Discover These 12 Practical Money-Saving Travel Tips That Will Help You to Stay on the Road Much Longer Without Even Having to Tighten Your Belt!

You want to travel, but are tight on cash? Friend, you chose the perfect blog post lemme tell you! With our self-tested, low impact strategies of sustainable travel, you can have your next adventure on minimal funds without missing out. In the last few years of living a modern nomad’s life, we learned quite a bit about traveling on a budget. This little list of “travel hacks” is our personal top 12 and saved us thousands of dollars. If you use just half of the tips in this list instead of their conventual counterparts, you will be able to travel twice as long with the same amount of money - plus having the adventure of your life while doing so. 😉

Okay, what follows now is a tasty recipe for a journey on a tiny budget:

House & Pet Sitting

Say hello to Foxy, the friendly Shiba Inu from our house sit in the very heart of Tokyo!

This is our favorite way to save money on accommodation! If you never heard about it, here’s the basic idea: you take care of a house and usually a pet while the owners are on holiday. In exchange, you can stay for free at their house. This way you can stay for weeks, sometimes months in a foreign country (or even somewhere in your own country) without having to throw thousands of hard-earned dough at hostels, hotels or Airbnbs.

We use housesitting whenever possible and it saved us serious dinero over the years. Our go-to homepage is called trustedhousesitters.com. The biggest advantages of this page are the great rating system which makes it transparent for owners and sitters alike, the professionalism and care the company puts into the service, and it features sits all over the world! But many other websites are worth to check out, too. If you know that you will stay in one particular country or if you are looking for a change of scene on your home turf, just google house or pet sitting plus the country you want to travel to. There are loads of options available! Short and long-term! While writing this article we are traveling through Canada and we use housesittingcanada.com in addition to trustedhousesitters. There are even websites where you can earn money for pet sitting and there are platforms where you only take care of a house for those of you who don’t love pets as much as we do. These online platforms are usually rating based, so you have to do a great job to become a successful international dog or cat sitter (sometimes you find sits for farm animals, reptiles and fish, too!). Check out our online class on HOW TO TRAVEL BIG FOR LESS to crush it on trustedhousesitters!
What? The annual fee is too expensive? You came to the right place my friend! 😉 Use this link to get 25% OFF the normal trustedhousesitter-price! ¡De nada!

2. Couchsurfing

You can findcouchsurfing hosts almost everywhere - even in Ulanbataar, Mongolia! ;)

I guess by now most of you have heard about www.couchsurfing.com, so I’ll make it quick. The concept is simple enough: You create a profile on their homepage and search the location you want to travel to for people who will host you for free. This platform is very community-based and you should only consider using it if you love to meet new people, exchange experiences and if you don’t mind sleeping on the couch or the floor for a couple of nights. Obviously, this is a great way to save money but it really shouldn’t be the only reason you are doing it. We don’t use CouchSurfing that often, but every time we do it, we are overwhelmed by the hospitality of this diverse community. We usually couch-surf just 1 or 2 nights, and we try to give back to our hosts by bringing some beer or cooking dinner for them. However, more than once we got invited to dinner and had the most wonderful evenings with awesome people from all around the world.

Your profile and your ratings are crucial for a successful inquiry. Be honest, and take your time with your description. Use the hosts' ratings as a guide and the messaging system for further inquiries. Always trust your gut feeling - and if something seems strange, leave. A decent host will understand! Unfortunately, there are a few weirdos who confuse couch surfing with Tinder, but this is usually evident in the profile or in the reviews. That brings us to the next thing: always write a review - it helps to make CS safer and keeps the pervs at bay. Last tip: if possible, surf with your partner, a friend or travel buddy. It's safer, more fun, and there's one more person to help with the dishes!

PS: Ever thought about hosting surfers when you're at home? It's a great way to give back to the travel community!

3. Hitchhiking a Boat

The beautiful yacht that took us from Japan to Alaska!

