You do not need to be a rich family to travel. Most of our friends and travelling families we met while travelling don’t necessarily earn high salaries. They can be young, older family with single or multiple children. The one common difference is they prioritize family travelling. If you want it, you will find ways, change your attitude and start practical ways to allow your family to travel. Every family will have different ways to achieve this goal to travel, but here are some suggested note points.
Have reasonable expectations. Some people who say they “Can’t afford travelling” expect to go to this year’s “top” destination, buy brand new travel gear before departing, go during festive season, stay in five star hotels, dine in Michelin star restaurants and intend coming home with a few designer bags. Not many can afford this high end luxury style travel. Regular traveller avoids high season, stay in comfortable boutique accommodation and don’t buy too much stuff along the way. Most regular traveller let their next destination reveal itself, choosing to visit best value places they haven’t been to.
Also realise that family travelling with toddlers almost cost nothing extra. Yes, nothing! At this age you can fly outside the school holidays, avoiding high seasons and save thousands on airfares. Plus if they are under two they can fly for free. For accommodation you can stay in similar size rooms as you would travelling as a couple. Many places will not charge little ones entry fee. And if needed, most of their travel gear can be bought second hand and resell after the trip.
We have friends who instead of going on holidays go (overseas) back home for an annual family get together, which in itself can be expensive. One adjustment you can make is to catch up during non festive season to save on flights. Or you can continue to another destination enroute before or afterwards. Even better organise your annual family get together at a holiday destination.
One thing we always do to fund our travels is to delay upgrading “stuff” at home. For example currently both of our mobile phone contract is up and instead of upgrading to a latest phone immediately, we choose delay it for some months. By changing to SIM only plans we are saving more than $100/month which in a year will give us one ticket to Europe! You can do similar thing with car repayments, TV subscriptions etc
So challenge yourself. Find ways to overcome your “I can’t afford to take my family travelling” attitude. Memories you get from family travelling is truly priceless.
