A lot of people have been asking me how its possible to do what I’m doing right now. There are three things I have done in order to make this world tour possible: saving money, using points, and planning.

SAVING MONEY

I have been fortunate in my sales job to have had some pretty good years. In that time, I put money aside “for a rainy day”. I decided that “rainy day” would be about 4 rainy months, and I have decided to pretty much spend about all that I have set aside, minus a reservoir for when I return back to the non-traveling life. For those of you looking to travel, my recommendation is to set some money aside every week.

If you can put $50 a week aside for 6 months, that’s $1200. Depending on how you plan, that $1200 can be a roundtrip flight almost anywhere you want to go. Start cutting back on small things like the delicious $4 Starbucks lattes that you crave a few times a week, the $10 you spend on lunch twice a week, and that $8 happy hour martini on Fridays. My parents have called that “nickel and diming”. Little things add up, you just have to prioritize.

USING CREDIT CARD POINTS

One thing that not enough people consider, are the incredible value of credit card points, and even more specifically, sign up offers. Airlines are constantly offering a substantial amount of airlines miles for simply opening a credit card.

Depending on that particular airline, those points may be enough to get you out of and back into the US for FREE.

And that’s exactly how I was able to book my international flights on this trip.

This year, I was able to fly from Chicago to Madrid and am flying from Tokyo to Chicago… FOR FREE. Yes, FREE. How? I’ll tell you.

A lot of times, credit card companies will lure you in, offering points for signing up for their card. Last year, I was told about a United Airlines card that was offering 60,000 points for spending $3,000 in 3 months. Stay with me here….

• I found out that 60,000 is about enough points on United to get you to almost any destination and back. That means they were offering a free roundtrip worldwide ticket.
• In order to get this deal, you needed to put $3,000 on the card in three months.
• There are several ways you can make this happen, even if you don’t spend a ton of money in a month. The best ways? Find a way to stick your rent, student loans, or other bills on the card, then pay them off with cash like you usually do. If that doesn’t work and you have friends or family members who are making big purchases, offer to use your card and have them pay you cash/Venmo/Paypal back. When you send money to a family or friend via paypal, you don’t have to pay any fees, and Venmo is free when you do not use a credit card. You’d be surprised at how quickly $3000 can add up then.
  • There are also several, more complicated ways to make this possible, including loading money onto prepaid debit cards. If you have questions about this and would like to know more, feel free to private message or email me. For now, I’ll keep this simple.
• I signed up for the card, spent the required $3k and had the 60k points automatically added to my account. Of course, like with all companies, when you are using points, there are some black out dates. Be prepared to make your travel start and/or end on a Wednesday to maximize your points.

I follow ThePointsGuy on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. His blog is an amazing way to keep up with great travel deals, how to maximize points, and current mileage credit card offers.

PLAN AHEAD

One thing I decided not to do on my trip was plan everything out. I made this decision partially because I could not decide exactly where I wanted to go, and partly because I did not want to tie myself down to any committed schedule.

This has made my trip more expensive than I wanted it to be.

However, if you do choose to map out your trip well and plan your flights a couple of months in advance, you can get flights across Europe sometimes for as little as 8 euro. I met a family who flew everyone from Valencia to Mallorca for 8 euros each. I know you can get flights, for example, from Barcelona to Rome for 30 euros. Again, this all requires some advance planning.

Someone I met in Greece said to me “The expensive part of traveling Europe is not being here, its getting from Point A to Point B”, and I agree.

Overall, the key to making a long trip to Europe possible is to be smart and decide what works for you.

This post was made to give a high level overview of planning your travel. Check out my post HERE on what to do once in the country to maximize your money!