This is by far one of our favorite travel experiences ever! Hitchhiking a boat doesn’t only save you tons of money on transportation, accommodation and sometimes even food, it also gives you the chance to experience life at sea and all the advantages that come with it.

You will have to help out on the boat of course. The deal is basically labor for passage, but for us working on deck, challenging ourselves and learning new things is half of the fun. You usually help out in the galley (the kitchen), do some cleaning and maintenance and contribute to the watches. If you already have experience working on a boat or if you have special skills like engineering, childcare, or as a chef, you might even be able to find paid gigs on a yacht. But sometimes, even without any experience at all (like in our case), you can get a glimpse into the sailing world without paying a fortune - and sometimes even for free! You just have to show that you’re a hard worker and be determined to make it happen. There are a couple of different ways to find a boat that is willing to let you aboard. We found the easiest way is through the website www.findacrew.net. It’s definitely the one with the most offers worldwide. The website itself is not the easiest to navigate through, but in short, you create a free profile and search for boats in the area you want to start your journey. If you find a trip you are interested in, you can send the captain a wave (it just indicates you are interested) and with a bit of luck and a good profile they will answer you and you can set up a meeting to talk details. Thanks to this travel hack we were able to sail from Phuket in Thailand all the way down to Brisbane, Australia without any prior sailing experience. And we didn’t spend any money while doing so and had just the best time with the crew! After having a bit of sailing experience Toby even scored a paid 2 week delivery and a job as a deckhand in a marina for a couple of days. However, don’t expect to sail for free. Sailing is expensive and a lot of smaller boats just can’t afford to pay for everything by themselves. So more than often you will have to chip in for food, fuel or marina fees. The homepage is very transparent though and you are usually able to see in which way they expect you to contribute before you apply. Even if you have to pay something, it's usually very fair and for the experience you get, you would pay a fortune otherwise. Keep in mind: this is transportation, accommodation, and food all in one! And if you don’t know if you can stomach life on open waters - start with a small weekend trip on a private boat before you apply for long crossings. You will know straight away if you have the required sea legs. ⛵️

Of course there are other ways to find a boat, too. If you are already close to a marina, you can put up flyers with your preferred destination and time frame plus the skills could provide to the boat. We know people who successfully hitched boats like that. There are also Facebook groups where people are looking for crew and many other websites on this topic, too. If you have the chance to meet in person before your adventure on sea begins, we would always recommend doing so. Keep in mind that you will spend a lot of time in a confined space together - don’t get aboard if you don’t get along.

4. Hitchhiking and Car / Ride Sharing

We hitched rides from Denmark all the way to Finland for 6 weeks and had the best time!

We love hitchhiking. It’s not only better for the environment as driving around in your own car, it also is a great way to meet locals and travelers and save a 🚤-load of money. We only have had great experiences with hitchhiking BUT you have to be aware that it could potentially be dangerous to get in a strangers car. If you feel uncomfortable with the thought of hitchhiking, we wouldn’t recommend doing it. Never ever get in a car if you have a bad feeling. Only because they stopped doesn’t mean you have to get in! We always recommend to hitch a ride with a friend or your partner and not to hitchhike at night. If you don’t feel hitchhiking is the way to go, there is a great cheap alternative for you: car sharing! Many local Facebook groups offer rides between cities. You basically find a person that goes from where you are, to where you want to go and you will split the cost for fuel with them. There are also rideshare homepages like blablacar where you can find rides all around Europe, liftshare for the UK, kangaride for Canada, or ride-share & carpoolworld for North America. There are also apps for ride sharing, specific to the country you want to travel to.

5. Volunteering / Work Exchange

We stayed in a beautiful batch in Waipu, New Zealand in exchange for some landscaping. The view alone was absolutely worth it!

