How I Traveled to 10 Countries in 10 Months - And How You Can, Too.

I get it all the time.

“Riley, seriously. How are you always traveling and getting out to see different parts of the world?”

Well, for one, I do it partially out of necessity to keep myself sane. While I love my job, it’s a tough one that I (very) often need a break from.

You could say that it’s a love-hate relationship.

So I usually try to go somewhere monthly to give myself a bit of a break away from the stress and hard work.

And seeing as I get the question all the time, I figured I’d write a blog post detailing some of the strategies that I use for my cheap and frequent travel. And even though they work for me, everyone needs to develop their own system for making travel a part of their life - but only if it’s something you truly want to set as a priority.

Which brings me to my first point.

Say to yourself, “Travel isn’t something for only the rich and famous.”

Okay, so technically this isn’t really a strategy. Really, it’s a mindset. That being said, I’m a firm believer that without the mindset that travel is for anyone, you’re not going to achieve what you want in seeing the places you’ve always wanted to.

So say it with me -

“Travel isn’t something for only the rich and famous.”

If you can say that to yourself and truly believe it, then you’re that much closer to achieving your goals of traveling wherever and whenever you’d like.

Don’t waste your money on expensive accommodations.

When you typically think of the parts of travel that cost the most money, airfare and lodging are often the first to come to mind. And while we’ll talk about airfare next, accommodations are usually a place where many people blow money they shouldn’t.

So think of it this way - the lodging you choose to stay in is typically a place that you’ll spend eight to ten hours a day at, max, the majority of which being when you’re asleep. Which raises the question, why spend a ton of money for a place that you’ll spend such limited time in? Wouldn’t you rather use that money for excursions, food, or, better yet, your next trip?

So what I always tell people is to give companies like Airbnb a try. You can almost always find a place on Airbnb at a fraction of the cost of what you’d spend for a hotel, and oftentimes are placed with a host who can give you all the best recommendations of things to do in the area throughout your stay.

Because there’s no arguing that locals know best.

And if you’re traveling to a place where hostels are a thing, give them a shot! Believe it or not, in most countries outside of the United States hostels are typically the way of travel for most. So all of those horrible, awful, nasty things you’ve heard about them - well, most of the time they’re untrue.

Not to mention they’re cheap. I’ve yet to spent more than $5 a night for a hostel in Southeast Asia...

Don’t get sucked into the hotel blackhole. Spend that money elsewhere.

Don’t be afraid to use discount airline websites.

Here it is - the second most-expensive part of travel.

I’m gonna blow your mind, though.

It doesn’t have to be.

Many of the plane tickets I’ve purchased have been through discount airline websites. And while those websites make my life a lot easier in that it surfs numerous airline websites all at once, giving me the cheapest option first, choosing a flight tends to take a lot of research, not to mention plenty of patience.

Nine out of ten times, the website that I use is momondo.com when picking out flights. You can look back through my past travel blogs and see that I mention them in many of them, so they must being doing something right.

Momondo looks at all the major airline websites in addition to discount airline websites and compiles them into a single search result. You can choose the flight that best suits you and purchase it through those websites that Momondo provides. Just be sure that you double check the itinerary for each flight you’re viewing. Sometimes those flights that are cheapest have complete airport changes during their layovers or have 12+ layovers altogether.

Now, I don’t know about you, but a 12+ hour layover sounds like hell on Earth.

In addition, momondo.com will also send you notifications if there’s a sudden price increase or decrease to the places you’ve looked into travelling to, meaning you don’t have to check every day to see if there’s been a price change, as they’ll email you to let you know. A number of flights I’ve purchased have been after receiving a notification that a flight I had been looking into was suddenly $100 less what it had been originally.

As my dad’s always told me, “work smarter - not harder.”

But if purchasing your tickets through a third-party, discount airline website gives you the heebie-jeebies, have no fear. As they’re usually so great at doing, Google is here to save the day. Google Flights provides you with a running search result page of those locations you want to fly into, though only supplying you with the actual websites to the airlines - no third party websites. So that means you’re purchasing directly from the airline website itself. Google Flights does the hard work of compiling all those airlines into a single search result, giving you the ability to modify your search preferences as needed in finding those flights that are cheapest.

Yet at the end of the day, no matter what site you use, searching for a cheap flights takes a good measure of time and willingness to wait for the deal.

Though a fair amount of patience may just save you hundreds of dollars on your overall trip cost.

Don’t become a sucker for tourist traps!

I’ve mentioned it before, and I’ll mention it again - I hate being a tourist.

But not just any tourist, the tourist who only goes to the tourist traps, who’s stuck with millions of other tourists, all the while seeing the same touristy restaurants and excursions that you could have just as easily seen back in the States.

And not to mention, those tourist traps are usually ridiculously expensive. Because let’s face it - those working abroad in the tourism industry are looking to make a buck, just as we are. So they’ll overcharge you if you don’t know any better. Getting off the beaten track and asking the locals for the things you should do - that’s where you’ll save money.

