5 Helpful Travel Tips For Broke College Students

If you are in college, there is a good chance that you don’t have much of a budget for eating, traveling, or doing anything extracurricular. Indeed, it can be difficult to be in such a tight financial spot, because life can be quite uncomfortable. The high cost of college shouldn’t mean that you can’t travel back home to visit family or have fun and vacation during school breaks. For instance, during the winter break, you may want to travel back home. If your parents don’t cover the costs, you may be out of luck. The same goes during spring break – while all your friends are in Mexico or some other fun resort town, the last thing you want is to be stuck on campus in the dorm or in the library. However, there are a few ways to get out of town without breaking the bank. Here are five helpful travel tips for broke college students.

1. Drive – simply gather your friends together and hop in the car to your destination. Gathering your friends will also help with gas and food expenses. There are plenty of places you can go for the day or weekend. When it comes to finding lodging, you can always stay in an affordable motel.

2. Miles – there is a chance that your parents gave you your own credit card to use when you are at college; for things like food and other important or emergency expenses. If this is the case and you have been using the card diligently, you may have accrued some miles. If you have enough miles, you may be able to get out of town quite affordably – your airline tickets may even be free. This is perfect if you need to get home for the holidays or even if you need a ticket to head down to a resort during spring break.

3. Broker – if you are looking for a plane flight and you don’t want to go broke, you may want to use a brokerage service like Hipmunk. These brokerage services are built with algorithms that help you find the cheapest plane flight, hotel and more. You can even find travel packages, so everything is built into one streamlined package that is affordable and plans out your trip.

4. Ask – it never hurts to at least try and ask your parents for a little money to help you get out of town. If you are going home for the holidays, your parents may help with the expenses. If you are heading out of town to decompress, your parents should understand that, too. Indeed, college can be difficult and decompressing may even help you succeed in school.

5. Save – another way to travel is to save. It may take a few months and you may have to work nights, but if you really want to travel and have the freedom to explore, you will definitely need to get a part time job and save. In the end, you should be able to save up to travel quite freely if you are motivated and ambitious.