So ~ $8000USD total

Flights = paid for

Accomodation = paid for

Trains = only 3/9 paid

Itinerary:

Italy - 2.5 weeks

Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland - rest of time (in order of length spent in each)

Essentially is this enough to enjoy the holiday without living too frugally (skipping meals, not doing much, etc)?

I am trying to find a van rental company that offers wifi in New Zealand. Do they exist? Or will I be okay just using hotspot on a sim card? I am only looking to use it for checking and responding to emails for work.

Any van rental companies and tips are welcome as well! This is very last minute lol

Thank you

I’m looking for cheap ways to go from lisbon to funchal, madeira. Is flying the only way to go? The tickets for the days I’m looking into are $270 CAD (185 EUR). Any cheaper options?

Hello!

I'm going on a trip for a week this December, and I haven't travelled much so I'm looking for recommendations of places you've enjoyed or seem interesting.

I'm used to bustling city life, so trips purely for nature, sight-seeing, drinking, or relaxation on the beach etc. don't really interest me. I was thinking of London, to see the museums and theatres, but I think a more unique destination might be a better use of this opportunity.

I really appreciate suggestions!

Hi all! I am 19 and I’m visiting Madrid, Spain (probably Barcelona too) May 14th through 19th from Colorado. I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations on what to do (adventures, sight seeing). I’d really like to hangout with some people my age and see what’s around! Thanks everyone for your help with this. My apologies if this is a vague ask.

Hi everyone,

My partner and I are considering a move to Spain and are trying to budget realistically for life in a small city there. We're looking to understand the bare minimum we would need each month to cover our living expenses while still enjoying a decent quality of life. This includes rent, groceries, utility bills, public transportation, and occasional leisure activities.

Could anyone share their experiences or insights on living in smaller Spanish cities? What should we expect in terms of monthly expenses?

Thanks in advance!

If I were to pick modest hotels (eg 3 stars) and eat out most of the time, how much can I expect to spend per month? Not planning to spend on anything other like partying, classes, etc, strictly food and attractions.

Planning to go to places like Czech, Hungary, Poland, and possibly 1 more like Serbia or Germany! I might add more if I have time

Hey friends!

I'm going to be in Seattle for 3-4 days and have scanned the awesome posts in this sub for good info on what to do while I'm there.

I think the one issue I wasn't expecting is the lodging options to be so expensive. I'm 34, so I thought my hostel days were behind me but I'm not sure I have a choice.

Can anyone give insight on some good places to stay? Either those that are affordable, or those that give a good "bang for your buck" experience? I've never been to SEA before, so I wasn't sure if there's better neighborhoods to look in than others.

I may just have to bite the bullet and eat/have fun cheaply 😅

Thanks!

EDIT: You all have been so helpful already, thank you for taking time to respond. I should have mentioned that I'm going there for a work thing this summer in July, and I'm just going to sightsee for a couple days after it. My perfect situation is rooms for under $150/night, but I'll survive if it's more expensive. I live in a cheap part of the US, so I always get sticker shock whenever I travel to large cities again - that's on me lol.

i live in usa (am us citizen) and I also have a European passport (but never lived there). Going for a month to Italy, should i buy travel insurance or would I be able to see a doctor (if something happens) for free with the EU passport?

Looking at 2-3 mo in SEA. What should we budget? We usually travel cheaply but don't do shared hostels. Private room hostels, public transportation mostly, eating out locally. TIA for any tips 🙂

Looking for a drastic lifestyle Change after loosing my job to being laid off then having a messy divorce. Don’t really want to travel around as I need time to really recharge and recover from 12 years in an abusive marriage. Maybe after the first month or two I will travel but for the most part just want to be. I Just want to sit on the beach and have drinks brought to me ( not really a big drinker but would like to have some happy hour cocktail once or twice a week) nor am I a partying type in my mid 40’s looking at renting an apartment or some kind of cheap accommodation as I think I’m too old for the hostels.

Update: if I were to only have 35k would I have to drastically Chang how long I’m staying in Thailand? I just don’t want to run out of money.

Is this too ambitious?? Fly into Lisbon, a few days in the city. Day trip to Sinatra. Hit a beach town for an overnight on the way to Porto. Porto for a few and an overnight in Pinhao. Heading back to Lisbon yo fly home Will be relying on public transportation.