When you travel abroad, hopefully it’s because you want to see a new part of the country and to experience a new culture. My pet peeve when people travel is when they don’t step out of their comfort zones, instead choosing to do those things with all the other tourists, meanwhile being charged twice what they should be.

And really, some of my best travel memories are those things that were done on the whim, usually from a last-minute suggestion from a local. When I traveled to Belize, the mainland excursions we did - hiking the Mayan ruins, offroading through the jungle, going cave spelunking - were all thanks to a local who said screw what we had already planned, and “go to San Ignacio.” He told us those things we should see and do, many of them being completely free of charge.

If we had stuck with our original plan, we would’ve paid twice what we did in San Ignacio.

Not to mention it was one of the best parts of the trip.

So put together that travel pack for the day and take off. Stop and ask those waiters at the restaurants you’re eating at, your hostel owners, taxi drivers, etc, what the best things are to do where you’re at and who they know that can get you there.

Not only may they surprise you, but you may also surprise yourself with how much money you save.

Invest in travel credit cards.

Now, I won’t even begin to pretend that I’m the all-knowing when it comes to credit cards and all the financial nuances that come with selecting one. But I can tell you about those credit cards that have paid off for me and given me a leg-up when it comes to travel. Because, let’s face it, with how often we use credit cards nowadays, selecting a credit card that can also support your travel habits can be a game-changer.

That being said, this is not me in any way endorsing opening tons of credit card accounts merely to get the initial sign-on bonus, therefore having a ton of open credit card accounts that you rarely actually use. I have two that I use, yet I invest in those cards and they pay off.

Don’t go crazy over credit cards, people. Be smart.

Capital One Venture Card

This is the very first travel card I opened. There are a few things I love about it, the initial sign-on bonus being one of them. If you spend $3,000 in the first three months of receiving the card, you receive an automatic 50,000 miles - equivalent to $500 you can use towards travel.

With this card, you also get two miles per dollar you spend. So a $100 dollar transaction amounts to two hundred points.

Believe it or not, those points add up quick.

And finally, there are no international fees when you use it abroad - my favorite feature of the card. For those of you who’ve traveled abroad without a travel card before, you know how much those fees can add up.

Chase Sapphire - Reserve

I recently opened this card and it’s been amazing. There are a few things I love about it, the initial sign-on bonus being one of them, amounting in $750 to be used towards travel.

Yet this card also has features that can make the actual act of traveling a lot easier. It gains you access into 1,000+ airport lounges that you wouldn’t be able to otherwise. So free drinks, food, etc. at participating airports (which are plenty).

They also give you a $100 credit that you can use towards applying for TSA precheck and Global Entry. I don’t talk about each of those much (look out for a future blog post on them), but each have made my day-of travel experiences LOADS more comfortable and without all the stress you can experience without them.

Not to mention, like the Venture card, the Reserve card also does away with the international spending fees and gives you points to be used towards travel for each dollar spent.

Getting credit cards that can support your travel habits is one of the easiest things you can do to make all those travel destinations a reality.

Cluster you travel.

My final point, and the one that can get you seeing multiple places of the world at a time. While I would love to be able to have unlimited time to see the world, that’s just not realistic. So when I get a week or two off to travel, I try to make the most of that time by seeing the most that I can.

Though I’ll admit, it’s easier said than done.

For example, knowing that I’d be in Southeast Asia for a three week period, I tried to create an itinerary that would allow me to see as many countries in that area as possible within the timeframe I had. And while it requires a fair amount of planning, clustering your travel really forces you to pick out those places you have to see, and those that you could live without.

The downside of course being that you’ll sometimes not be able to spend as much time as you’d like in a country. This happened when I was in the Netherlands - a country that I could’ve easily spent my entire two week vacation in but instead only had three days, simply because I also had to fit Paris and London into my trip.

But I’m also a firm believer of carpe diem and making the most of those experiences you’re given. I’m not sure if I’ll ever make it to Southeast Asia again. And while I hope I will, nothing in life is guaranteed. So I may as well visit Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Malaysia while I’m there, as they’re all so close to one another. It makes for a helluva lot of travel while I’m there, but I’ll at least have seen those places and can say I’ve been there.

Because there’s nothing saying I can’t come back to see more later.

And while I’d love to keep going on with those tips and tricks I’ve used to get me out about in this big world of ours, these are the ones I’ve found that’ve gotten me furthest.

At the end of the day, there’s the simple question of what you want to do with this life of yours. Would you rather stand back and let it slip through your fingers or get out of your comfort zone and make the most of what you’ve been given?

Because life’s way too short to pass up those once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Eating that unknown food from a street vendor in Cambodia, waiting in line for three hours to see the tulips in full bloom in the Netherlands, cram yourself into a kayak to see the bioluminescent bays of Puerto Rico, piling into an SUV and going off-roading through the Belizean jungle.

Don’t let life pass you by.

Get out there. See the world.

Because this world really isn’t as large as you think it is.