Between the ages of 18 and 22, I traveled to over 30 countries. Looking back now on these experiences, I feel extremely grateful to be only two years into my twenties and have already seen so much of the world. Age is typically regarded as an impediment to traveling, but it doesn’t have to be!
The cost of international travel is one of the greatest barriers to traveling while young. However, if you can reduce or altogether cut out the larger costs, traveling on a budget will be that much more feasible. In this blog post, I will highlight some of the ways you can reduce or eliminate some of the costs of your overseas trip.
Another one of the greatest impediments to traveling while young is the inability to find people to travel with, and the fear of traveling alone. Thus, for the sake of reducing some of the anxieties that come with traveling somewhere for the first time or traveling by oneself, this blog post will also highlight a number of opportunities that connect travelers with a local network and with other travelers. Conveniently, these various opportunities are also tailored to appeal to young travelers on a budget!
Top 5 Ways To Make Traveling While Young Possible:
1. Take trips during non-peak season
2. Reduce accommodation costs by ditching hotels & expensive AirBnBs
3. Eliminate accommodation & food costs through a work exchange program
4. Find opportunities at your school to travel
5. Take advantage of youth & student discounts
Take Trips During Off-Peak Season
Peak season refers to the busiest or most popular time of the year for travel. During peak season, prices associated with traveling increase due to high demand. Summer (June-August) is peak season in most places. Winter, around Christmas and New Years, is also peak season in popular holiday destinations. Flight tickets and hotel rooms are both hundreds of dollars cheaper if you travel outside of peak season. For example, I was able to save hundreds of dollars on a trip to Switzerland by traveling during the fall as opposed to during the winter or summer seasons. Whereas roundtrip tickets from New York to Europe are typically upwards of $700, I was able to find a flight for around $300 for my trip to Geneva since I traveled during the off-season. The places you want to visit are likely just as lovely outside of peak season so there really is no pitfall to traveling at an alternative time. For example, in Switzerland I was still able to enjoy the beautiful Christmas markets and the snow-covered mountain views in the late fall, without increased peak-season costs that come with the winter.
As a university student, you may have breaks from school that permit you to travel during unconventional (and thus cheaper) times of the year, such as fall break or a long thanksgiving break. In the past, I have taken advantage of these breaks to travel. My friends and I took a week-long glamping trip to Canada during the fall break of our junior year of college. The next year, I used my fall break to visit a friend in Puerto Rico. Spring break is also a great time for university students to travel. In some places, such as Miami or Cancun, Spring Break is peak season. However, if you opt to travel somewhere where few spring-breakers travel, you may also benefit from off-peak prices. During the spring break of my junior year, I traveled to Dubai. During the spring break of my senior year I traveled to Brazil. For accommodation in Brazil, I paid about $300 for 12 nights (which was about $25 a night) in a hotel in Copacabana– one of Rio’s most touristy neighborhoods. Similarly, my flights to Dubai during spring break were about $700 cheaper than they would have been in the winter or summer seasons.
Thus, research your potential destination to find out when peak season is, and determine when you can alternatively travel there to take advantage of decreased travel costs– you will likely save hundreds of dollars.
Reduce Accommodation Costs By Ditching Hotels & Expensive AirBnBs
Accommodation is one of the most significant costs of traveling, thus reducing this cost makes overseas travel significantly cheaper and more accessible on a youth budget. To cut out accommodation costs, you can opt to house sit. Through housesitting, you stay in the home of someone from a foreign city while they are out of town. You can choose to simply occupy the house, or you can pet-sit. There are reputable sites where you can find homes to house sit, the most famous of which is TrustedHouseSitters.
Alternatively, if you are willing to pay a bit for accommodation, you can opt to “couchsurf”, or— more conventionally– stay in a hostel. These two options offer added benefits for travelers who want a more social experience. To couchsurf, you pay a low fee to spend a night in the house of someone in a foreign city. On couchsurf.com, you can read reviews, look at hosts profiles, and access pictures of your potential accommodation. To stay in a hostel, you follow the same steps you would to stay in a hotel. However, hostels are favorable among young travelers because they are a cheaper alternative to hotels, and they are more “social” in the sense that they offer ample opportunities to meet other travelers.
I have stayed in hostels in several countries including Colombia, Canada, Spain, France, and Italy. My favorite thing about hostels is how diverse they are in terms of accommodation. You can have a private room and bathroom- just as you would in a hotel- or you can opt to share space and make friends with strangers in a large shared room. In Colombia, I stayed in a hostel “ecolodge” where I glamped in a river-side tent; in Canada, I shared a room with bunk beds with 5 of my closest friends from college, and in Italy I booked a conventional private room. The options are limitless, but on the whole hostels are generally cheaper than hotels and more friendly to young travelers. To find highly-rated hostels, I recommend booking on a travel site, such as expedia, which allows you to compare various properties prior to booking.
Eliminate Accommodation & Food Costs Through a Work Exchange Program
If you are looking to travel for a longer amount of time and perhaps earn a bit of money on the side, there are several programs geared towards young travelers which allow you to work in exchange for free accommodation and other benefits. Of these programs, the most well-known and popular is “Worldpackers.” Worldpackers offers experiences in over 140 countries. Through this program, you have the opportunity to volunteer at NGOs and community organizations; live and learn on farms and in ecovillages, or work a typical job. In exchange for your work, you will receive free room and board, and you can use your free time to travel within the country where you are working! Joining Worldpackers and browsing the various experiences they offer is free, but in order to contact hosts and to take part in a work exchange you will need to pay a membership fee. However, paying this one-time membership fee will enable you to save incredible amounts of money on future travels. To make further savings, you can use my Worldpackers discount code TRAVELINOURTWENTIES.
