The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: nerdygrrl on December 23, 2013, 07:36:02 PM
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Hi! Long time reader, first time poster :) I am very interested in traveling the world and seeing as much as I can see. I've been reading up on travel hacks websites lately, but the prevalent method that most folks seem to use is to open up several credit cards with decent rewards programs, then charge everything they spend to those cards.
Is there any other way to engage in air travel on the cheap? I am reticent to opening a bunch of new charge accounts, in fact, I have lived the last six years of my life with one card with a $2500 limit that is strictly emergency only. It typically sits in a bedroom drawer and has not carried a balance for quite some time.
If I could live life without any credit cards at all I would. Thoughts on how I could reconcile my desire to travel as a mustachian and my reticence to open new charge accounts would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Amanda
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Work for an airline!
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Do you have anything against working while you travel? There are quite a few bloggers who travel around while working, and just rent apartments for a few months to live in when they pick a new country. For example,
http://gigigriffis.com/ (I follow her blog quite closely)
http://www.nomadicmatt.com/ (I think I've only read a few posts of his, though)
http://raamdev.com/about/ (I found him once through his page on the 25 things he owns, I think)
There are a bunch of travelers out there. They start a business that can travel, and then travel!
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I don't know any particular hacks, but there are things that you can do that can help minimize the cost of your stay. There are programs like couchsurfing, where you borrow someone's couch in a city. There are organizations like WWOLF where you can stay on someone's farm so long as you help with the work. These might be cheaper ways to see the world.
https://www.couchsurfing.org/
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Hmm...I don't remember the name of the blog, but there's a guy who works while on cruises. He finds cheap cruises that are "repositioning" cruises.
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http://tynan.com/transatlantic
Found it!
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What is your thinking on not wanting to open credit card accounts? I can't think of any negatives, and we have used the free miles for a couple flights this year. The Mad Fientist wrote a great post about his planned trip pretty much around the whole world for free
http://www.madfientist.com/american-explorer-award/
I think a free trip is easily worth the 30 seconds it takes to apply for a credit card. We use our card just like cash... charge something and then pay it off that month.
Not necessarily a hack, but traveling slowly is fairly cheap. We travel full-time and it costs us less to live abroad while living quite luxuriously than our somewhat frugal cost of living back in the US. We prefer to not fly, but being flexible on days makes a huge difference
We recently booked a flight from Mexico to Taiwan, and flights were $1200 - $1800 each on peak days with no great mileage options, but if we waited a few weeks and flew on a Tuesday we flew for free with very few miles (which again we got for free from a credit card)
Somebody mentioned couch surfing, but there are also options for house sitting that many people use. You basically agree to watch somebody's house and take care of their plants and pets and they let you stay in their house for free...
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Thanks y'all! There is a lot to delve into here! Hopefully in a few months I'll be able to report back that I successfully made it to someplace new and exciting without spending very much scratch.
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Check out www.couchsurfing.org
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Road trips. Go to national parks and camp. That's what I usually like to do.
Course, I'm also planning a once in a lifetime trip to the Galapagos for 2015 that the cost would make most people on here faint.