A wild ride ahead
This morning I began driving to North Carolina to visit my sister as she will be taking care of my rescue cat, Matcha, in the end (long, long story!). From there I'll visit a friend in Washington DC before continuing on to New York City to see family for a week. After that, I'll fly back to Florida for six days to get organized.
And then...it's go time.
At the end of July I fly to Istanbul. I'll stay in Istanbul for 9 days and then head to Bucharest, Romania to prepare for my first Wandering Earl Tour in over 1.5 years. (To say I'm excited to get the tours started again is a major understatement!)
How much does all this travel cost?
My schedule for the next month involves a lot of moving around. Naturally, it would seem that all of this traveling would cost a small fortune.
However, after taking advantage of credit card points, airline miles and several travel tricks I've learned over the years, I managed to keep the cost quite low.
How low?
The cost of my travels from Florida to North Carolina to Washington DC to NYC and back to Florida is a grand total of $225 USD. This is for all transportation (rental cars, flights and a 3.5 hour train) and accommodation.
My flight to Istanbul - a direct flight from Miami - cost me $500 using a trick that knocked $700 off the original price of $1200. Three and four star hotels in Istanbul right now cost as low as $30 per night and guesthouses/hostels are even less.
I estimate my total expenses for the next month to be approximately $1500 USD. This includes 5 destinations, all accommodation (19 nights at hotels and 10 nights staying with friends/family), transportation (cars, flights, trains, taxis, etc), all meals and all activities.
As I've said often during my years of travel, if played right, long-term travel can actually cost less money than staying at home. It takes time, and plenty of research and figuring out how to take advantage of the tricks, loopholes, little-known hacks and all kinds of rewards programs out there, but it's all very possible once you do figure it out.
I'm going to write a blog post soon with all of the tricks and tactics I used for my upcoming month of travel and I'll share the post here in the newsletter as soon as it's ready!
