7 ways to travel even if you are broke

Many people think they need a lot of money to travel, but the most passionate and serial travelers know – by experience and practice – that this is not true.

To travel you need curiosity, the ability to adapt and the concrete will to see, learn, discover. And, sometimes, the attitude to just put travels as a priority.

So, if you can give up a cocktail on Saturday night, if you can give up the last fashionable shoes, if you don’t care about spending an interesting amount of money for hair stylists but you can’t give up travelling, you are reading the right blog post.

Well, let’s be clear with it: in order to travel with a reduced cash availability you need to learn the art of looking for the best offers, prices, occasions. But I swear once you learn how to do it, this can be veeeeery funny!

So, let’s get the party started.

Learn the art of looking for the best flight fares

Finding the best airfares is an art and it requires commitment and time. But like any art, and if travelling is actually a passion for you, it won’t  cause you any stress.

There are days and months when flights cost much less and if you book with 6 weeks in advance you’ll get the very best fares. Did you know it?

Then, there are the “special days” of the year that a compulsive traveler can’t ignore and they are the Black Friday, the Cyber Monday and… the Travel Tuesday! If most of consumers know what the first two days are, i.e. a day when all shops and e-commerce shops make very special sale discounts, the travel Tuesday is the last Tuesday of November chosen by airlines companies to sell away all the best offers from flights to accommodations.

If you don’t want to skip from an airline website to the other for the whole day and night to look and see which are the best deals for these very special days.

A travel is “No matter where”

Personally, no matter how much money I have in a given period, one of my favorite anti stress activities is going on the skyscanner website and set the “anywhere” destination from the airport I’d leave from.

If you do like me, you’ll see how many flights cheaper than 80 euros are there heading to cities you’ve never seen.

When you need to plan a trip, really consider the option of looking for a “anywhere” destination. In the end, there’s no city in the world that doesn’t deserve to be visited, at least for the true travelers.

Be curios of the “secondary” destinations

There are cities that are very expensive and, unfortunately, common people travel imaginary is bound to them. Paris, London, Amsterdam, Berlin can cost more than others when it comes to accommodations. But what all compulsive – broke – travelers taught us all, is that France is not just Paris and UK is much much much more than London.

Consider visiting the secondary destinations and see how locals truly live away from the main biggest and expensive cities.

Look for the best hostels

Once upon a time, low budget hostel was a synonym with spartan, poor, even seedy. But today things have changed and there are tons of design hostels where the common areas are full of comforts and that are designed to be like big homes for travelers, chosen by many not just for budget reasons but also for the pleasure of sharing daily moments with other world explorers.

Try couchsurfing or home swapping

Over than hostels and low budget accommodations, nowadays you’ll find many free accommodation systems, based on the exchange. Couch surfing is a way to accept a couch or a secondary bed in an apartment to sleep over and make acquaintance with the host, in change of the same service offered to others or to your host himself.

You can even have an entire apartment for free if you consider the home swapping option, where you and another traveler somewhere in the world decide to exchange home for a period.

This method is particularly good for families, that can travel even for longer periods decreasing consistently the cost of the vacation.

Learn which are the cheapest destinations in your continent

The necessity of travelling low budget gave me the opportunity to visit some areas of Europe that are still advantageous on the economic point of view, such as Balkans and East Europe. These are destinations I’ve become fond of and crazily in love with. There are many cities and countries in the world where getting an accommodation and experiencing the best local attraction is very cheap, nevertheless amazing.

The world is full of places that make you understand how much money is an overrated concept.

Try home restaurants

Travelling also means tasting the local food and meeting local people. In my personal experience, the best way to experience both the situations is booking home restaurants dinners. You participate to the food shopping and join the dinner with the cook and his/her friend. This is a way many people meet travelers and this is why you will feel at home (or at friends’ place) in such a situation. If you google “home restaurant” you’ll find dozens networks no matter where you come from or are heading to.

This post is sponsored by Skyscanner