Solving the “I Don’t Have Money to Travel” Problem: Part 1

Whenever I hear someone say “I don’t have money to travel”, a piece of me wants to grab them by the shoulders and ask “Is that the real reason you aren’t traveling?”

There is also a part of me that totally gets it. Debt, bills, and other things outside of our control can make it really difficult to scrape money together. Travel has a cost, and most of the time it isn’t cheap. Just know, that saving up money to travel isn’t impossible.

In this two part series, I want to dive into the process of saving money for travel. For Part 1, we will take a look at why people say they don’t have money to travel and why that may not actually be true. Then in Part 2, I will share with you practical strategies that you can apply when you are saving up for your next trip.

By the end of all this, I am going to solve your “I don’t have money to travel” problem. Let’s get into it.

For Part 2, Click Here.

Disclaimer: I am in no way an expert in finance. The suggestions below are based on personal experience for how I save money to travel.

Why Saving Up for Travel Seems So Hard

I bet a lot of you know (or at least have a sense) of how to save up for a car. First you need to have the money to purchase it. Then you need money for maintenance costs like gas, repairs, and insurance. You know all this because you grew up watching your parents, older siblings, or sitcom characters work towards paying for their cars.

Saving up money to travel is similar to saving for a car. First you need money for transportation and sleeping arrangements. Then you need to set aside money to spend on food and activities once you get to your destination. However if you didn’t grow up watching others travel or you haven’t done a lot of it yourself, then figuring out how to save money for travel in the first place can be daunting. The issue here is that you may not have the exposure or practice to know what it takes to come up with a realistic travel budget you can work towards.

So let’s get familiar with how to save up money to travel! It won’t happen overnight. It will take time, patience and discipline to stick with money saving strategies. Just know that once you realize that budgeting for travel is similar to saving up for anything else, it will become less daunting. Below are a couple ways to get you started.

Exercises and Suggestions to Familiarize Yourself with Travel Budgeting

• Pick a destination. It can be anywhere, whether it be within a couple hours from your hometown or across an ocean. By having a specific place in mind, it will give you a goal that you can measure rather than saving up randomly for “someplace, someday.”

• Do your research for average cost. Different destinations will have a different cost associated with it. Researching how much other people spend on average or finding the average hotel cost in the area will help establish a travel budget you can strive for.

• Try budgeting for smaller trips to practice saving for bigger trips. If your current situation means crossing oceans isn’t realistic, don’t let that stop you from getting out of your hometown! Plan smaller trips whether it be a weekend trip to the mountains, a week spent in a local beach town, or a road trip to find the biggest ball of twine.  You will still end up with your own travel stories while on a tighter budget, and you will also be practicing strategies to budget for bigger trips.
• Check out the abundance of travel budget hack websites from all different perspectives. Just a quick Google search will result in a sea of people and communities sharing their experiences of how they found bang for their buck. One of the big names out there is Nomadic Matt, and then there are everyday people like Ashley from My Wanderlusty Life blog, Damon and Jo’s youtube series, and listening to Jason on the “Zero To Travel” podcast.

Adjusting Your Attitude Towards Money When It Comes to Travel

Realize that money is meant to be spent. Back in the 1800’s, this guy named William Stanley Jevons wrote a book, Money and the Mechanism of Exchange, analyzing the purpose of money. He deduced that money has 4 functions, one of them being a “medium of exchange” (aka spending the money). When money comes your way, you get to decide how you exchange it. Do you want to use it for a nice camera? Eating out with your friends? For a plane ticket? Or what about on your bills?

I am going to give it to you straight, no fluff: if you find yourself saying “I don’t have money to travel” over and over again, you may want to take a step back to assess if lack of money is the real reason you aren’t traveling. Or is the real reason because you are deciding to spend your money elsewhere?

Take my parents for example. I grew up watching them prioritize traveling and rearranging their income to accommodate for it. I remember trips where my mom stopped by a grocery store to pick up some cheese, salami, and bread to eat in the car rather than go to a sit down restaurant. There were trips when I remember sleeping in a car at a rest stop in the Midwest, because even during the aftermath of the 2007 recession my dad still wanted to take me and my sister to all 50 state capitals. I also remember my parents saving up ahead of time for bigger trips so we could spend Thanksgiving in Hawaii and go to Tokyo Disneyland just because.  

What I want you to take away from this section is to understand that there will always bills to pay, groceries to be purchased, and spontaneous stuff to buy. It is up to you to be proactive and decide how and where you spend your money. When you have a flow of income (from a paycheck, allowance, or a gift), you have the choice to set aside money in order to save up for what you want. So if your priority is to have a state of the art kitchen, get out of debt, or spoil your pets – go for it! Save and spend money on what makes you happy! If you have a deep rooted desire to set off and explore the world, then make investing in travel your priority.

Putting It All Together

Not traveling because of budgeting inexperience or simply because you value other things in life is totally understandable. I just want you to be real with yourself and to recognize that saying “I don’t have money to travel” may not be the full reason. We only have one life, so pursue what you love. If you need help with coming up with ways to budget money to travel, I got your back!

I am going to help you with one last thing before the end of this article. It is never too late to start saving money for travel, so what I want you to do a simple task: Dig around your bag, look under your couch cushions, and clean out your pockets until you find 2 coins.

I’ll wait.

Ok, now that you have those 2 coins, I want you to find a cup or a jar and drop the coins in there. Label it “Travel Money” and boom, you are on your way to saving money to start exploring the world. Every little bit counts.

Now that you have started investing in your next adventure, continue on to Part 2 where I share strategies I personally use to save up money to travel.

What has helped you save up money to travel?