Those who read this blog regularly know that my family background is modest, at best. Instead of that trust fund image many have for world travelers, I attended college on merit-based scholarships.
I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to save enough to travel, but by working online I was able to work and travel overseas for more than 15 years.
Before I booked my round the world tickets, I faced many obstacles—personal, family, and financial—preventing me from traveling. And for many years, I allowed those issues to keep me tied to the United States.
There were a dozen reasons to believe that I could not change my situation and save money for travel: I had to help my family, I was struggling to stay afloat from my debt, I had a relationship and close friends who I would miss.
One day, I took stock of my situation. I honestly looked at how my personal choices affected my ability to travel around the world. I realized that I could travel, but only if I drastically changed my situation as well as the personal story I told about myself and my ability to save money for travel.
To travel, I would need to reprioritize every aspect of my life. I would also have to believe that someone like me could find a way to travel. The decision to travel was the culmination of many re-prioritizations in various aspects of my life.
Why Anyone Can Actually Save Money for Travel
Travel is expensive. It’s doable—it’s comparable to a year of living in the U.S.—but saving that much money is a considerable feat for many.
When I left, my income was a smidge above poverty level. My online job allowed me to work every single week of these past 15 years that I have traveled the world and lived abroad.
Without online work, I would have spent years saving the funds. But I could have saved. Saving was within the realm of possible. Even more, the U.S. dollar is a strong currency, and I live in a country with work opportunities and a social safety net. If you’re reading this page, there’s a chance you also have one or more of these safety nets and benefits.
Money buys happiness up to a point, according to leading research. Once you’re comfortable and you can afford your next meal, happiness stems more from your approach to life. It comes down to your attitude about what you have, and the choices you make. Even before you are cash flush, you can cultivate an approach to life in line with your goals.
Happiness is in the content of moment-to-moment experiences. Nothing material is intrinsically valuable, except in whatever promise of happiness it carries.
What you own, what you buy, and what you prioritize contributes to the experiences you create in your own life. For anyone who has found this website, you hope to prioritize travel and save money to make that dream happen.
I lived in Los Angeles while I was saving for travel—not a very budget-friendly place. But my friend Jenn and I found ways to enjoy life in LA without spending much, such as a day at the Getty Center.
To choose travel may mean making large shifts in your lifestyle, it might mean second jobs, smaller houses, years of tackling debt. But it’s the larger goal that should motivate you to continue saving throughout it all: to travel.
To these things, you may say “but that won’t work in my situation.”
Challenge that idea at every step of the way. It’s your biggest obstacle toward taking that dream trip.
Most things we take as a given—big houses, cars, new smartphones—are a series of choices that align with our priorities. The advice on this page will show you how to align your money priorities with your goal to travel.
Spending money well comes down to affording those things you have prioritized—so what are you prioritizing in your life?
Do you have secret fears or doubts that have held you back from saving for this big trip?
How long have you had this desire to travel?
Now be honest: Are you making choices that prioritize your travel goal above lesser ones?
Let’s dive right into it.
Six Common Obstacles to Saving Money
Are you wondering: Why can’t I save money? I’ve heard a litany of reasons from travel dreamers justifying to me why they can’t actively saving for their trip. It comes down to things like: car payments, debt repayments, medical debt, mortgage, and a host of other—often valid—reasons.
But even beyond the personal issues, the process and action of saving money has additional obstacles, and it’s not something that most travelers talk about, mostly because it lies outside of “travel” specifically.
When you’re looking for ways to move the needle on your own savings goals, it behooves you to understand the psychology of saving and money. Money obstacles are just as important as the personal obstacles travelers face when saving for travel.
Let’s dive into areas where you might find resistance as you embark on your savings journey.
1. Pace
It’s human nature to start something filled with fiery licks of excitement, only to feel that initial burst of motivation peter out as time passes. This is not the way to accomplish any savings goal, especially one like long-term travel. To successfully save money over a long period of time, you must create a pace that fits your situation, goals, and timeline.
Think about this as you set your savings plans in motion. Pick a reasonable savings goal each month and year until you reach your target. Then—and this is the hard part—stick to it with small and consistent contributions.
Discipline makes a huge difference in saving and budgeting.
You will likely face setbacks along the way, but if you start now, your travel fund will increase over the coming weeks and months.
2. Materialism
You need to get your buying habits under control before you leave to travel, because many countries offer a dizzying array of souvenirs and knick-knacks to buy as you travel.
Minimalism is a snazzy, trendy topic. It also has a place in any conversation about saving in general, but especially in saving money for travel. When you set out on the road, you will have very little left to your name.
