Travel the World for Cheap (and sometimes Free) With Epic Budget Travel Advice From Mr. Mountaintop

Hey everybody!

I’m excited to write this post. For many years, people have been asking me,

Jeff, how do you travel the world for cheap and sometimes free?

A great question with many answers. The goal of the following is to give you an overview of the budget travel world. The key word here is overview. This is by no means a comprehensive explanation of all of the budget travel strategies out there, but it will thoroughly equip you with useful and powerful tactics to help you save money as you prepare for your next adventure.

Please note: I am not associated in any way with any of the organizations, businesses, or credit cards I mention here. I am simply suggesting what has worked well for me. When applying these strategies, make sure to use your discretion, common sense, and do what works for you.

Free Accommodations

My favorite of all is Couchsurfing. I used Couchsurfing like crazy when I lived in Europe for a year and met an enormous amount of awesome people. In a nutshell, Couchsurfing is a global network of authentic and kind individuals such as yourself who allow you to stay with them for free and “crash on their couch” when visiting a new city. There’s no catch and no hidden agenda: it’s a win-win situation because you get to stay with someone 100% for free while seeing the city from the perspective of a local.

In my opinion, Couchsurfing is the best. Yes, it does tend to comprise of individuals in their 20s and 30s, but it also has many members in their 40s and 50s. When it comes to Couchsurfing, you’re in good hands. As Adventurous Kate says, who I saw speak at the New York Times Travel Show in January of 2015, “Couchsurfing is so much more than free accommodation.” Let’s say that you are staying somewhere in a hotel or hostel. You can still use Couchsurfing to get locals to show you around the city! More often than not, your day-long adventure will turn into beers, partying, and one of the best nights of your life. In big cities, there are also all sorts of local group meetups. When I was living in Budapest and had my own apartment, I went to several nightly Couchsurfing meetups and made some good friends who I’m in touch with to this day.

Ok, enough of Couchsurfing. While I suggest you try it out, if that’s not your thing there are plenty of other options. Remember, the goal here is to get you to understand that you can travel the world for far cheaper than you ever thought possible and to pique your interest in the budget travel world with a variety of choices. Here are some more ideas for saving money on accommodations that have worked for me with varying levels of success:

• Global Freeloaders: This is similar to Couchsurfing. I mentioned Couchsurfing first because that’s the one I’ve had the most experience with.
• Housesitting: Take care of someone’s home while they are traveling and receive free accommodation in exchange. Check out Nat Smith and Jodie Thompson’s new book, International House Sitting: How To Travel The World and Stay Anywhere, For FREE.
• Airbnb: It’s like Couchsurfing, but you have to pay for it. You may get the local experience, but you may not – it all depends on the arrangements. I’m not as big a fan of this as most people, but I mention it because some of my friends rave about it.
• Hostel Bookers and HI Hostels: Opportunities to find affordable and conveniently-located hostels. Oftentimes staying at hostels you will meet great people staying there as well.
• World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF): Pretty self-explanatory; exchange your time working on a farm for free accommodation. Not my first option, but good to know about.
• Hotel Rewards: Using rewards from my Starwood Preferred Guest American Express credit card, I got four free nights at a luxurious hotel in San Diego, California in late February/early March of this past year. I’ll go into this a bit more in the next section when we talk about cheap and free flights, but keep in mind rewards can be used for hotel stays as well.
• Take time to research the best hotel deals: Even if you don’t want to use the above-mentioned sites and you don’t have travel rewards available, spend 1 to 2 hours researching the best hotel deals. As easy as it is, most people do not do this. You might be surprised what you find with a little bit of effort.

Free Flights From Credit Cards

I’m so excited to share with you my thoughts on how I’ve managed to get free flights. I’m a skeptical person and when I first heard this was possible, I thought it was some sort of joke. But having learned and applied these strategies many times, I can assure you that not only is it possible, it’s easy to do when you get the hang of it – and it’s 100% legal and legitimate.

In a nutshell, there are certain kinds of travel credit cards out there that, when used responsibly and intelligently, offer a great deal of benefits and rewards. To reiterate what I said at the beginning of this post, I’m not advertising in any way, shape, or form for these credit card companies and I have no affiliation with them. I’m simply sharing what has worked for me to get free flights and what could possibly work for you as well. Always use your own discretion. Here are my favorites:

• Chase Sapphire Preferred: The Points Guy agrees with me here big-time. This card got me $500 off my flight to Morocco in December of 2015 that I’ve already booked.
• Citi AAdvantage Card: Got me a free round-trip flight to Bogota, Colombia over this past labor day weekend two weeks ago!
• Barclaycard Arrival: Haven’t redeemed my points yet, but I met the minimum spend requirements and have a free flight awaiting me. Also, this card has an awesome online community where they encourage you to share your travel stories. Trust me, I’ve been known to create epic and spontaneous adventures out of the blue.
• Starwood Preferred Guest: This is the one I mentioned above. Great for free hotel stays; I mention it here as a card that has worked well for me and I didn’t even meet the minimum spend requirement on this one!
• Some of the best Travel Rewards Cards as recommended by Credit Karma.
• Business Credit Cards: The Chase Ink Plus is a good one and useful if you own and run your own business.

