“How is a young college student able to afford all this travel?” is the most common question I get asked through Instagram. Americans generally expect an overseas roundtrip flight to cost upwards of USD 1,000. If you did a quick search on flights right now, it probably would be, but I don’t book those flights. The highest I’ve paid for a flight so far is around USD 650. What people don’t see is the behind the scenes of how I figure out how to afford these trips. I spend hours every day researching travel. I check EscapeHouston, EscapeAustin, EscapeDallas (all subjective to where I live, Texas), Airfare Watchdog, Google Flights, and more every day. I’m constantly looking up hashtags like #FlightDeal, #CheapFlight, #TravelDeals. I’ve set up email notifications from Google Flights for when prices go down. I only book flights when I see a deal.
When I first began solo traveling in 2013, I was booking the cheapest flights (USD 300-450), which were mostly to Western Europe. Lately, I’ve been going to Southeast Asia more frequently because the total costs of my trips are significantly lower. Yes, the ticket is more expensive to SE Asia, but there are sometimes flight deals. This past April, I found a USD 500 flight to Bangkok (IAH-BKK). Money wise, two weeks of accommodation and food in Europe can easily last you a month in SE Asia.
Overall, cheap airfare does ultimately determine where and when I go. You’re probably thinking there’s no way you could be that flexible. Say you want to go to Greece, but the only flight deals you see are going to Paris. Often it’s cheaper to fly through a big airport like CDG in Paris and book a separate flight to get to your final destination. For example, I found a $300 flight to Malaga, Spain. I knew nothing about Malaga, so I booked it! After that, I found an article that I semi based my trip on. I ended up arriving in Malaga the night before a massive city-wide festival and was under the impression that Saturday’s in Spain were AWESOME. I went with no hostel reservations, hitchhiked, and took buses to end up in Ericeira, a small surf town north of Lisbon, at the end of my trip. It was the first trip I went on with no solid plans, and it was invigorating, challenging, and beautiful.
That leads me to traveling with no plans. I’m not saying hop on a plane and hope everything works out. Figure out what you want to see and be realistic about how long it will take. You can’t see Rome, Paris, Copenhagen, Ibiza, Amsterdam, and London in one week. Book a cheap party hostel your first night or two; they’re the most social. Talk to your roommates, ask them what they did, where to go and stay. There are a million sites out there like mine that can tell you what to do, but the best information comes from real backpackers who just did it on a budget. This is a great way to find cheap food, hostels, and places to go. It’s how I was able to find out about a week-long boat trip through remote Indonesian islands for USD 160. BEST. TRIP. EVER. All because I overheard a French girl in my hostel in Nusa Penida talking about a boat trip she went on.
Taco's Passport 