In this blog, we will talk about 7 travel tips of travelling more while doing a full time job without spending loads of money.. There is a famous quote which many of you must have heard,
“Jobs fill your pockets, adventures fill your soul”
– Jamie Lyn Beatty
Each and every word in this phrase is quite true to its sense. In this rat race of ours, just to be successful at any cost we forget a very important thing amidst it, which is….
TIME
You might earn a lot of money and fame and grow big in a corporate house or start your own venture. But, will you get these years or months or days ever back in your life which you have lost ?
The answer is Obviously a “No”. Still thinking….? Okay you decide for your self, we are giving you two situations to judge.
- A trek Kedarnath or to the Valley of flowers in Uttarakhand at the age of 28 and compare this same trek when you are 58, will you be able to make it, even if you do , what about the thrill and excitement ?
- Again a Trip to Vegas in your late 20’s or early 30’s compared to a trip with your family and kids at 50 😉
Umm,, controversial ?? Indeed it is, but the judgement is all yours.
Working over the weekend or working 60 hours a week just to impress your boss to get a promotion, decent hike and bonus. Its indeed great for your future perspective but what about the work life balance, what about the time that you are just passing by year after year just by working day and night. Will you ever get it back ?
Think !!
Take leaves, go for vacation, spend time with your family and loved ones. Its never too late. Work will always be there, the time lost wont.
In this blog, we will talk about 7 ways how you can travel more while doing a full time job without hampering your work and without spending loads of money.
Its super easy to do it and all you need to know is the most important Project Management principle.
Planning !!
Travel tips – Leaves and Holidays
We don’t need a survey to talk about this but every year almost 20-30% of our planned leaves gets expired just like that. Every organization allots certain leaves to each employee every year, so its our responsibility to take it and utilize it as and when its required. The most important aspect to take leaves is proper Planning.
In a full time job you will have your own team and business unit and every people is depended on one another. Why we are using the word Planning so many times is, planned leave are not harmful to any organization. Unplanned leaves are.
Whenever we are taking unplanned leaves we need to keep in mind that someone in our team or department has to do that additional piece of work which I am not doing on a particular day or a period. So its always better to plan your holidays and leaves
Every organization has their own leave calendar, follow that rigorously so that the business does not get hampered.
Try to find out and sort out public holidays first and try to plan it accordingly. In a year if you want to plan at least 4 trips, try to divide that between long and short trips. Choose destination accordingly on the basis of number of available days
Divide the full year in to two long trips by 6 months gap, so ideally its one trip during the summers which you can choose a hilly destination and the other one in a beach or jungle or any historic place. The remaining two tours would be a quarterly one depending on the different seasons we have.
In this way we can easily have 4 trips in a year combining of long or overseas trip and local or short destination trips.
Try to also plan for leaves which are falling on thursday/friday or on monday/tuesday in this way you can easily combine a trip of either thursday, friday, saturday & sunday or saturday, sunday, monday & tuesday. These would be sufficient number of days to have your quarterly trips.
Travel tips – Budget
Money or resources are one of the key aspects in travelling.
There are two key things of travelling which you have to keep in mind if you want to be a backpacker or a frequent traveler,
- Make lavish trips and have limited number of trips in a year
- Make Budget trips and have multiple number of trips in a year
We are in favor of the later of course.
If you want to travel frequently you have to bring down per head cost to the minimum. Once again the golden term of “Planning” comes into the picture.
Plan early and book your tickets at the earliest. If you are travelling by flight, book your tickets at least 4 months prior to your departure, that’s the minimum time frame you want to keep for yourself. And if you are planning to go by train, book your tickets at least 3 months prior to your journey. Specially in the months of holidays or a festival, always book early.
In terms of hotel also book your hotels early as well. Always book hotels with free cancellation. Even if you cancel at the last minute. you will at least get something for refund. Same goes for airfare and railway fare.
If you are getting a bonus or a hike on a particular month every year, choose that month or subsequent month for travel. You don’t have to spend from your existing savings.
Also try to keep a separate fund only for travelling and put your money accordingly. In this way you wont need to burn out a lot of cash during a trip.
Also try to add at least 5,6 people in a trip in this way per head cost will be much lower compared to a couple or a solo trip. These would be specially useful during foreign trips or trips to places where its a little expensive.
Tip : Don’t book hotels during the weekend, the charges are always on the higher side.
Travel tips – Destination
Choosing a destination is as important as fixing your budget for a trip. If you are planning multiple foreign trips in a year, its wise not to choose multiple weekend trips or smaller trips in that same year.
