I bet traveling is fun and outright therapeutic for everyone. However, most travelers have a limited budget so one must spend wisely. And although emergency spendings are a normal part of any travel adventure, it can dent your finances.

You have to factor everything into your budget. You wouldn’t want to turn your magical, sacred, fun, and therapeutic adventures into regrets, don’t you? Thus, considering everything when planning your travel budget is a must.

Let’s face it. Not everyone likes budgeting. But, it can save you a great deal of stress while on the road. You should be prepared for emergencies, cover your debt obligations and stick within your budget.

There is no need to be anxious and panic about your finances while on a trip when you can avoid them. But how do you plan your budget properly? Let’s find out.

1.   Identify Expensive Items on Your Budget

Check out the biggest expense on the travel list. Transport, especially air tickets, contributes to about half of travel expenditure. It can easily be the most expensive item on any travel.

Since March 2022, air tickets have increased by over 10% due to hiked fuel prices globally. The current high prices are reflected in accommodation and food as well. In fact, a third of people reported price as the main reason for not traveling.

But don’t lose hope yet. There are still ways of traveling on relatively cheaper air tickets. With summer around the corner, any means of saving on air tickets should be worth exploring. But, first, you will need flexible travel dates and destinations to get a cheaper air ticket. Airfare prices fluctuate based on:

• Days of the week
• Time of the year
• Holidays

Airfares are relatively cheaper during the mid-week than on weekends or before holidays like Easter. Hence, if you plan to stay longer in a particular destination, go mid-week before the beginning of any holiday.

You can also use Skyscanner to check available cheap flights to your travel destination. The tool allows you to search flights throughout a month to pick what’s works with your budget. So, you can choose to fly cheaply without breaking the bank.

Alternatively, you can choose a cheaper route to your final travel destination. For example, flying directly to Heathrow or LAX can be relatively expensive. Instead, you can fly into London Stansted or Long Beach to grab cheaper deals.

Flexibility on your destination route can also help you save some bucks too. You can take a detour instead of direct flights. Savings on detours can go as much as hundreds of dollars. With Skyscanner, you can select “1 stop” or “2+ stops” features to see the cost of detour flights. They are cheaper than direct flights but may take longer to reach your destination.

However, if your traveling will span several continents, RTW (round-the-world) trip would be suitable. It can be a relatively cheaper and exceptionally convenient way of traveling the world.

You can get your RTWs deals from One World, Star Alliance, and Sky Team.

But third-party agents can also have better RTW deals by mix-matching offers. Check out Skyscanner and Google flights for the best money value for RTW flights.

2.   Cover Any Pending Debts Before Traveling

With your air ticket covered, the next stop is your debt obligations. If you are going for long-term travels, you must accommodate all your debts. Whether it is a student loan, mortgage, or credit card, you must have mechanisms to handle them while away.

Do not travel if you do not have regular income to cover your debts. It would be better to clear them before considering long-term or full-time traveling. Accumulating more debt while traveling restricts your freedom. And it can mess up your future stability if you fail to pay the debt in time.

Most long-term travelers always max out their credit cards. As a result, when you come back from your sabbatical travels, you’ll start battling financial stress.

Using Chunk Finance to track your credit utilization can come in handy. These types of software allow you to monitor your budget including your debts and payments. Thus, it lets you balance your travel expenses and debt management.

Also, chunking debt through debt paydown can help you reduce interest costs, making you save a lot more.

3.   Get Your Estimate Expenses Upfront

We can proceed to other expense tickets worth including in your budget control. Knowing your travel costs upfront helps gauge whether you can afford them or not. Also, they help you design effective travel expense management, especially for companies.

Here is a list of other travel expenses items that you can estimate:

• Accommodation
• Meals
• Local transportation
• Entertainment

The cost of living in your destination will determine how much you will spend and save in your travels. There are plenty of tools to help you estimate some of these expenses.

First, check out overall living costs using wikitravel.org and favorite spots worth checking out. Alternatively, you can check out Lonely Planet guide books for your destinations. For hotel stays and their rates use:

• Airbnb is a short-term rental service platform across the world.
• Booking.com is mainly known for booking international and local hotels without hassle. It offers some crazy discounts worth claiming if you use the site.
• Agoda.com is another online booking platform for international and local travel. You can book hotels, apartments, and flights on the platform.

We recommend Airbnb because it will give you a local experience, especially if you want to cook yourself. It is also perfect for group travel and is less expensive than hotels. Hostel World can be the ideal site to gauge the lowest-priced stays if you are on a highly shoe-string budget.

Hostel World can give you as low as $5 per night in some unique places. But, calculate your stays or lodging expenses per night to get the overall estimate. Remember that hotel meal costs are highly-priced and must be budgeted accordingly.

For hostels or Airbnb bookings with the kitchen, you must also factor in the overall cost of your groceries throughout your stay. It is better if you do the calculation based on daily spending. You should do the same for local transportation.

Whether you will use car rentals, taxis, rail, domestic flights, etc., you must calculate the estimates. Pick out each day and the activities you will be undertaking alongside the preferable mode of local transport. Afterward, attach each mode of transportation with estimated cost figures.