Even if you have items in storage, before you leave to travel you will have whittled your life down to the essentials, the practical, the nostalgic. Part of owning fewer things is also about buying fewer things.
Saving and budgeting for a long-term trip should alter your purchasing habits. It’s small things like understanding that yes, you might need a car to get to work. But saving for travel means recognizing that an older model car might better fit your budget and your desire to sock away all extra money into your travel fund.
Consumption—or, more pointedly, over-consumption—is a major obstacle to saving. Embarking on any savings journey assumes some comfort to even consider saving for travel (and we’ll talk about that in a moment), even those living in poverty tend toward thoughtless consumption.
Happiness researcher Dr. Thomas Gilovich found that experiences bring us more happiness than possessions. He notes:
You can really like your material stuff. You can even think that part of your identity is connected to those things, but nonetheless they remain separate from you. In contrast, your experiences really are part of you. We are the sum total of our experiences.
Travel is about more than things, it’s about the chance to share experiences with the people you meet in the unique places you visit, like my remote hiking day in Musanze, Rwanda.
Saving money for travel is the ultimate opportunity to trade material possessions for experiences that forever become a part of your personal story. The reward may be months or years down the line, but keep in mind the end-goal of spending money on the travel experiences that you’ve decided to seek.
You will face mainstream media messages pushing consumption, pushing you toward the novelty of owning new things. There is a balance somewhere between bare minimalism and wanton consumption, and by looking at your budget and savings goal we can find areas to adjust.
3. Life
Life is messy. It can careen out of control in a moment’s notice. Sometimes, you may need to pause even the most reasonable and practical savings goals. A myriad of things crop up. Perhaps you’ve lost your job, a recession hit, or you’re helping your elderly parents.
There are heaps of reasons we jump off our savings plan. And it’s disheartening, especially when it’s not only a pause in the plan, but a harsh setback that leads to more debt.
This savings obstacle may seem obvious to some, but for those with a long road ahead—one that includes reducing debt, learning to budget, and saving money—it’s important to start this journey with realistic expectations and the ability to weather outside events.
The Optimism Bias is cognitive bias that fuels the belief that negative events are less likely to happen to ourselves than to others. It’s our ingrained, neurological tendency to underestimate the likelihood we will personally experience adverse events. As a result, we are prone to disregard precautions that might limit or mitigate those risks.
In her Ted Talk, The Optimism Bias, Tali Sharot discusses how this bias is a powerful force in the human mind. Bias can play a major role in the reason people underestimate the saving and budgeting process.
Life has struck me a few times, and it took years to wade out of those messes. I first traveled abroad when I was 21 years old. My brother passed away four days into my trip. I was heartbroken. It took me years to recover from that emotionally.
My family spent nearly every summer of my childhood beach camping in Key West, Florida, which was a short and affordable trip south for us from my home in the Tampa Bay area. My brother who passed away is seated next to me on the left.
Unfortunately, it took me years to recover from the situation financially, too. I hadn’t planned on purchasing an extra transatlantic flight, but I swiped my credit card and flew home. It took me six years to pay down the initial costs, interest, and related expenses.
My brother’s passing was a huge life setback. To overcome it, I had to pause, take stock, adjust the plan, and then continue reducing my debt and saving money. I share this painful piece of my history so that you don’t get lost when life throws you obstacles.
Keep perspective on the end goal even in the moments of overwhelm. Expect these moments to happen. Take a break, but don’t let that stop you from resuming your savings and budgeting plans as soon as you can.
4. Debt
Over the years, I’ve spoken with wanderlusters at every stage of their life and with a range of unique personal situations. Many talk with me about what they see as the ultimate financial obstacle to travel: debt. It’s a biggie.
Whether it’s student loan debt, medical debt, or credit card debt, as you go deeper into the red, you may find it harder to save money and plan a long-term trip. Debt is an obstacle, but it’s not impossible to overcome.
Even while I was traveling in Jordan and enjoying the magic of Wadi Rum, I was still working on paying down my debt so I could continue to afford world travel.
My Tackling Debt resource page shares strategy and tips, but for now, let’s talk about the psychology of debt. It’s a doozy.
Being in debt takes an emotional and even physical toll. If you are facing profound, serious debt, then you likely need to seek the advice of a certified debt counselor, or discuss it with a therapist.
There are neurological components—depression, anxiety, and other factors—that affect our relationship to debt, and for help with those you should seek counseling.
But if you’re facing manageable debt, even if it’s overwhelming, then the techniques I recommend on budgeting and debt reduction will help lower your debt load while increasing the savings in your travel fund.