A little about me. I like to get to know an area and see how the locals live. I don’t want to be rushed. I love to walk and explore. On my last trip to Amsterdam, I averaged about 22,000 steps a day on an 8 day trip. Walking and exploring is a must. Likes - food, music “hipster scene”, craft beer breweries/brew pubs/bars, a good cheese plate. don’t love the museums scene would rather be outdoors and see picturesque places.

ideal travel day in the city. wake up walk to get a coffee, walk and explore. grab a beer and a small bite to eat, continue this throughout the day with good eats in between.

love the outdoors and nature.

any suggestions. or tweak to tinerary would be greatly appreciated. thanks!!

I’m planning to visit Thailand in July/August. I’m starting in Bangkok for a week before moving to Chiang Mai for 5 or 6 days. I’m then trying to decide my next stop after this.

I’m looking for: good food (including of course local Thai food), good vibes, friendly people, good busy bars/nightlife/raves, exploring some nature and chill time too.

I was considering going to Pai for 5 days after Chiang Mai. It looks like it has some nice bars, a nice night market and some good food options. Some nice nearby nature as well. However I can’t really gauge the vibe of the place from social media… On the one hand it looks like it’s just a place for young 18-21 years olds to get very high and drunk everyday (E.g. I see jungle tubing parties on my socials) but on the other hand it looks like a sleepy town with lots of yoga and hippies. I can’t really work out what the vibe there is about, the vibe of the people, the average age range etc?

I’m also considering flying to Surat Thani and going over to Koh Phangan for 5 days (not for the Full Moon Party). I think I have a better idea of what to expect here - nice beaches and a hippie / a woo-woo vibe in places, with a bigger “underground” scene (e.g Eden Saturdays). Though I get the vibe that is isn’t a very particular “friendly” place (in particular the foreigner community and tourists seem to be a little “elitist” within their tribe). And also, I can’t drive, so renting a bike or car will be impossible, so I’d have to rely on taxis.

Which option do you think is best for me? Are my assertions relatively accurate?

Pretty much the title. I want to spend about a week in France or England maybe then go to Morocco. Any tips on saving?

I’m leaving from San Francisco for a week long solo trip in October and trying to decide between these three destinations. Im a male but still looking for somewhere safe to go. I love Japanese food and culture so I think I’d have a ton of fun there, but I also really am interested in the history of Europe and all the cool museums and sights.

Each one of them would have me on the ground for about 7 full days.

The London/Paris itinerary is putting me off a bit because the return flight from London gets me back at 9pm on a Sunday so I would have no time to recover before work the next day. I’m also planning to backpack Europe in June 2025 so I could always hit London/Paris later.

What would you suggest I do? Cost is a factor but not a huge one, since it’s only a week and I’m traveling alone.

Does anyone have tips on how to travel cheaply through the Western US? I’ll be driving so I won’t need to account for t$3 cost for flights and I’m able to bring a significant amount of stuff with me so hopefully my shopping budget will be mostly limited to just food.

I’m primarily wondering about accommodations; I’m okay with camping every once in a while but not sure if I can handle months of it. Any other cost-saving tips for this trip are also welcome! Exact route tbd so if anyone has anything they think are absolute must-sees in this region, please feel free to comment! Thanks!

I’m trying to maximize this as I’ll be out of a job soon. What do you guys think? I know it’s not a ton but if I really stretched it I feel like I could get a lot done.

EDIT: I know this was vague so I’m in the USA, looking to maybe spend it in the West like Idaho/Wyoming/Utah/Washington but I also have always wanted to go to Alaska. Travel would mainly be by car, foot or my kayak. I would plan on camping most of the time and spending barely any money.

It is going to be solo female trip. Has anyone been to Ho Chi Minh ( Vietnam) in late august ?. Will the weather in Vietnam favorable for the trip?. I apprecaite any hostel/accomadations reccs, travel tips/suggestions. Thanks

Over the last three years (35 months) I've made an average income of just about $25 grand a year (USD, pre tax). But I've been fortunate enough to travel to 8 countries while saving to travel for the next couple months, plus contribute to retirement and avoid taking on debt. I figured people might find my finances a little interesting, especially because I don't think I've done anything out of reach of folks who are relatively healthy and financially stable to begin with.

So for the big picture, after taxes I've brought in almost exactly $55,000 after taxes, insurance, retiremenent and other deductions. In the same time I've spent $39,000 on living and traveling (mostly travel, my travel expenses are 53% of my spending). In total I spent around 15 months traveling and 20 months working, for an average travel expense of $1300/month ($45/day) and non travel average expenses of $916/month ($30/day). Of the $16k difference about half has gone to retirement and the rest is savings for my upcoming travel and an emergency fund.

