The number one question I get is, “How can you afford to travel so much?” Although I do travel a lot for work, travel is my passion. I was hit by the wanderlust bug at the early age of ten in Puerta Vallarta, Mexico. Ever since, I’ve found a way to travel, albeit frugally. To assist us with this topic, I asked a peer writer, Julie Prime, to chime in on how to manage travel on a tight budget.

Show us how it’s done, Julie!

Managing Travel On a Tight Budget

We’ve all been struck by wanderlust at some point or another – the irresistible urge to escape the everyday and travel the world. Unfortunately, however, traveling doesn’t tend to come cheap and if you book package holidays through standard travel agencies, chances are that you will spend a whole lot of time-saving up to cover the costs of your getaway. But if you are a little financially savvy, you can make travel on a budget work. Here’s how!

Essential Trips

Nine times out of ten, when you’re heading abroad it’s for a holiday that you have had plenty of time to plan and save for. But every so often a trip overseas will come up at the most unexpected moment. These tend to be celebrations or occasions that are sprung upon us without all too much notice, such as weddings, professional engagements, or perhaps funerals. Now, we need to attend these events for the sake of our loved ones. But how can we cover the costs if we don’t have savings in the bank? The answer is to take out a personal loan. A lot of the time we will avoid taking out loan, because we want to live sensibly within our means or budget. But when needs must, it’s important to remember that loans often gain a bad rep for no good reason. When people fall into debt with loans, it is generally due to irresponsible behaviour on their own part – they didn’t check that they could afford the repayment rates before signing up, they neglected to make payments on time and were hit with steep late fees, or they simply didn’t pay back at all and ended up in a bunch of arrears. As long as you use a professional and reliable lender like personalloan.co and only take out a policy you can afford to repay, while sticking to the agreement written out in the terms and conditions of your contract, you will be able to make the event and pay back what you owe simply.

Non-Essential Trips

If you simply want to head away on a trip for pleasure, you have a little more control over what goes on. You can choose the destination, how long to stay for, and what you do while you’re there. This makes everything more easily manageable in terms of budgeting. You can save a whole lot of money on traveling by sticking to a few sage pieces of advice. First, avoid traveling during school breaks at any cost. During these periods, travel agencies take advantage of the one period of time that families can get away by significantly increasing prices. Next, consider traveling slightly out of season for your destination. Prices rise during peak seasons, but if you head to your chosen destination slightly before or after this window, you should make the most of the good weather without forking out quite as much. A final consideration would be to opt for self-catering over all-inclusive. Remember that hotels make a profit out of all-inclusive, so you never really consume quite as much as you pay for. Instead, you could save as well as experiencing local culture and cuisine by eating out at local restaurants and eateries.

As you can see, no matter why you need to get abroad, it should be possible. Just follow the above advice and you’ll be hopping on a plane in next to no time!

**Post contributed by peer travel writer, Julie Prime. She is based in the U.K. with her eyes focused on how to travel the world for less.**