each week into an account, OR you can estimate how much you are saving by cutting out some of the activities above so you can see your hard work paying off directly.
For example, if groceries used to cost you $200 a week but you were able to cut some luxuries down and shop at a cheaper store so they cost $100, put that extra $100 you saved on groceries into the account.
The same goes for makeup (save the difference between expensive and cheap product), gym memberships (cancel them and put the same weekly amount straight into your travel savings), clothes (if you refrain from buying something put the amount it would have cost into savings), accommodation (save the amount you would’ve spent on a hotel if you stay with a friend).
This is a great way to track your progress and stay motivated when you can see the savings growing in front of your eyes. Use an app like Qapital to customize your savings and goals.
Creative Ways to Reduce Expenses While Traveling
Take Buses and Budget Airlines
Get from point A to B as cheaply as possible, so you have more money left over for other things. The cheapest transport in most destinations is usually by bus and sometimes by train.
If you’re traveling by air, RyanAir or its sketchy international equivalent will get you there very cheaply… it won’t be fun but it’s worth braving a budget airline to reduce expenses while traveling. Try to travel with a carry-on only when applicable (ESPECIALLY with budget airlines), and pack snacks for the plane always.
Make Connections All Over the World /Stay with Friends/Homestays
When you travel, you network with people so much more naturally and authentically than in the ‘real world.’ Don’t forget to make connections with people and keep in touch with travel friends even after your trip. Host them when they come to your city, and they might host you when you go to theirs, too!
Even if you can’t stay with international friends, there are many ways to stay with locals while traveling. There are plenty of homestays all over the world, and you can also use programs like workaway, couchsurfing, and more.
The traveling community is understanding and giving, and has such an incredibly pervasive ‘traveler-helping-traveler’ attitude. Many people get joy from showing travelers around their cities, and will be so grateful at friends showing us around their city. Just make sure to always be open to new friendship while traveling and connect with others – just say hi!
Stay in Budget Accommodation + Hostels
Hostels sometimes get a bad rap, but they are truly one of the most incredible things in the travel community. Hostels are more than just shared rooms; they are perfect atmospheres to meet other people, socialize with other travelers, get recommendations from locals, plan your trip, find people to go on adventures with, hear amazing stories, and feel free to be yourself.
There are hostels of ALL different kinds – boutique hostels, adventure hostels, hiking hostels, diving hostels, party hostels, and more. All hostels have dorm rooms for people to share a room, but many (if not most) also offer private rooms too. So if sharing a room isn’t really your vibe (although I encourage you to try it), you can get a budget private room in a hostel and still get the social aspect.
I use Hostelworld to book all my hostels and love how you can use so many different filters, read reviews, see photos, and compare amenities.
Housesitting
Yes, it’s true, you can stay in amazing and unique homes for FREE if you can commit to taking care of some pets in the process! This can be a GREAT creative way to save money for travel AND reduce expenses while traveling – even eliminate expenses entirely!
Night Busses
To save on nights of accommodation while traveling, take the night bus or night train between destinations. It’s not the most comfortable thing in the world but most night busses/trains are not awful and can enable you to kill to birds (transport and a night’s accommodation) with one stone.
Try to Exchange Skills for Experiences or Accommodation
If you have a specific skill – and this can be anything – you can wager it to travel more cheaply. Whether you are a mural painter, tattoo artist, blogger, photographer, computer coder, accountant, editor…. you can use this in creative ways.
Reach out to a boutique hotel to see if they want a mural painted or photos taken. Ask a new tour company if they might need something new on their site or someone to write articles for them. Think of any creative ways to save money for travel using your skills and see what you can do with it. The sky’s the limit and the worst thing that can happen is they say no.
Creative Ways to Make Extra Money to Travel
Look Into a Side Hustle or Apply to Remote Jobs
It’s never too late to follow your passions and start a side hustle – in these days more than ever! There are SO many success stories of people starting side hustles that eventually take over their ‘real’ jobs with hard work and dedication.
It might take a month or 5 years, but starting a passion project is always a good idea. Open that Etsy shop, start that blog, take some freelance gigs, ad you might be able to make some extra money to travel.
Apply to Remote Jobs
The ideal way to travel (at least for me) is to be able to work remotely from anywhere. But how do you get a remote job? Luckily these days more and more jobs are moving online and there’s more opportunity than ever. Depending on how rooted you are in your home or career, you can even become a digital nomad.
In your spare time, peruse Gumtree, Craigslist, Indeed, LinkedIn, and other job sites, looking for and applying to suitable opportunities when you find them. Again, you’ve got nothing to lose.
Work for a Travel Company
If you work for a travel company, you will likely get TRAVEL benefits too! Working for a travel company honestly changed my life and enabled me to do two of my BIGGEST trips (30 days around Australia and 6 weeks camping through Africa) because of a hefty employee discount.
Many tour companies, airlines, hotel chains, and other travel companies offer HUGE employee discounts on their tours, flights, or hotels. So if you can snag a job at one of these – and this can be in a field you are already in, such as sales, marketing, accounting, product managing – you can travel cheaply!
Make Use of Working Holiday Programs/Visas
There are so many countries where you can get a visa and actually work while there, Australia being the most obvious of these. It depends massively on what country you’re from and where you want to go, but there is always a way. Trust me on that. Even if you just work in a hostel or a workaway in exchange for accommodation and food, that enables you to stay on the road much longer and work while traveling.
I made great use of the working holiday visa in Australia (high minimum wage, hello) and will probably do this in other countries as I go on. Working Holiday visas are a major way to save and make money for travel and enable you to experience life in a new place as well.
Freelance on the Side
This can be the same thing as starting a side hustle, depending on what you do. Whatever skills you have, see if you can get some freelance jobs using those skills to make some extra cash. If you don’t have a skill, take some time to learn something new like coding or photography or writing or web design.
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So there you have it. All of these can be creative ways to save money for travel if you just COMMIT!!! Without commitment, there will be no trip. Trust me, I’ve had many friends talk about traveling and never actually do it for a million reasons. Read about how a simple mindset shift can help you commit to taking your dream trip
Follow those dreams, stick to your guns, make it work… if you keep believing it, it will work out 🙂
Passionate, full-time travel blogger with over 230k on social media and 150kMPV blog. Extraordinary photographer with two DSLR's + a drone with a love for capturing candid moments, epic drone shots, and magical compositions. I'm a natural-born content creator originally from California, but I've been on the road for 9 years living, working, traveling, blogging, and photographing my way around the world. I recommend the most amazingly adventurous and unique + boutique travel experiences/stays and helpful products to my audience and write comprehensive guides on my website that have helped millions of travelers so far. I love to inspire people to plan their dream trips, and many readers have given feedback as such. The reach on my platforms continues to soar, especially when combining cutting-edge social content with optimized articles on my high-authority website.