Everyone wants to know how we’re always affording to travel?

Well, there’s a few factors that come into play. It’s not always as glamorous as it looks. There's lots of planning around travel, a lot of things that travel bloggers don't include in their posts because it's less dreaming and more accounting and taxing. Having said that, travel to me, is beyond exciting - I won’t deny that. I wouldn’t replace the thrill of new cities and new places for anything in this world!

Rahul and I started travelling because we lived in different countries, and well, we wanted to spend time together even though we were in a long distance. So while I did travel to Australia a lot to spend time with him, whenever we could, we would meet in another country. Luckily it always worked out, from the very start, because we both had a common weakness...new places. 

...and Food.

Oh, and Alcohol.

...you get the gist.

What started with a 2 week trip to Cambodia, changed my whole life because in the last 2 years I’ve been to more than 13 countries, and I’ve got 5 more at the top of my travel list this year.

How do we do it?

Well, we’re usually broke...never too broke to ‘travel’ but on most days too broke for a new car or a mortgage. We're fortunate that we do not have the responsibilities of other human beings on us, nor do we have to provide for anyone else and not everyone gets that kind of freedom, so we're extremely grateful for that, but with whatever we do have, we work hard to save so we can travel.

We work really hard towards our goals. We try and pick out all the public holidays we possibly can and if one of us has a work trip and the other one can come along, then we squeeze in a few days there too. It's actual work, off of the Instagram visuals.

Our travel style

We recently got asked, that even with all the time on your hands, some of you still wonder the best way to travel most efficiently?

I could write you a full detailed blog on backpacking and road journeys, but maybe you already know about that, and personally - I don't think it's why you follow us. I’ve tried and tested it and finally accepted that bunk beds, shared toilets and average mattresses are not my cup of tea.

I like hotel beds, and coffee machines. And when I'm lucky, my bathtubs. Here’s a list of things that WE do, that help us, and we hope it's of some use to you too.

1. Plan ahead whenever possible.
2. Look up destinations, hotels, flights & visas to decide an average expense bracket.
3. If you are very flexible with where you'd like to go, use Skyscanner to decide a location.

Everyone has their own reasons for why they travel, ask yourself - why are you making this trip? And then start exploring.

Use Skyscanner for flights!

For example if you’re travelling to Europe, and aren’t too fussy about where you want to land, Skyscanner has an amazing option where you can select your departing city, and leave your arrival as ‘Everywhere’ - they then give you an entire list of cities in this world, starting from cheapest to highest priced from where you currently live.

TIP: When looking up flights on Skyscanner, we recommend using the Incognito / private browsing mode in your browser. Skyscanner tracks your searches and sometimes starts showing you higher prices if you're repeating the same search. Sneaky!

Currently, I'm sitting in Bombay, and the cheapest options for me if I wanted to pack my bags and leave tomorrow to anywhere in this world, would be:

Remember, these are prices for a ticket literally tomorrow!

So...domestic or international?

I personally prefer travelling overseas if I can: 1) it's cheaper, 2) I've lived in india for a decade and seen a lot of places so when I travel, I like to visit different countries and cultures, and 3) I love islands.

Now let's look at Europe because it's filled with different countries and options and can often get extremely expensive when not planned well, even though - it's so much cheaper to travel within Europe than it is to travel within India.

So if we wanted to go to Barcelona (because that's where my brother Sahil stays), we would first put 'Everywhere' as our destination on Skyscanner and compare the options. Usually tickets to Rome, Paris, maybe even London - will be ₹5,000 to ₹7,500 cheaper than direct flights to Barcelona.

If we were open to visiting a few cities and had a few weeks for a proper holiday, and if any of the cities above were already in our list of places to see then we’d land in that city first and then look up a cheaper way to travel within Europe (often flights, or by road).

The best part of this process (tiring for some but genuinely exciting for others) is that you could save the kind of money you didn’t even realise you were spending in the first place!

Most of this, is usually admin work - the calculations and planning that goes into travelling more than what most people do, and it's hard work, so only if you truly love travelling and discovering new places would this be exciting for you.

How to plan your own Eurotrip

On our last Europe trip, we actually saved up to ₹50,000 by simply planning our cities as per geography, popularity and of course, cheaper routes.

I’ll give you one more example of how:

Say you’ve decided to travel to Paris, a few cities in Italy and then end up in Berlin, Germany. So you start the journey in Paris, intending to make your way to Rome, and eventually fly out of Italy to Germany. There are plenty of ways of doing that route - your job is to figure out the best one!

Let's look at some flight rates.

But if you were to go from Paris to Berlin directly, currently the flight is for ₹9,149.

The calculation of Paris - Vienna, Vienna - Rome, and Rome - Berlin, costs ₹9,335 and you visit 3 countries and 4 cities.

Paris to Berlin, also costs ₹9,149, but you visit only 2 cities, and 2 countries.

TIP: If you play around with the dates you could probably end up saving a LOT of money on the exact same route - so try out lots of options!

Ditch the baggage

Another extremely important thing to remember: when you're hopping between cities in Europe, travel light.

Flight tickets in Europe are often extremely cheap, but you have to pay for check in luggage, and the price for check in luggage can often cost you thrice as much as what you paid for the flight in the first place. So travel light - with carry-on only, if you're on a budget!

Of course, we still ended up splurging some days. Some tickets were costly and we could do nothing to control it, sometimes we were unplanned, or lazy, or short on time to do a layover - but we saved where ever we could, so we could spend that somewhere else.

Tl;dr? 10 things to takeaway!

1. Plan ahead.
2. Convert your currency before you go.
3. Check what countries give you easy access to their visas.
4. Use Skyscanner to decide your locations.
5. Look up the cheapest cities in the world, Europe has many.
6. Find out where the centre of every city is before you book hotels/back packs.
7. Travel light.
8. Eat local - preferably not in the 'top 20' places because those end up being extremely commercial.
9. Read reviews.
10. Make local friends - they're the best guides, and return the favour when they come to your country!

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask! Leave us a comment and we'll try our best to help you out! :)

Love, 

Saloni

Instagram: @saerahstamps