How we traveled every month of the year
Traveling has always been a big deal to us. We love the thrill of planning a trip! Shortly after our wedding in 2018, we decided we wanted to go somewhere at least one weekend a month for all of 2019. And we’ve almost kept it up exactly every year since them A lot of people think there is no way this is possible, so we’re sharing all of our tips on how we accomplished it and how you can too. There’s no reason you can’t travel more!
Have a plan
I initially had this at the end of our list… But honestly, everything starts with a good plan. We’re planners. Call it a blessing. Call it a curse. Whatever you call it, we call it the only way we travel.
By having a plan, we don’t mean having every second of your time accounted for. Plans sometimes scare people. We don’t mean the scary kind of planning. We mean do some research and educate yourself. Our favorite way to keep this info together is with a shared note.
If you aren’t big on researching much, researching your travel should be something you should be into. Especially if you’re the one planning/booking/paying for this travel.
Pick what’s important to you when you travel. For us, this changes in every destination! In Boston, it was seeing historic sites; In Chicago, it was the food; In Colorado, it’s usually the mountains. Knowing what’s most important to you while on your trips, will help give you a focus for your travels.
Research what’s important to you. Make sure that thing(s) or places are open on the days you’ll be there. Check to see how much it/they cost.
Write it all down. As you can see from the second note above, we create a very, very loose itinerary. So we at least have some sort of direction. Wandering aimlessly can be so fun and it’s how we’ve found some of the most amazing spots, but honestly, if you have a rough idea, even if it’s “Roam around x area, but leave by x time to get to x place” it’s going to help you see more, do more and most importantly, keep you on budget.
Follow the travel sales or travel deals
We always use tools like Google Flights, TripAdvisor and Kayak to make sure we’re getting the best prices. This doesn’t necessarily mean knowing when each of the travel websites hosted actual sales – It really means checking the websites regularly enough to know what the prices are usually at.
Now, there are some times when there are actual travel sales… Usually around holidays or major shopping events. However, these sometimes are only called sales, when in reality, they’re just telling you you are getting a good price. Don’t be fooled!
Use Google Flights and Google Flights Explore Feature
We try not to be biased, but seriously, Google is king. Never have we thought there was one best flight search engine. Even Google has its flaws (HELLO – No Southwest Flights listed), but we do know, Google Flights is one of the most comprehensive tools out there.
There were only a few destinations we knew we wanted to visit on specific dates, this meant the other 8+ months of the year, we could go just about anywhere. We used Google Flights to see where we could get cheap flights from the Dallas area. If you’ve never used Google Flights before, or aren’t sure how to use Google Flights Explore feature to get the best prices, you can check out the video below.
You can also set up Google Flight alerts within the Google Flights tool. By setting up these alerts on a specific flight or flights, you’ll receive an email, from Google, letting you know when the price has gone up or down.
Book various things as you find good deals
We’re both very travel minded people, so naturally, we’re always looking at travel things. As we were searching, if we came upon a really good deal, we would book right then. This meant, even if what we were booking was for a trip three months out, if we knew it was a good deal, we would go ahead and book.
Don’t buy in to the “best day to book flights” hype
Many, many people will say Tuesdays are the best time to book flights… But honestly, in 2019, we proved it just isn’t true. We found our cheapest flights EVER on a Friday! Yes, are you more likely to find a good deal on a Tuesday? Probably. BUT if you’re watching the deals all week long, you’ll quickly see there are good deals and seven days of the week.
Travel around long weekends
Saving your PTO for the extra long trips is always a good idea. By traveling on the weekends and especially around long weekends, we were able to keep our PTO for our bigger trips. Obviously, if you don’t get paid time off, then this doesn’t apply to you. But if you do, hopefully this is a no brainer!
Mark every purchase on trips to stay on budget
We’ve talked before about how we used shared notes (on iPhone) to keep track of our travel planning with things like what we want to eat/see/do and a rough agenda while we’re traveling. But on that same note, we also mark down every dollar we spend. From the time we book the first thing to the time we get home, we make sure we know what we’ve spent. Usually we don’t write down every single amount throughout the day, but we do make sure (or at least try to) before each day is over, we’ve written down what each of us has spent for the day
By keeping track in a place we can both, easily access, we’re always able to stay on top of our spending. And if we happened to hit our daily budget for food or “extras” in a day, we know the next day we need to cut back a bit.