So choose your destination wisely. Most importantly the season of travel. If you are in India, you don’t want to plan a Kerala or Goa or an Andamans trip during the month of May when the temperature touches 40 degrees or a North Sikkim or Uttarakhand tour during the month of Monsoon when the landslides are the highest.
Same goes for Dubai summer trip or a winter Europe trip. You need to plan the destination very carefully.
Also on the contrary you need to also think about off seasons. You don’t want to land into a place where its peak season. Else you need to stand in queue for hours whether its Eifel tower in Paris or a Gondola ride in Gulmarg. You will spend a day just by doing one activity, which makes no sense. Moreover you will end up spending lot of money as well.
Try to visit places during offseason as well, you may never know what you will end up with. And moreover you would get discounts on hotels and transport cost as well.
Travel tips – Tickets
Like said earlier, booking your tickets early is the key to success. Not only you will get a confirm chance of travelling but also it would help you save a lot of money.
If you are travelling to any place during peak season then definitely book your tickets as early as possible. If you are not getting direct tickets try alternative routes also to reach a place.
For example if you are visiting Vizag and you are not getting a direct train ticket to there from Kolkata, try to break your journey in tow halves. You can book a train to Bhubaneshwar or Cuttack and from there you would get multiple trains to Vizag.
Often Tatkal tickets do help as well, but you have to be “Flash” from the DC Comics to book them as all gets filled up in less than a minute.
If you are booking a flight and you are not sure whether you would be able to visit the place or not, try to book their free cancellation tickets, which might cost you a little extra but chance of getting full refund gets increased.
Try to travel in different classes as well, if its just an overnight journey or a trip during winter and you are not getting tickets to any ac classes, sleeper class can always be an option or you can book a bus also if no train tickets are available.
Travel tips – Accommodation
Accommodation is a part of your fixed cost when you are traveling. So you need to really Plan and choose accommodation properly.
If you are visiting a beach, the hotels which are located on the sea beach will obviously cost you higher than the ones which are a little inside and not located on the main beach. For example a 3 star hotel near Jumeriah in Dubai would cost you higher than a 3 star hotel which is 300-500 meters away from the main beach.
Same goes for hotels which are located on the Mall road in a hill. If you are booking a hotel closer to the Mall road or the main center of attraction in any hilly station like Manali, Mussourie, Darjeeling, Sikkim etc, the hotels would obviously put a hole in your pocket.
Try to stay a little bit away from the main area, in this way you can save a lot of money. Also you never know the place can be a true gem in terms of finding out true nature at its best or have the best interactions with the locals around. Also choose for Airbnb’s and home stays wherever possible, this would help you to really indulge with the locals.
Travel tips – Food
Considering all other fixed expenses, food however would be your variable expenses when you are planning your trip.
It depends on how much one can consume. If you are a frequent traveler, then food should also come under your planning parameters.
Going and eating at expensive joints every day while you are travelling, would surely put a hole in your pocket. In order to cut down the expenses, try to have food at local eateries as well. It will not only reduce your cost drastically but also you it will help you to try out local food and delicacies. In this way you would get to know more about the place and the culture as well.
If you are booking a hotel, always include complimentary breakfast. Do have a heavy breakfast every morning, in this way you can just have normal snacks and finger food while sight seeing during the day. This would save a lot of time for sight seeing and you can explore more places also.
But we are not telling you to totally skip famous eateries. Do keep a dinner or a lunch at a famous eatery during your trip.
You cannot just miss a breakfast at Bakers Cafe in Gangtok or a lunch at Thalassa in Goa or a dinner at Glenarys in Darjeeling if you are ever visiting these places.
Travel tips – Planning for next trip
Now would wonder why we have included this point at the end. Why because planning for your next trip is equally important when you are planning a budget and trips for the entire year.
If you are travelling in an expensive place like Kashmir, Kerala, Manali, Andamans etc, you would obviously want to save a lot for these kind of trips.
So you need to plan accordingly for a trip which are planned before these big ones. So your budget should be cut down to the lowest for the smaller ones.
Also try to plan destinations accordingly. If you have just been to a beach you would obviously not want to plan your next trip in another beach destination. You can choose a trip to a hilly area or a trip to a jungle for your next one.
Conclusion
To conclude, planning is very important. Specially in terms of budget and leaves. If you have a full time job you would obviously don’t want to make your boss angry by taking too many leaves in a given year, so plan your leaves accordingly. When you are working make sure you give your 100% at work and when you are on vacation do make sure you don’t attend any official calls or meetings.
Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.
– Dolly Parton
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