You can also travel for free by offering your skills and labor in exchange for accommodation and food. There are many different ways to do that. We often found volunteering jobs just by connecting to locals. We never really plan a volunteering job, it kind of just happens naturally sometimes. If you look into volunteering programs or platforms that connect you with organizations, you usually work at an NGO, organic farm or other social projects for about 4 hours a day and get free accommodation and food in exchange for work. There are 3 main websites to find these kind of volunteering programs: woofing, workaway and helpx. You will have to pay a membership fee for a year to be able to access their huge database and apply for jobs. We know people who had amazing experiences with these programs. There are some pretty cool job offers on there, like working with wildlife in Canada or at a diving school in Ecuador, getting your diving certification as an exchange for your work.

Our advice: don’t do a job that you should get paid for. We feel like some jobs should be only done by paid workers and aren’t supposed to be done by volunteers. For example, by cleaning the whole hostel in exchange for a bed in a stinky 8-bed dorm room, you're nothing more than a free cleaning person. We think volunteering jobs should either help the local community, the environment or offer you an experience you couldn’t get otherwise and that helps you grow. We also don’t recommend volunteering with children or other vulnerable groups in the community, unless you are a professional and will stay at the organization for a longer period. And never pay to be a volunteer. Sadly there is a growing industry that takes advantage of young idealistic people with the single goal of making money.

6. Collaboration

We worked with an Adventure & Wilderness Retreat in Finland to be able to stay in 3 of their absolutely stunning locations.

Another way to use your skills to travel are collaborations with hotels, hostels, Airbnbs, adventure companies,... We know this sounds a bit intimidating at the beginning, but this works quite often very well. You can get free accommodation, transportation, food or trips in exchange for your skills. Have a look at our TRAVEL CLASS to learn how we approach a potential company.

7. Relocation Deals

Through relocating Camper Vans for different rental companies we were able to travel Australia on a tiny budget!

This is an amazing way to save money while traveling through Australia, New Zealand, Canada, or the U.S.A. When someone rents a car for a one-way trip, the car has to get back to the city it came from. And if you want to go to that city, rental companies actually give you the car for free to drive it back there! Sometimes you have to pay 1-5 dollars a day, but often you pay nothing and even get money for fuel. You can find cars in all sizes, but most of the time you will get a Campervan. This means you will even have accommodation covered while road-tripping through the countryside. The only disadvantage is that you don’t have much time to bring the car back. But it is usually enough to make a few stops on the way without rushing. If you only want to get from point A to point B, this is an amazing opportunity you should look out for while traveling. Just be prepared for additional costs, like car insurance or a cleaning fee. Always read the contract you're signing before hitting the road!

8. Work and Travel Visa

We lived in 3 non-EU countries thanks to the working holiday visa program, but I wish we had taken advantage of the work and travel agreement between Germany and Japan, too!

If you are under 35, there might be the possibility to apply for a working holiday visa. These visas are usually a great way to start traveling even without saving much money at home because they enable you to work in a foreign country for a full year. Of course you need some savings to get to the country and a little safety cushion for the first weeks. But once you got a job, you can just enjoy living in another country and explore it in your free time. We never had problems to find work this way - usually we did farm work or other seasonal labor. With the money we earned, we traveled the country until we had to work again.
Keep in mind though that this is not possible for everyone, it depends on where you come from and where you want to travel to. But it's definitely worth look into. We are currently on our third working holiday visa. We spent one year in Australia, 10 months in New Zealand and now we explore Canada with a proper work permit. We just recently found out that, as German citizens, we can do this in Japan, Taiwan, Argentina or Chile before the age of 30. Check out what countries you could explore with a working holiday visa here. It’s an amazing opportunity to live abroad without having to accumulate huge savings beforehand.

9. Bring a tent or buy a van to sleep in

Thanks to Norway’s “Right to Roam” the most beautiful free camp spots are hiding behind every corner!

If you are an outdoor enthusiast like us, invest in a good, light-weight tent and sleeping bag and carry your home on your back. This will save you loads of cash you'd otherwise spend on accommodation, and it's a great way to get in touch with nature. We always have our beloved tent with us. It gives us peace of mind when we are on the road and aren’t sure yet where to sleep the next day. You can often find free camp spots or cheap campsites in nature, and they often provide you with a better view than most hotels can offer. If you are traveling for a longer period in one country, consider buying a car or a van to sleep in. The freedom of van life and car dwelling is something one must experience in person to understand what the fuss is about. This way you save lots of money on accommodation and it gives you the freedom to explore on your own terms.

