You Can Travel Anywhere In The World You Want
Here at Learning To Travel, we do not focus on budget travel or luxury travel, we focus on helping people travel anywhere they want to or what most people call “dream vacations”. A dream vacation is unique to the person doing the dreaming of course – and that is our point.
We want to help you take the vacation you want to take, no matter where that may be and in whatever style you’d like to travel in. A vacation should be special and a unique experience in your life so don’t automatically downgrade it by focusing on budget or cheap travel.
Travel is worth spending money on.
I know you might be thinking, “But I don’t have the money!” Believe me, I get it. We are not rich either. What we have learned is that it all comes down to focus and proper planning – which is exactly what this site is here to help you with!
Think about your ideal dream vacation. Where would you go if you could travel anywhere? What would you do? If you were given a blank check to spend only on travel what would your vacation look like?
I bring this up because I want you to dream and dream big when it comes to travel. Don’t hold back. Many people limit themselves in their travel dreams because they believe certain destinations or experiences are too expensive.
“I want to go to [insert country here] but it is just too expensive.”
Have you ever found yourself saying that? Well now is the time to stop. It is a mindset that does not help you. You really can travel anywhere in the world you want when you make the decision and then focus on making it happen.
Joyce and I wasted a lot of years thinking that travel, in general, was too expensive and something we’d do once we got rich or maybe when we retired. Thankfully something changed and we started to realize that we could travel if we were smart and made it a priority in our lives.
That is really what any goal you have for yourself comes down to – making it a priority.
We would rather take a trip than pay for cable television or go to the movies when they first come out and are at a premium? We go out to restaurants less at home so that we can travel and enjoy exotic food in foreign countries. Those are just a few small examples but hopefully, you get the idea.
Dream – Plan – Go
Once you’ve decided on your ideal vacation the next step is to learn how to make it happen. A great place to start is learning how to reduce your airfare to almost nothing through the use of airline miles and reward programs, commonly called “travel hacking.”
It makes sense to try and get airfare as cheap as possible because it is one of the biggest expenses of a vacation budget and it is just something you need to do to get there.
Check out The Points Guy for some of the best info on credit card reward programs.
The next thing to look at is accommodations. These days a hotel is not necessarily your best bet when you travel. Hostels have greatly improved, Airbnb is a great option, or if you really want a true immersive travel experience Couchsurfing is a way to find 100% free places to stay.
Check out my guide to finding the best places to stay for your trip.
But don’t go for a cheap place to stay just to be cheap because a hotel is a big part of the travel experience. Just take a moment to think about how much time you plan to spend at the hotel to decide how nice it needs to be. We’ve found that a lot of times we just need safe and comfortable because we’ll leave the room almost as soon as we get up and not return until just before bed. No need to pay for luxuries we won’t use.
Now the fun part – deciding what you want to do on your vacation.
When we were planning our time in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, we saw that we could take a helicopter flight over the falls as well as an elephant safari. Two things that looked excited but were not cheap.
We decided that since there was a good chance we’d never be in Victoria Falls again that we had to take the opportunity even though it was expensive. We took the helicopter ride and did the elephant safari and have zero regrets. Now we have these amazing memories of flying over “the smoke that thunders” and don’t even give the money spent a second thought.
Just look at that view!So as you are planning your vacation decide on your “must do’s” and put them in your budget first then plan other parts of your trip around them. In the case of Victoria Falls, we stayed in a hostel and ate mostly at the local grocery store so that we could splurge on the activities we did while we were there.
Do not focus on budget travel because I believe that can foster the wrong mindset. There is a balance to be found. Areas to save money and times to splurge. Travel is worth it. A vacation is a time to make memories that will last you your lifetime.
I grew up thinking travel was too expensive so I dismissed any thoughts of it without even looking into how much it actually costs. I assumed it was something Joyce and I would do when we retired. But I’ve since learned the power of deciding on where we want to go and what we want to do and then getting to work to make it happen.
That is what taught me that people can travel anywhere in the world they want to.
Dream and dream big, then get to work making it happen!
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Photo credits:
Main title image: Photo by Brett Zeck on Unsplash
Victoria Falls Helicopter Tour Photos by Daryle Dickens
