What 6 Months of Travel to 18 Countries Cost Us

Are you thinking about embarking on 6 months of travel and taking a break from it all?

In 2021, we decided to take all of our savings and travel until our money ran out. We lasted for just about 6 months and managed to visit 18 countries during our trip.

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We, my husband Colton and I, spent about a year and a half saving up for this trip, and we managed to save 30k in that time. I go into more detail about how we did this in my post about how we save money for travel.

The purpose of this blog post is to go into detail about how we planned and executed our trip, show you some of the numbers, and go into the thought process for making our itinerary. Hopefully this helps you if you are planning to or are interested in doing something similar.

When my husband and I left for our 6 month trip to 18 countries, we knew that airfare would be one of the single largest individual costs of our trip. So, after a little bit of research, we found a way to get affordable flights all over the world: travel credit cards.

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The first note here that I need to make is that almost no flight is truly free, you do have to pay the taxes and fees. But, what if I told you I just bought a $6 flight from North Carolina, USA to Athens, Greece this week. Or that I’ve spent only $11 for me and Colton to fly from NC to Turkey?

Would you believe those numbers?

I never in a million years thought I could fly abroad for less than a few hundred dollars, and that’s if I somehow found an amazing deal!

It wasn’t until I came across travel credit cards and the world of points and miles that I understood how these serial travelers I was seeing everywhere were affording their flights.

The trick was, they were barely paying for them.

So, after tons of research, applying for credit cards, hitting bonuses, and of course getting everything in order to leave home for 6 months to travel, I bought our one way flights out of the country for $11.

How did we do it?

The world of points and miles, of course!

Let me tell you how we did it and give you the information you need to start earning free flights with your credit card!

Let me preface this with one statement: the world of points and miles is BIG and there is a lot that you honestly don’t need to know to just get started.

So, I’m going to give you the most necessary information to get you started and cut out all the fluff. Let’s go!

I promise you this is not a scam, because maybe that’s the first place your mind is headed when I say “free” flights.

In fact, paying with points and miles to purchase flights at insanely low prices is entirely legal, I promise!

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Find them here!

What Are Points and Miles

Table of Contents

Points and miles are the reward currency of airlines and hotels: aka loyalty points.

I’m not talking about the points you earn by flying with an airline repeatedly, that you only rack up over several years.

I’m talking about points and miles you earn just from having the credit card you already use!

Each bank or airline that offers credit cards with points and miles use them as an alternative currency for purchasing flights.

Many of the banks that offer travel credit cards have both airline and non-airline branded credit cards: a.k.a the airline the bank has partnered with offers airline miles as the sign up bonus, not credit card points. Those miles can only be used with that airline.

If you apply for a bank branded card with no airline association, you’ll earn points with that bank that can then be transferred to their airline or hotel partners.

How To Get Points And Miles With Travel Credit Cards?

The fastest way, and most likely reason why you’re wanting a travel credit card, is to earn points with a sign up bonus.

Most banks offer a sign up bonus of varying amounts after a certain amount of qualifying purchases on the card in the first few months.

It might sound something like this: “earn 60k bonus points when you spend $3,000 dollars on purchases in the first 4 months.” Yadah yadah.

But, you will also earn points while using your card on your everyday purchases! Some cards offer bonus categories, like 3x on grocery purchases, or 2x at restaurants, etc. So, when you spend money on your card, you’ll earn points in return that can be redeemed for various things, like flights or hotel stays.

Generally, if you’re wanting to redeem miles for flights or hotels, you’re going to need a good chunk of miles to do so.

You can purchase some domestic flights with as little as 8,500k points one way, but if you’re flying international, it will likely cost you 15k one way, at the very least.

Of course, the cost of award flights in points can greatly vary and is not always directly tied to the cash ticket price.

Other ways to earn points with travel credit cards include anniversary bonuses, giveaways, and transfer bonuses. These come and go and aren’t something I would rely on.

For the purposes of this post, which is all about a beginner’s guide to free flights with points and miles, sign up bonuses are your very best friend.

How Much Are Points and Miles Worth?