10. Travel by Bicycle or Foot

We love a good hike - walking grounds us and gives us time to take in natures beauty.

It might not be for everyone, it certainly isn’t our go-to travel style, but you can save all your transportation cost if you just travel by using your own body's strength. Get in shape while exploring the world and reduce your carbon footprint with every step you take. You think folks who walk through multiple countries are just a bunch of nutters? Well, you might want to reconsider because isn’t it the most natural and authentic way of travel known to mankind? By taking it slow you will see so much more plus you're going to get a true perspective on the vast distances we can't wrap our minds around when boarding a plane. We met the most extraordinary people on our journey from Europe to Australia: a cyclist who rode his bike from Bulgaria to China, a guy in Australia pulling a cart, a British 60-something couple on a tandem bike in Mongolia. Well, you don't have to walk to Mongolia on your first try, but would you walk 500 miles and 500 more? (great, I'll have that song stuck in my head for days now...)

11. Foodsharing/ Food rescue

It seems grotesque and absurdly wasteful when perfectly good food ends up in a bin even before it leaves the Supermarket - unfortunately, it’s a daily practice all over the world.

So now you know how to save money on accommodation and transportation. But you have to eat! To be honest, this is the category we probably spend most of our money - we love good food! The easiest way to save money is by preparing your own food. That’s how we usually do it. There are supermarkets and farmers markets with cheap local products all around the world. Coffee Nerd? Bring your own mug and a small coffee maker to brew your own coffee. Believe me, we are coffee addicts and having our own little french press with us saves sooo much money! If you travel to Asian countries, food is usually pretty affordable. Don’t be afraid to try the local street food and the tiny restaurants hidden away from the touristy main streets. They usually have the best and most affordable food. In western countries, you can research local food sharing and food rescue groups and platforms. They usually collect food from supermarkets that otherwise would be thrown away, and then you can collect it for a small donation to the project. The products are still totally fine to consume and with using up these items, you take a stand against a wasteful society.

Here you can find more information about the concept!

Just to be clear: We don't mean food banks, soup kitchens or any social service specifically created for the poor and needy. We talk about food sharing communities that "rescue" food from bakeries, supermarkets, orchards, and food-producing companies that otherwise would be thrown away. Everybody is welcome there (of course also the underprivileged) - in fact, there's so much food being overproduced, all the poor people couldn't eat it. Remember, we are talking about privileged western countries like Canada, New Zealand or Australia. Even more severe is the situation in Europe, and that is why food sharing communities sprout like mushrooms in every major city in Germany, but it's a movement that's growing worldwide. It's really about being more mindful of the value of food and preventing fresh products going straight to the bin than taking from the poor. If food sharing would be unjust, we would neither support, nor promote it. 🤓
There are even online platforms for private households where you can offer fresh leftovers and still good products to other people! This way you don't have to throw it out when you go on vacation, and somebody else is happy to finish it for you.

12. Do your research & find your own travel style

In the end, it’s just paper: you can quickly burn it away, or use it consciously to write your own story.

There are many more opportunities out there. This little blog post is just a very small list of things we do on a regular basis to support our nomadic lifestyle. We constantly learn about new options while traveling and connecting to locals and other travelers. It’s just a collection of ideas that could help you get started. Of course, you don’t have to use all of our tips, maybe you don’t like to sleep at a total strangers couch or share stinky dorms and hitchhike around. We get it, it’s not everybody’s cup-a tea and it can be exhausting. Maybe you only want to try one of the things on our list, or you have totally different ideas on how to travel. The first and maybe most important thing we did before we knew about all these travel hacks was doing our research. Figuring out what possibilities are out there that fit your own travel habits will help you to enjoy your journey even more. Just remember: traveling is all about leaving your comfort zone, so try to be open to new ways and new adventures will await!