Irish blogger Kymann Power proved it was possible to travel to seven European countries on a budget below $200 if one looked for great deals online. However, with further perseverance and meticulous planning, traveling up to 15 European countries for only £300 ($3745) or nine countries across four continents for about $418 could be possible.
Spending only £300 or $375 traveling from London to Paris passing by Luxembourg, Copenhagen, Berlin, Warsaw, Prague, Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest, Zagreb, Rome, and Bern is indeed an affordable travel plan, but it would require a sacrifice: travelers could only travel by bus. According to The Sun UK -- citing study results from travel search platform Wanderu -- traveling by bus to different European countries only needs travelers to spend less than $400
However, with the lower transport price comes lengthy travel time. In a chart from Wanderu embedded in The Sun UK's post, the average bus prices going from point A to B are displayed together with its corresponding travel time length. One example is bus traveling from London to Brussels would take seven hours on average. The longest travel time is Rome to Bern, which takes almost an entire day and an hour ride between Vienna and Bratislava is the shortest.
To see the entire world, NerdFitness' founder Steve Kamb devised a plan using air flights to four continents visiting nine countries while spending only $418. He begins his travel to "The Rock Boat" music festival in Atlanta and passes through Los Angeles, into the Pacific to Australia and New Zealand, then he headed to Southeast Asia and returns back to San Francisco where he would travel to Ireland, Spain, and Argentina.
One of Kamb's greatest assets was acquiring "frequent flyer miles" often featured in flight passenger-oriented credit cards. He has kept about four cards that earn frequent flyer miles including American Airlines, British Airways, Starwood Preferred Guest and American Express. Kamb said one has to have "excellent credit, have their first year waived, use the card [to pay for] everything, and pay each card in full."
Using the cards frequently allows travelers to gain points. It does not defeat the purpose of saving especially when cardholders spend money on their card that they could repay by the end of the month completely. In the NerdFitness post, Kamb goes into detail about the amount one can spend and repay on each credit card to earn a specific number of points that would help one travel for less.
These two travel hacks are not perfect in saving travelers more money as it requires some pre-planning persistence, such as spending using cards to earn frequent flyer miles or planning for hour-long bus rides. But they indeed can save one money if made to work effectively with one's itinerary.
