It’s been my dream to travel the world for as long as I could remember. But like all things MONEY! I know there are so many travel blogs out there about people talking about travel or telling you their experience. I wanted to show you that it is actually possible to go anywhere in the world for $1000. The tricks are having flexible dates like traveling on week days and off season (late fall to early spring). Willing to make a few stops before your final destination. Buying groceries and not eating out as much are the few main money savers.
One of the biggest money savers I found was leaving from a costal destination. I live closer to central Canada and so it can be a bit more expensive to get to places. I have however found that there are cheap flights to Vancouver and from Vancouver it’s a lot more affordable to hop over to Asia. If you live in a less populated city or the center of a country, find the cheapest city you can fly to that has more airplane traffic. The flights will most likely be a better price but do the math and make sure you are not actually spending more money than if you were to just leave from home.
As for Europe, London is one of the worlds most flied to cities so they always have decent priced flights to and from London. If you plan it right you can land not leave the airport and hope onto your next flight. Save pricey train ticket and a night at an airport hotel (also pricey but doable). Stephen (my husband) and I wanted to go to Greece but the flight prices were most of our budget for our whole trip. So I did a lot of research and found that we could fly to London stay a few days and fly to Greece and pay for accommodations all for the same price it would have been to fly direct to Athens. We would have missed out on seeing a second country. I got to say I was going to England and Greece. Two very different and beautiful countries. Made the trip sound even fancier. Now as you can imagine that trip was more than a $1,000 but not by much. We did it for about $2,000 each but we did choose to stay 5 days in London and that my friend is a very expensive city. Possible to find deals but over all a higher priced city then most.
Food is one of the best parts of travelling the world. You get to experience different flavors and traditions. Of course the easy thing to do is go out for every meal but the best money saver is one, find a place that serves free breakfast (most hostels do so) and two, buy easy things like snacks, mini lunches, and water. Grocery stores are going to have a better price for things like water and muffins then a coffee shop would and it’s great to have on you when you are stuck in line for a museum and can’t leave to find a little snack. If you happened to find accommodations that has a fridge and or stove that will help you expand the types of food you can buy. It can be worth paying a few dollars more for accommodations with a fridge/stove then it is to eat out every meal. I normally try to go for a free breakfast, light lunch, and then treat myself for a dinner out. By the end of the day I want to relax and take in the cities fine dining and local people watching. You still don’t need to spend a whole lot for dinner and if you are travelling with someone splitting and sharing food can help save money as well. I love travelling on my own but having a travel companion defiantly helps with cost and it’s fun to share experiences with.
A side tip a learned after making this mistake is learn what transit prices are and how far attractions are away from where you are staying. I found a really nice hostel in London for an amazing price but in the end because I didn’t look up where it was located compared to attractions we spent more in transit than if we had just stayed at a place a little more central. Map out everything! Might not be the fun part of planning but make sure you have access to everywhere you want to go. I would also recommend looking into Hop on Hop off. They are in every major city and are a great tour for what I would say is totally worth the price. You control your schedule and what you want to see. It even comes with an automated tour guild. My husband likes information so he listens to it and fills me in on interesting and important stuff. I like to take in the sounds of the city. I also know I’d never remember anything. We used them in Athens and our first ride we did the whole bus route as a way to see the city and get a lay of the land and then from there on we got off at the stops we wanted to see. In Athens I made sure we were staying at a place close to one of the Hop on Hop off stops. It saved us a long walk and it saved money on extra transit.
$1,000 dollar trip? It is possible! You can fly and stay in Europe, Asia and South America for up to none week for only $1000. Just do the research or you can purchase my step by step $1,000 trip planner.
Happy exploring,
Izzy
4YourLife 