re: How do people afford the constant travel lifestyle?

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More to life than money? Uh. No.

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Try traveling without it.

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Some of the best trips I've taken were cheap as hell. Maybe you're just stupid. Ever thought of that?

I quit trying to figure out how some people live… I know people say credit cards, etc…

But you still gotta make the payments! There is limit….

I guess people are routinely bringing in $250k per house hold… even though the statistics say only 18% ( could be wrong here) of people earn over $100k

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It’s puzzling to me too

Pleasure Travel is one of the most wasteful things you can do with money. All you get is the “experience”. With that, you get headaches with the actual travel to and fro… the juice just isn’t worth the squeeze for me.

The industry has done a good job of convincing people that life is about “experiences” and seeing different places…but that’s just marketing BS.
Experiences are nice but the memory of those experiences diminishes over time.

I believe that people that travel all time time fall into 2 categories-
-those that just like seeing new places and enjoy other cultures because they’re very outgoing. And
-Those that hate where they are and want to just get the hell away.

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A lot of people downvoting this but there is some truth. I love traveling - meeting new people, seeing historic sites etc. I usually do it on my motorcycle and camp along the way. Meet all walks of life, see things I never thought possible, and come back refreshed.

I also know tons of people who simply travel because they want to tell people they did it. Almost like it's their identity. They are stressed out flying, overwhelmed by hotels, time changes etc. But they keep doing it because they think they should and they like the pictures.

I'd rather stay home and go hiking every morning than have to fly somewhere just to see tourist sites. I lived in Germany for two years and never went to London or Paris. Rode my bike all over Czech, Scandinavia, Balkans though had the time of my life. Took my family to Croatia for a week at the beach my daughter still says it was the best week of her life. She was 7 and we'd wake up every day and just swim, eat, explore from sun up to sun down. No distractions or obligations just quality time.

My advice - when you plan travel plan it as if no pictures will be taken and nobody will ever know you went. Then you'll really know what you actually want to do and the trips will line up with your priorities.

Going.com and their app are great. You set your home airport and where you might like to visit. You’ll get deals sent your way every few days.

I caught a great deal to Japan earlier this year using Going and also to Mexico City next month.

Every now and again; they catch a mistake fare. My friend recently booked a trip to Hong Kong from ORL for $500 round trip. That’s cheaper than flying to Denver.

I’ll also shout out the Viator app. If nothing else it gives you an idea of popular attractions in the area. I’ve had several good experiences booking tours with them or using tour itineraries they provide to create our own.

If you aren’t using travel credit card points; a good alternative is actually using Expedia for flights, hotels and cars. Once you build enough segments by purchasing on their app you get OneKey access to some great deals and also price protection. Last year I booked a trip to Europe. The flight price actually went down and they credited me the difference. Next month my status with them got my hotel room upgraded saving me hundreds.

Travel is amazing. Best of luck, there’s lots of well traveled folks here on the forum.

You're right in that some people seem to only do it because they need to be "seen" doing it, but I don't think those are the pro travel people in this thread.

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I'd rather stay home and go hiking every morning than have to fly somewhere just to see tourist sites. I lived in Germany for two years and never went to London or Paris

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Why not hike the Brecon Beacons? Mt. Fuji? Nevermind the tourist sites, I like talking to regular people. Try Ireland, you can hit five or six "tourist" things, and spend the rest of your time hiking and learning about people in pubs.

The notion of memories fading is laughable. Travel has created the most interesting memories in my post college life other than my kids. How are you going to forget getting stranded overnight in Istanbul unexpectedly? Seeing a vending machine in Tokyo with approximately 45 different hot and cold coffees in one machine? It never ends.

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Why not hike the Brecon Beacons? Mt. Fuji? Nevermind the tourist sites, I like talking to regular people. Try Ireland, you can hit five or six "tourist" things, and spend the rest of your time hiking and learning about people in pubs.

The notion of memories fading is laughable. Travel has created the most interesting memories in my post college life other than my kids. How are you going to forget getting stranded overnight in Istanbul unexpectedly? Seeing a vending machine in Tokyo with approximately 45 different hot and cold coffees in one machine? It never ends.

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I also avoided London and Paris because I have no desire to visit Muslim cities.

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I also avoided London and Paris because I have no desire to visit Muslim cities

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Jesus. And there it is.

It doesn’t make sense to me to waste your health and younger years pinching every penny so that you can have a bunch of money to finally start doing things when you are 65, in worse shape, and with less time left on Earth.

Experiences > Things

IMO

We run our businesses through Barclays to get the points and pay it off each Monday. Covers the flights, rental cars and we usually get bumped to business/first class.

Useful things in the thread.

Some websites for travel are decent

Coupling add on travel to work reduces costs

Credit cards/points can help

Some people are wired to travel and truly enjoy it

Some people are uber wealthy and others are stretched thin to maintain travel lifestyle.

I’m not judging anyone.

For me travel is harder than it use to be.