A COUPLE from San Diego shells out $30,000 each year on their love for travel, hitting up both domestic and international spots to scratch their vacationing itch.
While travel remains a top priority for many Americans, it can be a costly venture – but it doesn’t have to break the bank.
Travel blogger Courtney Muro and her husband are avid vacationers[/caption]
The Muros spend roughly $30,000 each year on vacationing[/caption]
Courtney Muro – travel blogger and the face behind The Haute Bohemian – and her husband are avid travelers, spending a hefty chunk of change visiting both domestic and international destinations.
The couple spends tens of thousands of dollars annually on their trips, with her husband’s career being a major driving factor behind their adventures, Courtney exclusively told The U.S. Sun.
Her husband, the owner of a furniture installation company, is on a plane twice a week, as he has to constantly fly around the country for work, so the couple turns roughly a third of his work trips into vacations.
“We’re on vacation together about one quarter per year,” said Courtney.
Her husband’s job frequently brings them to a college town or the South, and from there, the Muros launch to different spots across the country.
Their favorite destinations include New York City, Washington DC, and New Orleans.
The couple also travels internationally, with easy access to the Caribbean on work trips, making the tropical islands a frequent vacation spot for the Muros.
They love to visit the Cayman Islands, for example, and frequent destinations such as Mexico and Colombia, where Courtney used to work and where the couple had their wedding, which was two weeks long and spanned four cities.
While out and about, the Muros’ favorite activity is eating the local foods and drinking.
“When in doubt, we ‘restaurant crawl’ – order just one dish and one drink each at each restaurant until we get too drunk or too full,” said Courtney.
“We like doing this because we meet people and we have the captive audience of the bartenders, and they know everything there is to know about the culture, food, history, and people in the given city.”
To fund their travels, the Muros spend roughly $30,000 each year, which comes out to around $6,000 to $8,000 per trip, according to Courtney.
“We spend a lot on restaurants,” she said. “We each out two to three times per day and our dinner tab tends to be $200 to $300 on any dinner that we premeditate.”
The couple also enjoys excursions, which come out to around $100 per person.
“But if we didn’t drink and we weren’t foodies, I bet that $30,000 would be more like $10,000,” said Courtney.
While the couple splurges on travel, they also pull in an equal amount in freebies.
“We get about $30,000 in free stuff because of airline and hotel points, my husband’s clients paying for our flights, and me getting us perks because I’m a travel journalist,” said Courtney.
The Muros’ travel spending, which comes out to about 10% of their combined $300,000 income, follows the common financial guideline that suggests allocating 5% to 10% of your net annual income for vacations as part of a healthy budget.
The Muros are just one of many Americans who love to travel, with recent surveys revealing that more than half are planning or taking a vacation each year.
Those who opt to stay at home, on the other hand, often feel held back by the everyday cost of living, with inflation, tariffs, and general economic uncertainty at top of mind.
We get about $30,000 in free stuff because of airline and hotel points, my huband’s clients paying for our flights, and me getting us perks because I’m a travel journalist.”
Courtney Muro
Many people cast their financial worries to the side and book their tickets anyways, with 29% of prospective travelers planning to take on debt to vacation, per a Bankrate survey.
However, taking your dream trip does not have to break the bank – it’s merely a matter of some forward planning, budgeting, and handy travel hacks, according to experts.
BUDGETING IS KEY
While many believe that creating and sticking to a budget is restrictive, it can be quite empowering.
Doing so gives you financial control, permitting you to travel without constant financial stress.
Experts have exclusively shared the 10 top money-saving tips with The U.S. Sun so you can explore without stress.
One budgeting tip is to open a dedicated travel savings account and make automatic monthly payments – a method personally used and suggested by Christian Petzold, travel and tourism expert at BCN Travel.
Petzold and his partner make payments that are roughly 10% to 15% of their joint salaries, “so we’re building our travel fund during the year without dipping into daily needs or retirement savings,” he told The U.S. Sun.
Another budgeting tool is to track your expenses for six months and then categorize your spending, tweaking your budget as needed to ensure it represents your values.
In doing so, you are likely to spot an expense that you feel is not worth the money.
Cutting back on small expenses such as your daily Starbucks, expensive subscriptions you do not use, or eating out at restaurants can free up $200 to $400 each month, said Petzold.
For the Muros, they save money by allocating the majority of their income on essentials like food and rent so they can splurge on vacations.
Even if you are unable to completely get rid of an expense, you can reduce how much of a hole it’s burning in your wallet.
For example, many people opt for an unlimited cellphone data plan but only use a few gigabytes per month because they end up relying more on Wi-Fi.
Avid travelers can also consider downgrading their subscriptions, switching to a cheaper plan or a free alternative, and keeping an eye out for those pesky free trials that can end up costing you hundreds.
Negotiating your bills is also a great budgeting tool, as is paying more mind when you grocery shop, taking note of not only your monthly costs for food, but also how much you end up trashing.
MONEY-SAVING TRAVEL HACKS
Once travelers establish a budget and determine how much money they can feasibly spend on travel, they can take advantage of a few travel budget hacks to stretch their dollars.
1. Make the most of credit card points
Pooling points with a partner is one way to save money on your accommodations or air travel.