We recommend these tools to help in estimate calculations:

• Discover Cars allows you to get affordable car rentals on the go around the world.
• Busbud is another excellent platform for getting bus tickets and comparing their prices worldwide.
• Seat61.com comes in handy for checking and comparing train tickets worldwide.
• Eurail gives you access to 33 countries in the EU using a train. You can check, compare and book train tickets to these destinations on the platform.
• Thetripcost.com can also be a helpful tool for calculating the average costs of your travels across a handful of worldwide destinations.

The bottom line is that you need to have a rough estimate of the overall costs of an ideal travel destination. With that in mind, you can create effective budget management. A budget tracker tool like Mint can help you manage your travel expenses.

Using the above tools and tips makes it easy to do scenario planning for debt and expenses in advance. With such clear visibility in every cost and expense, you can adjust accordingly to fit within your budget. It will also increase your savings while traveling by using cheaper alternatives and keeping your debt interests low.

4.   Consider Visas, Vaccinations, and Travel Insurance

Costs of visas, vaccination, and travel insurance should also be considered, especially for long-term travels. Travel insurance is always easily dismissed as an unnecessary travel expense.

Insurance is very crucial, and it is not a luxury. Risky adventures like extreme sporting events or unusual destinations can be overly expensive and burdening without insurance. In fact, you should go for comprehensive coverage that covers any issues that may arise while traveling.

A report by DW shows that some tourists were stranded in Ukraine because their travel insurance did not cover war events. As a result, you should at least try and evaluate the prevailing situation of your destination.

For example, if you plan to go to Taiwan or Tibet, you should know that China claims the two regions and can move in to consolidate them at any time. So, planning and ensuring your travel insurance covers every possible risk event makes you safer while traveling.

You should check out your destination’s country website for your visa requirements and processing. Some allow you to apply on arrival, while other countries need you to process them earlier before traveling.

Also, you should check out third-party visa processing agents that come at a fee. But, they will make the process hassle-free. Also, vaccinations, especially during the pandemic, may vary from place to place. Consult your doctor for relevant vaccinations best suitable for your travel destination.

All the costs relating to insurance, visas, and vaccination should also be known upfront. Now you have everything figured out and their expenses. You have a rough estimate of your ideal travel costs for your entire stay. Compare it to the available money that you have and plan accordingly.

5.   Set Your Priorities Right

You can prioritize some essential travel items if the estimated costs are more than your available money. You do not want to run out of cash half into your trip. Or start begging friends and family to loan you money to return home.

And worst still is returning home with high credit card bills. So, you will have to balance your travel experience and costs. Prior planning will help you avoid this kind of stress. Here are some things worth considering while setting your priorities right:

• Meals. Will you go with street food, hotel meals, or cook for yourself?
• Experiences. Would you prefer to buy souvenirs or indulge in an expensive experience like a helicopter ride?
• Emergencies. Do you have extra cash to replace your local air tickets or a visit to a nearby local hospital if they get lost?

I would rather have my emergency funds ready for any turn of events. But a pro tip worth sharing is this, you can bring down travel costs when you volunteer abroad. Volunteering trips can save you so much on accommodation and meals.

6.   Choose the Best Bank for Your Travels

Your bank of choice for convenient traveling and a high chance of saving is partly limited to your country of origin. Consider the following before settling on a preferred bank for your travels, especially long-term trips:

• It should have more branches around the world.
• Get an ATM linked to your home bank for lower transactions costs. HSBC is famous for having more ATMs worldwide than other banks.

However, you may experience only a limited-service scope for banks abroad. Alternatively, you can go with online banking for enhanced convenience and flexibility. But track every cost of transaction as part of your spending management. Some online banks worth considering include:

• N26
• Revolut
• Payoneer
• Wise Multi-Currency Account

However, ensure you access your online banks and other sensitive data using a VPN. It keeps you safe from hackers that can clean out your account without your knowledge. You can choose from the following VPN providers:

• ExpressVPN
• NordVPN
• VyprVPN

7. Plan and Save for the Trip Early

Now that you have the figure you are working with, you can save towards your ideal travel adventure. Some people include the figure as part of their vision boards. It motivates them towards saving to achieve their dream adventures.

Although it is an uphill task, sticking to your plans will make it effortless. Here are some tips to increase your savings for ideal travel:

• Create high-interest savings accounts with your traditional or online bank. You will get an additional amount for every savings you make your dream closer than ever.
• You can share costs with your significant other or if you are traveling as a group.
• While traveling, you list your house back home on Airbnb to generate more income. However, not all property allows subletting to sites like Airbnb, so consult with your property management.

Take Away

Traveling costs are getting high, with global fuel prices on the rise. The ongoing stalemate between Russia and Ukraine is causing other ripple effects on prices. As a result, you should explore best spending management practices to control your travel expenses.

First, know your travel costs upfront, from air tickets to accommodation and meals. Second, have an excellent scenario planning for your debt, including current and future debts in the planning. The less or no debt obligation you have, the more freedom you will enjoy during your trip.

Third, settle on your key priorities without compromising the experience. Finally, select your preferred bank and save towards your goal. Budget planning will save you a lot of stress in the long run.