Add in road trips when possible
Flights can get expensive. And if you have a car (or the ability to rent one) you can pretty much get anywhere. Road trip planning is usually a little less strenuous because you can do whatever you want, given you have the time, while driving.
Spend (a little) less on frivolous things at home
If you’ve followed us for any amount of time, you know we enjoy the finer things in life… But we also know how to be cheap as hell. But, there are some things we just can’t and wont give up – like eating out. We did, however, cut back on the number of times we ate out each month. We also cut our frivolous spending – no one needs 30 purses or 100 pair of shoes. Totally exaggerating, but it’s the truth. In the past, we’ve occasionally gotten in the habit of see it – want it – get it. And this is definitely not a good place to be. Our next point has certainly helped keep us on track with our spending.
Make an all around budget and stick to it
Haha, easier said than done. But if you can see everything laid out, you’re more likely to stick to it. Our overall “family” budget is laid out by month – we list out each of our post-tax deduction pay amounts (meaning after we’ve contributed to 401K/IRA/insurance/other pre-tax deductions), which bill we’re planning to pay that week, how much we’re sending to savings and how much we’re putting towards paying off our credit cards (see example below).
We know exactly where every single one of our dollars is going, before it ever even hits our bank account. For us, being able to actually see our money has made the biggest difference.
We also, both, have 20% of our paychecks direct deposited into our “joint account.” For the most part (don’t have a heart attack, y’all) we keep the majority of our money separate, but our joint account is where we pull money for our travels. We never see that money in either of our main accounts, so we’re never tempted to spend it before it goes in to that account, meaning, we always have money in our “travel fund.” Direct deposit is a godsend, y’all.
Figure out where you can save money
You’d think we would have thought of this one sooner… But we didn’t and we could kick ourselves for it. Once we started looking at our bills, we really tried to figure out where we could cut back. Once we cut out everything we possibly could (AKA NOTHING) I started calling each of our service providers to see if I could negotiate down the bill to save some money.
We ended up switching car insurance plans from USAA to Elephant Insurance and saved over 50%!! Which was a HUGE savings. I also got our cable and internet down by 20% just by getting on the phone with our cable provider and walking through all of the services we had and cutting the ones we didn’t use. The guy explained that so many people pay for things they’ve never used and probably will never use! He also suggested calling once every six months – their plans and services change so frequently, he said they can almost always offer discounts in some way or another!
Utilize credit cards with airline mile rewards
If you don’t have or use credit cards, obviously this isn’t a tip you can put to good use. We happen to have the American Airlines Citi Advantage card. After our beach wedding and honeymoon in Antigua in 2018, we decided we would shift most of our general spending to this card. By doing this, we were able to book a few different flights solely on miles.
I know credit cards aren’t for everyone, but if you are thinking about getting a credit card, try to find one that will benefit you in some way! If you’re already going to be spending money on credit cards, might as well get something out of it!
Prioritize Travel
Last, but certainly not least… We made travel a priority. I can not tell you how many people (friends/family/friends parents/random people at the nail salon) would ask us how we managed to travel so much and then tell us they wanted the secret on how to travel more…. The secret is, there is no secret! When you prioritize anything in your life, you’re putting it at the forefront and focusing on it. Going in to 2019, this is exactly what we did. We knew we had to make a few, small changes to our overall lifestyle, but we truly put travel at the forefront of everything we did. And this made the biggest difference for us.
Our 2019 travel:
January: Fredericksburg, TX; Portland, OR; Willamette Valley, OR
February: Waco, TX; Denver, CO
March: Keystone, CO; Austin, TX
April: Chicago, IL
May: Boulder, CO; Los Angeles, CA; San Diego, CA; Austin, TX
June: Reading, PA; Fredericksburg, TX
July: Houston, TX
August: Wimberly, TX; San Antonio, TX; New Braunfels, TX
September: Austin, TX; Paris, France
October: Brussels, Belgium; Brugge, Belgium; London, England
November: Fredericksburg TX
December: Colorado Springs, CO; Breckenridge, CO
We set travel goals, we allocated our budget, we made (some) sacrifices, but we did exactly what we set out to do. We traveled 74 days out of 2019 – that’s just over 20% of the year! It wasn’t always easy, but it was always adventurous! If you have any questions on the specifics of anything we mentioned, please feel free to comment below, shoot us an email or a message on Instagram! We’d love to know if we inspired you to travel more this year! Happy Travels!
