Y'all Come Sit a Spell

There is nothing cheap about travel.

There. I said it.

You can watch airfare like it owes you money. You can compare hotels across six different websites, travel during the off-season, pack snacks, use points, skip the overpriced airport cocktail, and spend three hours trying to save twenty-three dollars on a rental car.

I have done some version of all of these things.

Travel still costs money.

So when WordPress asked for my best tip for budget travel, my first thought wasn’t about airfare or hotels or credit card points.

It was this:

Know your budget. Know what matters to you. Choose your people carefully. And go.

Know Your Budget

A budget isn’t punishment. It’s information.

Know what you can spend before you start planning. Not what you wish you could spend. Not what your friend can spend. Not what some travel influencer assures you is completely reasonable for seven days in Italy.

Your money. Your limits.

Then work from there.

Maybe your budget gets you across an ocean. Maybe it gets you three hours down the road and two nights in a motel.

Both count.

Because budget travel isn’t about taking the cheapest trip possible. It’s about taking the trip you can afford without coming home and wondering whether you now need to sell a kidney.

Know What Matters

This is where I think people sometimes get budget travel wrong.

You don’t have to save money on everything.

You have to figure out what doesn’t matter very much to you.

I don’t need the fanciest hotel in town if I’m only going to be there long enough to sleep and shower. Someone else may consider a beautiful hotel part of the experience and happily spend more there.

Neither of us is wrong.

Maybe food is your thing. Maybe it’s excursions. Maybe you couldn’t care less about a balcony but you’ve dreamed your entire life about seeing one particular painting hanging in one particular museum.

Spend accordingly.

Save on the things you won’t remember.

Spend on the things you will.

That’s not being cheap. That’s having priorities.

Know Your People

This one may matter more than everything else.

Who you travel with is as important as where you go.

Maybe more important.

The right people can make a delayed flight, pouring rain, a questionable meal, a closed attraction, or a spectacularly bad navigational decision into a story you’ll still be laughing about ten years later.

The wrong people can make paradise miserable.

Good travel companions don’t necessarily want to do everything together. In fact, some of the best ones don’t.

They can say, “You go do that. I’m going to sit here with my coffee,” and nobody gets offended.

They understand the budget. They can roll with a change of plans. They don’t need everybody to be having fun in exactly the same way at exactly the same moment.

And, perhaps most importantly, when something inevitably goes sideways, they don’t make it worse.

Choose those people.

And Go

This might actually be my best travel advice.

Go anyway.

Don’t wait for the perfect trip.

Don’t wait until you have enough money to travel the way somebody on Instagram says you should travel.

Don’t wait until everyone can come.

Don’t wait until you’re the right age, the right size, have the right luggage, or can afford the room with the better view.

Go across the ocean if you can.

Go across the state if you can’t.

Take the cruise. Take the road trip. Spend the weekend somewhere you’ve never been. Drive to the little town you’ve passed a hundred times and always wondered about.

Travel doesn’t have to be grand to matter.

There is something about leaving the familiar, even briefly, that changes the way you see things. You meet people you wouldn’t have met. Eat things you wouldn’t have tried. Learn things you didn’t know you didn’t know.

And you come home carrying something you didn’t leave with.

A story. A memory. A different perspective. Sometimes just a really good photograph and an inside joke nobody else understands.

All of it counts.

So no, I don’t have a secret for traveling cheaply.

Know your budget.
Know what matters.
Know your people.
Know your limits.

And then, whenever and however you can,

go. 

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