As Tim Ferriss says, everything is negotiable. If you happened to get rejected for a card or cards you think you should have been approved for, don’t be afraid to get on the phone and call the reconsideration line. I initially got rejected when applying for the Citi AAdvantage because I was opening too many cards at once; my credit was fine, banks just don’t like it when you have too many checks on your credit score in a short period of time. I called in and after getting told no by two different people, asked to speak to a manger (always ask for the manager if the person you are speaking with isn’t helpful). I explained that I’m a savvy world traveler who responsibly manages credit cards and all I’m looking to do is take advantage of the rewards program. “I could always go with another credit card,” I said with a smile. I got approved.

The key is meeting the minimum spend requirements on these cards. That’s what will get you the rewards to fly for free. The minimum spend requirements will vary for each card and will usually be in the range of $3,000 to $4,000 in the first 3 months of owning the card.

After living with roommates for a while, I decided that I preferred to have my own place so I moved into my own apartment in Branford, Connecticut. After graduate school my credit card debt was large (I was working while getting my Master’s degree, but Johns Hopkins is an expensive school). Then I found a great job and spent an entire year carefully building up my credit – I built my credit score from the low 600’s into the mid 700’s, so if anyone tells you that you can’t go from a really bad credit score to a really good one, they’re wrong!

What I did is plan my move into my new apartment with the opening of the Chase Sapphire Preferred, Citi AAdvantage, and Barclaycard Arrival credit cards, so all of my move-in costs went on these cards. It was a win-win situation because I was able to buy new furniture while meeting the minimum spends and getting free flights.

If you don’t have any big moves or potential spend coming up, there are other ways to meet the minimum spend requirement. Check out Travis Sherry’s helpful post on this topic. There are all sorts of tactics, tricks, and techniques to easily meet the minimum spend requirement.

Always manage your credit cards responsibly and do your research. Don’t spend more than you normally would just to meet a minimum spend! There’s no point in spending extra because the free flight will not be as much of a reward. But this is well within your reach while spending the same amount of money that you normally do . With the right knowledge, application, and timing, you will be well on your way to a free flight.

Also, start small. Instead of worrying about opening three or even two credit cards, open one that you feel you can meet the minimum spend on and then pay off. I was recently chatting via Skype with Ari Charlestein of the Travel Education Network and he said the following:

The way to game the system is to pay off as much of your credit card balance as you can each month, within reason, so that you don’t have to pay interest. I have some friends who do nothing but open credit cards, get the bonus points, pay off the cards, and then fly for free around the world.

It’s alright if you aren’t able to pay off the entire credit card balance each month, but the more you can pay off the better.

I 100% realize that you may not be as intense about making the most of the travel credit card reward system as Ari Charlestein, Travis Sherry, and I are. But one of the beautiful things about this process – and I often share this when speaking about budget travel at international travel shows and conferences – is that these tips are not just for nomads or traveling vagabonds. They are for families and people who lead normal lives who simply may want to get one free vacation per year.

Remember that you can apply these tactics on 2 to 3 day trips to places or month-long extravaganzas. They work for short trips and long trips, new travelers and experienced travelers, people who want to turn their entire life into a travel adventure and people who just want a once-a-year vacation to a place like Disney World.

Cheap Flights From Helpful Websites and Other Powerful Aggregators

Perhaps you don’t like credit cards and don’t want to involve yourself with them. I suggest, if at all possible, you consider responsibly opening up at least one or two of them (banks like people who successfully manage and maintain credit lines), but if you’re against it or aren’t in a position to involve yourself with them there are still options for you.

One of my traveling styles is to concentrate on finding cheap or mistake fares. For cheap flights check out these sites:

• The Flight Deal
• Secret Flying
• Flynous
• Holiday Pirates
• Airfare Watchdog

Also, flight search engines like Kayak, Expedia, Trip, and Priceline are good. For travel around Europe Ryan Air works well and for Asia my favorites are Air Asia and Tiger Air. Remember what I said earlier about doing your research? You’d be shocked how many people jump on the first fare they see. While there are emergency situations where this must be done, the majority of the times you can plan your trip in advance and spend some time searching for fares. I’m not saying to make it your life mission to find the best deal, I’m just suggesting you take an extra hour here or there.

With that extra hour, I once found a one-way ticket to Budapest from New York, connecting through Brussels, for a little over $200, because of my focus and discipline while looking for cheap fares. I subscribed to price alerts, compared fares on different flight search engines, and found a great deal.

Also, earlier this year I learned from Reid Bramblett about momondo, a powerful aggregator. Here’s what Reid says about sites like momondo:

Aggregators are the way to go. Since they pull data together from across all the travel search engines, you can often find prices on here that are less than many of the other sites out there.

Using momondo, I found a round-trip flight to San Diego earlier this year for a little over $300.

Also, a site that’s proved to be incredibly useful that I’ve stumbled across in my own time is Vayama. Using this site, I found a round-trip flight to Budapest a few years ago for $500. There are of course never any guarantees when it comes to fickle flight search engine fares, but when you use sites like these you increase the likelihood that things will work out in your favor.

Please don’t think that the above is an exhaustive list, but it will give you something to chew on for a while.

Ignite Stamford and The Wrap-Up

Two days after getting back from Bogota, Colombia I spoke at an event called Ignite Stamford about some of my travels. Stay tuned for a blog post that will have that video at the end of it fully available for viewing!

That’s all for now – I hope that I struck the optimal mix between revealing the best strategies while not overwhelming you. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to flights, accommodations, and budget travel.

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Jeff Davis is the author of Traveling Triumphs: The Improbable in Budapest and Beyond.