Not all points are created equal.

Some points are more valuable than others simply because you can transfer and redeem them in more ways.

Points and miles also get their value depending on the deal you get when redeeming them.

Let me give you an example scenario to explain…

For example, let’s say you have 75k Capital One miles and you want to fly from Atlanta, Georgia to Athens, Greece for an amazing holiday eating delicious Mediterranean food and swimming in crystal clear waters for 8 days.

These are the flights you’re looking at. They’ll take you to Greece during the best time to visit, late summer when it isn’t too crowded and not too hot.

You have a few options for how you can book these flights with points

Option 1: Redeem Points with a Travel Portal

Option 1 is to redeem your points through Capital One Travel and their online portal. When you do this, you’re going to get a fixed redemption rate of 1¢ per mile.

So your 75k miles would be worth $750 for travel. You could use those 75k miles to buy a flight worth up to $750 through the Capital One Travel portal. That’s over half of what this ticket is worth. So you would still have to pay about $390+ on top of your 75k miles for this ticket.

We can definitely do better than that!

Option 2: Transfer to a Partner

Option 2 would be to transfer your Capital One miles to one of their airline transfer partners, then book the flight on their website using your points.

If you did this, those 75k miles could become 75k FlyingBlue points (Air France & KLM’s loyalty program and one of Capital One’s transfer partners).

The same exact flight booked on Air France with cash would cost you $1,142.

But, you can transfer your points from Capital One and over to FlyingBlue, so now you have up to 75k FlyingBlue miles! Let’s use them!

If you use FlyingBlue to book the exact same flight, you would only need 30,000 miles and $208 in taxes & fees. Way better than using all 75k and only covering half of the cost!

And, instead of paying $1,142 out of pocket for a round trip ticket to Europe, you’re only paying $208 plus 30,000 points.

*you want to transfer only the amount of points you need. In this scenario, thats only 30k of the 75k.

In this scenario, you would be redeeming your Capital One points, through FlyingBlue, for 3.1cents per mile. Now that’s more like it!

This is why points can be so valuable and why transfer partners can be the best way to go when redeeming points.

I know that was a lot, so let me summarize if for you:

Out of pocket price for ticket Atlanta to Athens: $1142 on Air France/KLM
Price of same ticket booked through Capital One Travel: 75k miles + $392
Price of same ticket booked through FlyingBlue after transferring Capital One miles: 30,000 miles + $208 in taxes and fees.

You would come out of this deal with around 45k Capital One miles left in the bank. That’s enough to buy you another roundtrip flight to Europe.

Now THAT’S how we use points and miles to our advantage 🙂

RESOURCE: Free List of Transfer Partners & Airline Alliances + How to Use Them

*be sure to only transfer the points you need and no more so you can keep the extra points with your bank and transfer them elsewhere in the future*

How Do You Redeem Points And Miles For Flights?

The way that we typically redeem our points and miles is by using them to purchase flights. We do this by transferring our credit card points to transfer partners.

The scenario above is a great example of how we would use our points and miles to get amazing deals on flights.

Here is that chart again that I made to show you where you can transfer points based on what program you’ve accumulated points with.

The process of transferring points can be a bit complicated, but I’m going to help you out here.

Here is the basic rundown of how to redeem your points for flights:

Accumulate points on your credit card
Research credit card airlines transfer partners
Search Google Flights or Skyscanner to find flight routes
Search for award flights on airline transfer partners
Find desired flights and see how many points/money required to book them
Create a frequent flier account with airline if you don’t already have one
Transfer points on your bank’s website to transfer partner of choice
Book those flights!!

To use the example from above, I would find the flights I want and make sure I have enough points to pay for them. Then, I would log into Capital One and go to the Capital One Travel portal to transfer my points to FlyingBlue. Once my points were transferred, I would buy my flights!

The real trick is finding award flight availability and the deals that are out there waiting to be had! It takes a little bit of time and practice but you’ll get the gist!

What Travel Credit Cards Are Best?

For me to answer this question, you’ll need to ask yourself a question first: what are your goals?