Another way to live abroad while saving on accommodation is by becoming an Au Pair. As an Au Pair, you can live with a host family in one of 78 countries. You provide child care for the family in exchange for room, board, and a stipend. This program is popular among young adult women, and typically best for those who want to stay in a country for a prolonged period of time, such as upwards of a few months.
These two experiences can be extremely positive and life-changing because you will meet new people, be immersed in a new culture, and perhaps pick up new skills. However, they may also be challenging. Thus, when choosing which opportunity to pursue, make sure you consider your own interests as well as your personal limitations. Choose an opportunity that best aligns with your interests, and allows you to have the travel experience you desire.
Take Advantage of Youth & Student Discounts.
It is common for businesses around the world to offer decreased rates to students and youth. For example, in Europe, restaurants may often offer a low-cost fixed menu for students. Similarly, many activities, tours, clubs, and museums will also offer a discounted rate for students. To take advantage of these discounts, always travel with your student ID. Even if you are no longer a student but still have a student ID and you are in the age range of a student, bring that ID along! My student ID has gotten me discounted entry into venues ranging from the Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Cairo to the Vatican Museums in Rome.
I personally have been able to get around with my US student ID just fine, but it is possible that your university student card may not be accepted internationally. To bypass this, you can purchase an International Student Identity Card which is a globally recognized proof of student ID.
If you are no longer a student but are still in your early-to-mid 20s, you can typically benefit from youth discounts at museums and on other tourist activities. You may also benefit from preferential travel deals. For example, travelers under the age of 27 can enjoy a 25% discount on the Eurorail pass. The Eurorail pass allows you to travel around Europe by train (interrail) with just one ticket. You can also use the Eurorail pass to get discounts on certain tourist activities, including museums and sightseeing tours.
Find Opportunities At Your School To Travel.
15 of the countries I visited during my time in university were paid for by various programs at my school. Finding paid travel opportunities while in school requires some creativity, so do not just look in one place.
You can start at the student level by finding clubs that travel, whether domestically or internationally. In my experience, the clubs that are most likely to offer you travel opportunities are activities that are predicated upon competing with other universities. Model United Nations (MUN) is a good example of such a club that needs to travel in order to compete. My MUN team traveled to conferences throughout the east coast, as well as to the Yale Model African Union conference in Rwanda and the World MUN conference in France. MUN is also a common activity in highschool, so (for any highschoolers reading this) you, too, can take advantage of school-sponsored travel even before you get to college– examples of high-school MUN conferences include Yale Model UN Latin America in Brazil, Yale Model UN Singapore, and Yale Model UN Dubai. Even if you are not on a MUN team, you can fundraise from other sources or apply for financial aid from the conferences themselves in order to fund your trip.
Beyond clubs, you can also try to take advantage of institutional support from the academic departments at your school. Academic departments may be willing to offer grants for students to attend certain conferences that relate to their discipline of study. Similarly, academic departments may also offer field work grants for thesis and dissertation research. For these grants, you must be prepared to write a proposal explaining how your proposed activity relates to and will enrich your studies. I traveled to Senegal, Tanzania, and several other countries due to grants I received from academic departments at my school.
Finally, study abroad programs are an excellent way to travel abroad. There are a myriad of programs that exist, and some of the most popular are language programs. If you study a foreign language in university, inquire with your language department about funded study abroad opportunities in countries where you can be fully immersed in the language. Study abroad programs during the academic year may be especially advantageous because, instead of paying tuition to your school, you pay tuition to your study abroad institution. Similarly, if you are a student on financial aid, your financial aid can typically be transferred to pay for your program abroad. I studied abroad in France for a semester, and in that time I was able to travel to several countries in Europe because every major city was only a train ride away, as opposed to a transatlantic flight away! I have many more tips about how to travel on your school’s dime, and I plan to make a separate blog post about how to find travel opportunities while in school, so stay tuned!
Don’t Be Afraid To Go Alone.
This final tip is a bonus, but it may be the most important tip of all because travel hacks are useless if you never intend to use them. It is really easy to be dissuaded from traveling if you can’t find people who are willing to go with you, and frankly, as a young person, it is also hard to find those people. Even if you do have friends who want to travel with you, it may be very difficult to find a time that works with everyone’s schedules. Waiting for friends to travel with may stop you from traveling altogether, or– at the very least– reduce the frequency with which you do travel. So, if you want to see the world but are being held back by the fact that you can’t find people to go with you, plan a trip that allows you to meet young people. The various opportunities highlighted above, from volunteering with worldpackers to staying in hostels, are conducive to making new friends. Worldpackers specifically caters to solo travelers through their “pack memberships” which offer additional benefits for people traveling alone for the first-time. My sophomore year of college, I moved to Paris without knowing a soul: three years later, Paris still feels like a second home for me because of all the friendships I formed while there. The summer after graduation, I booked a three-week solo trip to Colombia: I made so many friends and loved my experience so much that I changed my ticket and extended my stay for as long as I could. So, I encourage you to take the leap- you never know what amazing experiences await you.
Bravo Francesca. I am positive that many of the young ones you have interacted with take your guidance, tips and discover the world. Travel is healing and invigorating. Let’s go.