I think my average job has paid around $16-18/hr, which you'll notice only adds up to my total numbers if you put in a lot of overtime. Despite all the overtime, I've been pretty lucky with work, highlights include lots of driving forklifts, living in a tent for 4 months building backcountry trails, and two years of various working holiday activities in Australia. My number one prioty for work is finding places that offer free or cheap accomodation, or involve camping.

When it comes to spending while working my biggest outlay is food. I haven't paid rent since 2021, my phone is fairly cheap, I qualify for medicaid and rely on travel insurance, and I have no outstanding debts. I don't think that I live super frugally, I'll go on nights out and splurge on dinners occasionally, plus I like to spend some money on books, games, activities (I'm unfortunetly hooked on SCUBA diving). My goal is to never spend a ton of money, but always be willing to spend on fun stuff when it comes up.

While traveling I'm pretty damn cheap. I stay in hostels, go to cheap places, eat cheap food, and work for accomodation whenever I get the chance. Besides SCUBA and the occaisional boat tour I don't have a lot of stuff that I spend big on traveling. I walk everywhere or take public transit, I don't buy souveniers, and I'm more than happy to take a night bus or camp on a beach to save a night's accomodation. If I'm being honest I could probably reduce my travel budget by a lot if I refused to buy beer, but that probably won't happen.

Some bulleted thoughts in no particular order:

• Rent is death if you're trying to do this sort of thing. I've primarly lived out of my backpack, and all my possesions back home fit in my car.
• Family and support is very important, it's a huge weight to know that if I ever screwed up I could probably be bailed out by my folks. I can also leave my car at their place and use it as an address. I think it would be possible to live like I do without a robust support network, but it would be a lot harder.
• I'm super fortunate and privilaged. I don't have a lot (or any really) of responsibilities, and I feel confident in my ability to land on my feet someday with a permanent job. Plus I'm a white American male, so I have a pretty high base level of safety when traveling.
• I'm technically ahead of schedule when it comes to retirement, but I could have been putting a lot more money in than I am.
• Along with rent being death accomodation traveling is one of my biggest expenses. I try to work with hostels to get discounts, stay places long term, or spend time backcountry camping to stretch my cash.
• I don't use a travel credit card or airline loyalty program for points/miles. I probably should but frankly I don't understand how they work.
• You're always going to spend more than you expect, so keep a healthy emergency fund. Between a fender bender I paid out of pocket for, some phone replacements, falling for scams, and unexpected medical expenses 9-10% of my total spending has been for things I hadn't planned for.
• If you're under 30, Australia is your best friend. Minimum wage is $18/hour and if you get out of the city it's pretty easy to save a lot of money. Most of my income has been from Australia and their wonderful overtime/holiday pay rates.

Hello everybody, love the community, I've been looking here for a lot of good tips to travel. My idea is to find a website that allows you a multi city flight with anywhere as destination. The idea is simple, would be this:

From "specific airport" to "Anywhere" at a specific date and from "the chosen anywhere" to "another specific airport" on a specific date.

I know it's complex, and I could do all of this manually, but I'm sure there's something that can be automated here, crossing the majour flights company's websites. Thanks all for the information ☺️

Hello, I’m trying to plan a trip to Japan with my fiancé for our honeymoon. Unfortunately, I planned affording this trip by using points from a Marriott bonvoy card that I have been saving up for years and thought the 400,000 points would cover our flights or at least a large majority. It seems after transferring to different airlines the points won't come close, so now I am looking everywhere just to find the best possible pricing. The best prices I can find would be around $1500 round trip each. I’m new to planning trips, so I would really appreciate your advice!

Some considerations:

I’m coming from New York, and have flexible days to go anytime in October or November and hoping to stay 12-15 days.

We don’t really care what city in Japan we fly to because we’re gonna go around to a lot of different places. I’m not sure if a particular regional airport might be cheaper.

Is it still worth to convert all of my points to cover maybe 1/4th of the flight or maybe use them for Marriott hotel stays since they're devalued by a third when changing it to flying miles.

​

Any tips or tricks to make this trip happen would be amazing!

Thanks for your help! I really appreciate it.

When I was in Lisbon, I met this Aussie girl working in an Irish pub. She was doing Worldpackers or something of the like and volunteering in a hostel for accommodation and also bartending at this pub. When I asked her how she got working rights, she just said they were paying her under the table.