Are you looking to cover some international long haul flights? Maybe you’re an avid domestic traveler and would like to cover a few legs of travel for your upcoming trips. Would you like to stay in nice hotels for just the cost of fees?

It’s good to look at the options and decide what you think will work best for your goals!

If you want to cover some flights, I would find a card that has great travel benefits and flexible rewards. If you’re more interested in hotel stays, get a hotel branded card!

You can find my favorite travel credit cards and all the information about them on my
Travel Credit Cards Recommendations page.

Want my help choosing a travel credit card?
Fill out my Free Credit Card Consultation Form & I’ll email you personalized recommendations!

“Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.”

Even though I’m mentioning 6 months of travel, a lot of these principles can apply to any duration of long-term travel, be it 1 month or 10.

We saved $30k for both of us, or $15k per person.

There are plenty of people who have traveled even longer with even less. There are also people who have traveled for a shorter amount of time with more.

For us, $30k was a comfortable amount of money for us to enjoy where we were visiting but also be frugal in our choices of hotels, food, etc.

In addition to the money we saved, we also accumulated about 300k credit card and airline points to use for flights around the world. We booked our initial one-way flight from the U.S. to Turkey for 30k points each and $11. (the flight was $2000 each for the itinerary we chose).

If a long term trip, or even just a longer vacation that the typical 2 weeks of PTO, is something you’re interested in doing yourself, take out your notebook and write this sh*t down!

Here we go!

Disclaimer: this is entirely our own experience, so please take it with a grain of salt. We recognize that what we did might seem unattainable to some or easily achieved by others. All of the numbers we share are real, but they could be different for you based on your own needs.

The 18 Countries We Visited During 6 Months of Travel

I’ve listed the countries we traveled to below so you can get an idea of how far our money would go during our 6 months of travel. If we had traveled solely in Southeast Asia, our budget would likely have been much lower (or we would have traveled much longer!)

We were still able to travel on a decent budget while in Europe while enjoying so much of what the continent has to offer.

Bosnia & Herzegovina

Vatican City

Austria

France

The Netherlands

Belgium

Germany

Switzerland

Thailand

We spent anywhere from 6 hours (like Vatican City) to 3 weeks (as we did in Italy) in a country depending on just how much we wanted to see and how much time we needed to see it.

Note: the faster you move around and the more places you go, the more expensive it will be. Transportation is usually one of the biggest costs while traveling. Fast travel vs. slow travel can make a big difference in your budget.

Our Daily Budget While Traveling

What we set our daily spending budget to was based on where we were. In Switzerland, it was much higher than Thailand, because those two countries are vastly different as far as daily costs.

Our daily budget was anywhere between $100/day to $200/day.

Sometimes we spent less and sometimes we spent more. This number includes expenses for both of us.

We just knew we had $30k and wanted to travel as long as we could while enjoying ourselves.

So, even in Thailand, we could have spent less but we felt like treating ourselves! Which meant still staying under $100/day but staying in nice hotels and getting massages every day.

In Switzerland, we practically rationed food because everything was so expensive (dramatic, I know).

the true cost of 6 months of travel — Koh Tao, Thailand

Understanding our travel style will also help you understand how $30k lasted us for 6 months of traveling. We usually stayed in 3 star hotels, ate picnic lunches, walked almost everywhere, and passed up on popular tourist attractions that we didn’t think were worth the money (I’m looking at you €90 gondola ride in Venice).

But, we also booked rental cars in some places and chose to stay in nicer hotels some nights. It’s all about balance!

To help you get a general idea of what it cost us per day in various places, here are some examples of our average daily cost in 7 countries we visited.

All of these numbers are for 2 people, sharing a hotel room, and may include rental cars.

Italy: $150

Croatia: $115

Thailand: $80

Scotland: $160 (we had a rental car)

Hungary: $125

Spain: $115

Czechia: $110

Turkey: $85

The Cost Of Traveling

What it will cost you to visit a country is going to be different for every destination.

There are a few factors that affect the cost of goods and services where you’ll be visiting.

Currency Exchange

The first factor is currency.