5. Income
I worked and traveled for all of my years on the road. Rather than just save the full cost of traveling, I found remote work and was able to work with other digital nomads from coffee shops, like this one circa 2011 in Chiang, Mai, Thailand.
If you are running right up against your budget every month, then you might consider if there is a way to add to your monthly income. While most people can benefit from the saving ideas in the next section—even when implemented in moderation—making more money is a profound way to increase your travel savings.
While some might consider negotiating a raise, others could look to what is called a “side hustle.” This is a growing niche and there are vast resources online about how to build a new stream of income alongside your current work.
For many people, my savings advice is not even plausible at this stage. To begin saving money for travel implies a level of comfortability in your situation that may be out of reach at the moment.
I have been profoundly poor at stages of my life, where the suggestion of taking on extra work was laughable and my expenses and debt were higher than I could see my way through.
If this is your situation, your timeline to travel may be very different from another’s timeline. And that’s OK. If you’re struggling, if even the idea of adding on more work is impossible now, then adjust your time-frame.
Even an extra $5 or $10 per week against your debt is progress. And even that much money into your travel kitty is also progress toward your goal. It might take ten years to save, or it might take five years to build up even a modicum of online income, but there is truly an opportunity for most people to save money for travel with priorities and a reasonable timeline.
I do believe that many people—but certainly not all—can prioritize travel. It’s only at the point that you agree to look for possibilities that you see the opportunities to make it happen in your life. And this isn’t Pollyanna of me to say.
Although I was childless when I left to travel, and thus had fewer hard-and-fast obligations and larger life priorities, I worked for years to pay down my debt. And while I wish I could claim it was all student loan debt, much of it was credit card debt.
Debt happens, especially if you are poor. Some of my debt came from breaking my arm mere months after graduating college, and thus just after leaving my parent’s health insurance plan. Other debt came from bailing out a complex family situation, twice.
The fact is, it was debt and it was hard for me to conceive of a way that I could pull myself out from under it. Even in the first years of travel, my income was barely above the poverty line. I traveled and continued to spend a generous chunk of my freelance income paying down my past debt.
For years, I had decided that it was impossible to travel and I chose to remain stagnant on my goal. Until one day, when I simply switched my belief about how I could save money and travel. I decided that somehow there was a way out and I simply needed to get creative on how I thought about my situation.
Key Savings Takeaways
I read a saying once that has long stuck with me, and the gist was this:
You don’t have to know how, only that it is possible.
This might not be the ideal time for you to save for a long-term trip. I get that, I truly do understand. But, this is the right time to think about your relationship with money, debt, online work opportunities, and which small steps will make progress on your current situation. The first step is often the choice to make a sincere change, then come actions and follow through. Strangely, choice is often harder than the follow through.
3 Mindsets to Approach Saving for a Big Goal Like Travel
By this point, you have a clear idea of your personal financial situation. If you have debt, I hope you use the recommended tactics and resources to tackle the most important aspects of that debt.
If you are not creating a personal budget, then you need to research online and create a personal budget. You need a firm handle on your what a realistic savings timeline and goal looks like in your unique situation.
Now, let’s look at practical ways to increase the amount of money you put into your travel savings each month. I’m a huge proponent of striking the right balance. It’s why I recommend using a clear personal budget before you decide to save for travel.
Get your ducks in a row, understand your debt, plan your retirement goals, and then add your travel goals into that mix.
There are three primary schools of thought on approaching a budget (well, three that I think work best, there are many others, too).
1. Consume everything you enjoy, but in moderation.
Take a moderate approach to all things and enjoy small splurges—don’t eliminate habits you love, just adjust your expectation of frequency. Budgeting requires forming and sticking to long-term habits.
In that regard, the theory goes that by not denying yourself treats and getting burned out, frustrated, or defeated, you are instead better able to develop a habit that sticks and a habit that preserves your quality of life.
This is how I budget, even after years of travel. Moderate consumption and moderate spending is how I afford to live as an expat in Spain and still travel for most of the year, 15 years after I first left. If I want a fancy coffee, I buy it—I just don’t make it a daily habit and I budget it into my allowed expenses.
2. Ruthlessly cut unimportant expenses, then spend openly and without guilt on those areas you’ve pegged as most important.
Ramit Sethi puts it like this, “Spend extravagantly on the things you love, and cut costs mercilessly on the things you don’t.” If you have a decent amount of income, this can work well, but if you’re counting pennies then there might not be a lot of room for either cutting ruthlessly, or spending extravagantly.
But the psychology of it is high reward, and that goes a long way toward helping stay motivated to budget and save. Sethi’s theory is ruthless though; you pick one or two focuses and the slash the rest nearly completely from your budget.