For example, if one traveler receives only cash-back rewards from their credit card but their partner gets perks for hotels, rental cars, or flights, transferring your points could help to slash the price of a trip.
Travelers should try to think big picture, planning their trips one year or more in advance and selecting their credit cards based on where they want to visit, according to Muro.
“My husband and I planned a round-the-world trip about 1.5 years in advance and got two $50,000 10-country three-continent, month-long first-class flights that ended with us hiking Kilimanjaro,” she said.
“We did have to pay $1,200 in taxes for each ticket, but that’s nothing compared to the value we got from it.”
Isheeta Borkar and her husband – the couple behind Travelicious Couple – similarly flew business class from Europe to the US for the price of taxes by pooling their airline miles and credit card points.
They have also flown in Qatar Airways’ Q-Suite business class on a round trip from Seattle to Cape Town for “free.”
“We treat points as a separate ‘travel bank’ and only use them when it gives us the most value,” said Borkar, advising fellow travelers to use points like a second currency.
2. Time your trip wisely
Another clever way to rack up the savings is to head on vacation during “shoulder seasons,” which refers to the time between a destination’s peak and off-peak seasons.
“High season is overrated anyway. There are cruise ship guests, inflated prices, and it’s hot! Shoulder season saves a ton of money, and in my opinion, you have a much better, more authentic, more intimate experience,” said Muro.
Shoulder season could be early spring prior to kids’ summer vacation or mid-fall once school is back in session, for example, but this period varies by destination.
Heading to Europe in late September rather than July or August can reduce your airfare by 30% to 50% and drop your hotel expenses by a significant amount, said Petzold.
“Destinations like Mexico, Portugal, or parts of Southeast Asia generally offer excellent value in shoulder season,” he added.
“High season is overrated. There are cruise ship guests, inflated prices, and it’s hot! Shoulder season saves a ton of money, and in my opinion, you have a much better, more authentic, more intimate experience.”
Courtney Muro
3. Don’t be picky with your destination
Being flexible with your travel destinations is also a major money saver, according to Muro.
“If my husband is working in Florida, for example, and I can fly with him for free on our Southwest Companion Pass, we can go on SkyScanner and put in Miami to ‘everywhere’ and get $50 tickets to the Caribbean,” she said.
“I might want to go to Colombia, but Honduras is cheaper, so we now have a reason to go to a new place that we might never have thought of before.”
4. Don’t overpack
Packing light to avoid baggage fees can also save you some serious cash, according to Daniel Clarke, travel expert and director of Parklink.
Travelers should consider taking fewer suitcases, sharing one, or even taking carry-on only, as it could save hundreds on a return flight, he said.
More Travel Tips
Daniel Clarke, travel expert and director of the UK-based vacation home platform Parklink, shared a number of handy money-saving tips for avid travelers.
“Traveling frequently doesn’t have to cost the earth – especially if you are able to time trips during the low season, take advantage of public holidays to make the most of enforced time off, be savvy with your budget,” Clarke told The U.S. Sun.
He shared several tips to help make your money go further and allow you to travel more each year:
1. Always Pay in Local Currency
“This will help to save money when traveling, as it avoids hidden fees and poor exchange rates set by the ATM or retailer.”
2. Avoid Insurance Offered by Airlines
“Airlines will often try and sell you insurance when you are buying the tickets, and in most cases, this won’t be the best value option. Travelers can be prompted to add it on to their purchase, partly for convenience and partly due to being unaware of their alternative options. The better option is to shop around and find an insurance cover that will likely protect against more eventualities for a lower price.”
3. Eat a Good Breakfast
“To save money on dining, always invest in a good breakfast! Whether it’s included in the hotel, visiting a local café, or buying food to prepare, by ensuring you have a hearty breakfast, it will keep you going longer in the day and reduce the need to pay for an expensive lunch.”
4. Take an Extreme Day Trip
“A growing trend is to travel for 24 hours or so. Catch a late-night, short-haul flight and spend one full day in a new destination before returning home. Or even travel early in the morning, stay one night, and then return the following day. Just a short trip can be enough of a dose of adventure that you need, until the next one!”
5. Resist the so-called deals
Clarke also advised consumers to resist the bundles, offers, and even scaremongering tactics that airlines use.
“Airlines will try and upsell at every point of the journey, from choosing a flight at a more desirable time, choosing allocated seats, adding baggage, including food packages, fast passes, VIP perks, and more,” he warned.
6. Share the celebration
Consumers traveling for a special occasion can also get more bang for their buck by mentioning the reason for their trip in their reservation, Nick Ewen, senior editorial director at The Points Guy, told MarketWatch, as he and his wife have often scored freebies by doing so.
“Around our birthday or anniversary we would put a note in the reservation, just in case there was something that a particular property was willing to do,” said the points expert.
“Sometimes we would get an upgrade or there would be a bottle of sparkling wine in the room.”
Rather than just traveling internationally, more and more Americans are opting to move abroad.
One couple fled America for one of Europe’s cheapest places – their monthly expenses for two fell to $1,500 and they “don’t need a visa.”
Plus, another family lived a “nomadic life” in a car and traveled Asia – their “expat” tip saved them so much money.
The Muros vacation together roughly one quarter each year[/caption]
One of the ways that the Muros save a lot of money on vacations is by taking advantage of their credit card points[/caption]
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