How to Travel on a Teacher's Salary

This post isn't about Middle School PER SAY, but I feel that it's relevant in the sense that I came up with the idea on a middle school teachers salary.

HOW TO TRAVEL ON THE CHEAP: making your life a bit more fun on a budget.

I want to start by saying I am not nearly important enough to have a sponsor, so everything I reference because I use it regularly.

This summer I went on a trip to Maine, which is far away from my home state of Florida. I wanted to visit another "corner" state, but trips like this are normally expensive. This trip cost $450 total for 2 people, and included airfare, a rental car, and a full cabin near Bar Harbor. Between me and my husband that was a 4 day cross country vacation in the middle of June for $225 a person. $225 is not "no money", but is much cheaper than the average vacation. Here's how we did it:

Trick # 1:
Air fare: my absolute FAVORITE airline is Frontier Airlines.

They are the Greyhound bus of the sky. They are going to nickel and dime you. You have to embrace this because their flights are cheap. They do price by "one way", so you buy 2 tickets a trip. Check their website, they do direct flights for cheap. I sign up for their email alerts and get an email deal twice a week. Most of the time I ignore them, until I want to start planning a trip.

If you're open to just picking whatever location is cheap, you could fly for as little as $20 one way.

NOW: carry on bags are an extra charge, but if you're just going overnight, you could keep everything in a purse or laptop bag, which is a "personal item" and it free. I am the queen of shoving all of our crap into 1 bag, so I pay for 1 carry-on, take a purse, and roll our clothes. Rolling clothes saves space, I'll do another post about this later.

On frontier, the seats don't have a big cushion, but after flying a major airline and then Frontier right afterwards, after about an hour both seats feel the same. Also, on Frontier they do not have complementary snacks, but you can get a cup of water for free or pay for a soda. I also do a free water, and once I brought a burrito on board with me because I was so hungry (a memory that still makes my husband laugh hysterically).

Thank you, Airport Burrito Casa, for serving dinner at 6 am

Frontier is not the most luxurious, but if you just need to get from point A to point B cheap, then it's worth it.
Last thing about Frontier: join their "Den Club", it's $50 for a full year and your tickets are cheaper. I wanted to go to San Francisco for my birthday, and I waited for a Frontier deal to pop up. I noticed that the Den Deal tickets were $80 cheaper than the regular seats, so it made sense to spend $50 because I was still saving $30. And now I don't have to pay for it again for a full year, so my flights are EVEN CHEAPER!

Trick #2:
Kayak. I love kayak for flights if I can't use Frontier. I've been using Kayak for years now, and I'm worried all of these commercials are making it so popular that their deals won't be as good anymore. I know this doesn't make sense, why would popularity change the basis of the website? I'm just being paranoid.

My deals, MINE.

Anyway, I found really good hotel deals in Miami when we went to the Everglades this past Valentine's Day, and it's the only website I use to book rental cars. If I'm paying more than $40-$60 a day (maybe more if I waited until the last minute) for a car, I'm paying too much.

Tip for rental cars: those $20 a day deals are normally for local places where the service won't be as good and you have a mileage limit. Even if Kayak says no limit on the miles, the car company will still have one. I have experienced this firsthand. Stick with the cheapest company you recognize, like ACE, Hertz, Enterprise, etc.

Trick #3:
Air BnB.
This is a well known trick. I LOVE Air BnBs. I've stayed in 6 total, and we are staying in another for our San Fran trip next month. When we went to Maine this summer, we had an entire apartment to ourselves for less than the cost of a hotel. Since it had a toaster oven, stove eye, and fridge, we stopped by the grocery store and got some supplies. PB and J every day for lunch, bag of chips and some water make the perfect meal. We'd eat out for dinner, and then we could beat up the leftovers if we were hungry. We also made some tasty breakfasts of pancakes and eggs.

Not the cabin I stayed in, but one that is available on Air BnB!

Staying at an Air BnB is more comfortable, and often you can stay in a better location. We wanted to visit Acadia National Park in Maine, and this put us closer than a hotel would have. Plus we had more room and a smart TV in our room, so at night we watched Netflix and Hulu instead of trying to find something on cable channels we were not familiar with.

Streaming TV is the best, how did we ever live without it?

Another thing to consider is the hosts. When we did a weekend trip to Chicago in May (flew from Orlando to Chicago for $50 total, and stayed at an Air BnB 2 nights at $40 a night. It was such a cheap trip!) our host pointed out some cool local places so we didn't end up at touristy places for dinner.

Trick #4:
National. Parks.
This year alone I have been to 5 National Parks, 6 after our trip next month. We got a NP passport book, and we get stamps every time we go to one. It's become part of my favorite part of trips, getting our passport stamped.
I've climbed 2 mountains this year, and I've biked around lakes, seen Elk, and eaten lunch in places that look like postcards.

There is a National Park for everyone. Acadia in Maine was close to Bar Harbor and had a lot of small shops and was very bicycle friendly. Zion National Park and a small town but was mostly wilderness. National Parks are a great stop on a vacation, or a great destination.


Trick #5:
Dates dates dates dates dates.
If you travel when everyone else is traveling, it will cost more AND be more crowded. Disney World is the perfect example. If you want the best Disney Trip, you should go in January because the weather is nice and there are less people. Since the season is so slow, hotels and tickets are cheaper. It is the best time of year to go!

I hope you can use any of these tips! It's really all about trial and error, finding what works for you. And most importantly, finding those hidden gems of discount flights and cheap hotels. Wanderlust is no longer an impossible dream!

~If you have some great travel tips, SHARE THEM IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!~