This was always the end goal: a passport filled with stamps!
3. Calculate the opportunity cost of every expense, both discretionary and non-discretionary.
Opportunity cost is an economics concept that identifies “the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen.”
In budgeting and saving for travel, you’ll see this employed by many travel bloggers when they write of their own savings approach and say things like, “Splurging on one new outfit costs the same as traveling for four days in Southeast Asia.” Or, “One night of partying at home is the same price as a day tour to a volcano in Nicaragua.”
The case for retirement savings is also often offered in terms of opportunity cost, but in the opposite perspective. Save your dollars now because compound interest will work in your favor if you invest over the long-term.
Spending thousands of dollars to travel now also has an opportunity cost as that money might have grown much larger sitting in a retirement account for 30 years. But, that’s where life and values come into play—it may be more money in the long run, but you’ll miss the opportunity to travel now, when you likely have youth, enthusiasm, and health on your side.
All three approaches can work. In each, success hinges on also automating your savings and sticking to a long-term money plan. How you most effectively save money and budget can wholly depend on your personality—we’re born with traits that affect how we deal with high-reward or low-reward situations.
Sethi and I are two very different people. The methodical, moderate approach melds well with my lifestyle and personality. From his online persona, I can see why and how his approach of high reward works for him. Assess what works best for you, not anyone else.
Practical Steps to Build Your Travel Fund
Even if it’s hard to imagine how you’ll save for travel, remember that it will be worth pushing through the obstacles so you can eventually set off to see the world, including spots like Vietnam.
Pick the savings ideology that fits best with how you approach personal finance, then use these as the concrete, travel-specific moves—not another generic “cut your lattes” list, since you’ve already decided how you want to approach your budget above.
Open a separate savings account.
Keep your new travel fund separate from all of your other accounts: day-to-day expenses, emergency fund, Christmas money, etc. Designate a travel account and directly deposit into this account any new money that generate.
Look for a bank with no monthly or withdrawal fees and an interest-bearing balance. I recommend Charles Schwab for most travelers, since it’s still the one bank I’ve found that reimburses your ATM fees when you’re traveling (I have no sponsored relationship with Schwab, I just truly believe it is the best bank for travelers, hands-down). I get an incredible savings rate at Betterment.com, where I also keep my main investments. Here’s my rundown of the best travel credit cards, too.
Purge your belongings.
Jumpstart your savings process by purging the many things you have accumulated over the years. Dig out anything stored in corners and under beds. A lifetime of living accumulates stuff. Then, hold a garage sale, use Craigslist, or sell items on eBay.
Not only will you need to purge items before long-term travel, purging gives you a jolt of cash and action, which helps maintain the motivation to continue saving no matter your savings timeline (be it months or years).
Add any irregular or unexpected income to your travel fund.
Deposit your income tax return into your travel kitty. If you get a bonus at work, perhaps treat yourself with half of it and save the other half. Balance your spending and saving.
Consider the big levers: housing and transportation.
Some people can get away with moving home as a way to lessen expenses. I was in my mid-20s when I planned my trip and I spent my final two months at my dad’s house prepping and planning. If that’s unfeasible, consider other options like taking on a roommate, downsizing to a smaller house or apartment, or becoming an Airbnb or VRBO host if you live in a desirable part of your city.
The same goes for your car: if you don’t strictly need it, is there value in trading it for a model you can own outright, or selling it and adding that money to your travel savings? Several married friends were able to sell one car during their pre-travel savings period—it gave them the initial boost from the sale, and it lowered their car maintenance and insurance expenses too. They set up an automatic transfer to put that savings into their travel account each month.
Use the library, even once you’re on the road.
Most U.S. libraries offer digital lending programs that let you borrow books on your Kindle or e-reader—I borrow Kindle books from my library when I am traveling all over the world to keep myself stocked in reading material for free. As you move into actually planning your trip, you can check out travel guidebooks from the library instead of purchasing one for each planned destination.
Need More Advice About Saving for Long-Term Travel?
How to Save for World Travel is a comprehensive guide about every aspect of saving. It’s written from the perspective and experience of a long-term traveler (8+ years on the road).
This guide includes the above information, as well as:
extensive information detailing how to create a personal budget.
advice on how to think about saving money.
practical advice on how to save money within your unique situation.
ideas tailored to extreme budget and frugal lifestyles so travelers on any income can begin the savings process.
ideas to begin eliminating debt.
information on how to generate additional income streams to fund your travel dreams.
Once you’ve got the saving and budgeting habit in place, the next question is how much your actual trip will cost—I break that down, with a real example budget, in how to budget for a trip.