Is this a thing? I have bartending experience and am planning a year-long trip (stops include Italy, Spain, Prague and Budapest) and would love to get a gig like that for a couple of months, but seeing as I'm American I don't see how I would have the working rights? And how would I go about finding these jobs where they're willing to pay me illegally ahhhaahah

I'm looking for any and all ways to save money. Just bought my flights.

• England: 2 nights in an airbnb/hostel (getting a tattoo). Taking a train/flight to Glasgow
• Scotland: 7 days staying with a friend (free), site seeing, & seeing Taylor Swift. Hoping to keep this part of the trip really cheap to alleviate the rest.
• Italy: 7 days in airbnbs/hotels with same friend. She isn't into hostels so hoping to split everything at 75 Euros per night. Lots of tourist activities. Planning to skip 1 meal per day to save monies (eat leftovers, etc).
• Free 2 days.. Might stay in Rome til time to go home.

I will be packing 1 backpack as a carry on.. Finding a good pair of walking has proven to be expensive! Luckily Amazon is letting me return things that don't work. I have been selling some of my Taylor Swift collection to keep my expenses to $0 out of pocket. Money isn't actually an issue but I still want to be frugal! I wish hostels were still $30 a night like they used to be.

Headed to Tepoztlán for a little visit to see a friend & to see Mexico! Hoping to hop over to Oaxaca (maybe puerto Escondido area) to surf for a couple days before I fly home. Seeking advice on the area if anyone’s familiar!

In Tepoztlán I have a place to stay but I don’t know much about the area. What must I check out? How’s the culture & community in this area? As far as I know it’s mellow and not much night life. More family oriented with fresh markets and craft fairs.

In Oaxaca I’m hoping to stay in an affordable hostel close to the beach & rent a board & maybe get a surf lesson. How’s the night life here? Is there somewhere else I should consider going instead to check out the surf/nightlife scene that’s affordable?

Gracias!

Not gonna go into too much detail but I have no obligations besides online college and I'm planning to spend around a year between a few different states in the US, planning on spending anywhere from 2-4 months per state.

one goal I have is to get a job at a ski resort which will (hopefully) be pre-emptively sorted as I'm already keeping an eye on job listings even though my departure is about 5.5 months away when my lease expires

however, I may have a month or two prior before I end up at a ski resort, as well as what to do after

I know seasonal work is an option and my stays are flexible so I could definitely make that work if I get an opportunity, but has anyone ever had luck just getting like a fast food job for the short term and then dipping?

I have a decent enough resume for fast food that I think I could get hired, and I'm not morally above quitting without notice. I know there's stuff like those task and gig sites if I'm ever really hurting

edit: to be clear just so people don't think I'm batshit naive, I have a comfortable cushion but want to minimize expenses, I can afford to secure an airbnb for a few months but I want to work to balance (or god willing and stars aligning, make money) it

I'm having trouble deciding where I want to go. Balkans or Eastern Europe somewhere, just a week in a nice city. I'm after history, museums, old archictecture. Not interested in eating posh food every day, getting on the piss clubbing, etc.

If you've been anywhere, how'd you find it? And how much did you spend?

i plan to go to bali this july but i'm trying to save as much money as i can on tickets. im going to go from jeddah saudi arabia, to bali.

whats the best way to abuse the system and go crazy cheap on the flights ?

hi. I have medical insurance but I just want insurance to cover flight tickets and hotel expenses. Thanks.

Hey y'all, I'm looking for a month-long rental in Europe, preferably somewhere near the beach. I'm open to a bigger or smaller city. I'm trying to avoid using Airbnb and was wondering if there are any classifieds/classifieds groups like on Facebook or something? Maybe something like a sublet from a local who's spending the month out and looking to rent their space. I'm looking for a one bedroom with a kitchen, preferably no more than 1,000 euro a month. Thanks y'all.

I'm a remote employee in the US, and I'm thinking of working remotely from another country for 1-2 months this summer.

I don't think the eastern hemisphere is a good option because all my colleagues are in the US and the time zone difference will make it a bit difficult to collaborate, so I'm thinking of somewhere in Latin America. I've been to Colombia and Brazil, and probably don't want to go back right now.

Maybe somewhere in central america or the caribbean (the summer heat scares me though, but I guess that's going to be a problem in central america as well)?

​

I might consider europe and working around the timezone difference if there aren't any interesting options in latin america.