Is the currency of the country you are visiting stronger or weaker than that of your home country?

For example, as an American, I’m privileged to be from a country with a very strong currency. The U.S. dollar can go very far in a lot of countries. But, sometimes it can be the opposite, like an American visiting Switzerland and a kid’s meal at McDonalds is $10!

Or, maybe your home country’s currency won’t go quite as far as the U.S. dollar. It’s wise to choose a country to visit where your money will go farther if you’re trying to get the most bang for your buck.

Southeast Asia, most of Africa, and much of South America tend to be more affordable places to visit, depending on your home currency, of course.

You can visit a website like x-rates.com to see what the exchange rate is for your home currency and that of the country you’re visiting. This will give you an idea of how far your money will go while you travel.

The Economy

The second factor is the economy of the country you’re visiting.

Economies are constantly changing, as well as supply and demand in the tourism industry.

There are destinations that are expensive to visit simply because they are popular with tourists. Maybe it’s entirely different 2 hours down the road in a smaller and lesser visited country or city.

An example of this is Greece and Albania. The two countries share a coast line but one has a massive tourist presence and the other does not. Because of this, Albania is significantly cheaper to visit than Greece.

The Time of Year

The third factor is what time of year you are visiting.

Every country’s tourism sector has a high season and a low season. High season is when the most tourists are around and prices get higher. Low season is exactly the opposite.

High season tends to be that way for a reason, ie. good weather, vacation time, etc. Low season on the other hand is usually less expensive because the weather might not be as good. Summer is the high season in lots of places, especially Europe, while in Asia, they deal more with a wet season and a dry season.

In my opinion, the best time to visit is a destinations ‘shoulder season.’ Basically, just before or just after the busy season.

Planning A 6 Month Travel Itinerary

To be totally honest with you, I recommend you don’t plan your entire trip ahead of time.

This is especially true if it’s a long trip. So much can change while you travel, and instead of being stuck to a rigid schedule, you can have the freedom to change things at the last minute or flex when something goes wrong.

We only planned 2 weeks of our 6 month trip.

It was the first two weeks, in Turkey, that we planned before we even left the U.S. We decided that we did not want the stress of having to stick to a plan for 6 months of traveling that we planned before we were even on the road.

What if something changed? What if we got sick? If we really liked a destination and wanted to stay longer? What if we didn’t like a city and we wanted to leave sooner?

So, we only planned 2 weeks ahead at any given time in order to allow for maximum flexibility in our itinerary.

But, we weren’t completely without a plan. We at least had an exhaustive list of countries we would like to visit that we could reference when it was time to plan the next stop. We also did a lot of research ahead of time of experiences or activities that we wanted to prioritize on our trip.

Most of the time, where we went next was based on either geographical location (what was nearby) or meeting up with our family that came to visit us.

France, and my favorite boots I wore our entire trip.

If you do want to plan your itinerary, I recommend that you just do so with the knowledge that something is bound to change along the way, so be flexible!

Maybe decided the order of continents to visit or the direction of travel to help you plan without committing to too much ahead of time.

Saving 30k For Our World Trip

There really is a lot I could say about how we saved up $30k in a year and a half for 6 months of travel. But the very basic principle that will help you do something similar is simple…

Time is money.

Saving money really is about steadily committing to saving over time.

Most likely you aren’t able to save $30k in one month! It took us a year and a half of consistently making choices that were going to save us moolah to get to that point.

We used a high yield savings account with Ally Bank and sent every bit of extra money we had that way. Bonuses from work? Straight to the savings account. A little bit of money from birthdays or holidays? Right to the savings account.

I wrote a previous post about how to save money for travel where I go into much more detail about how we saved each month, what ways we cut out unnecessary expenses, and the small changes we made to maximize our monthly savings.

6 months of travel cost — The Dolomites, Italy

We knew this trip was our priority and that any small and frivolous thing we bought before the trip wasn’t worth losing a potential day of travel.

$25 on a shirt from Target is equivalent to an entire day of food in Turkey. $100 on a new pair of shoes is an entire day of travel in Thailand that we would miss out on!

For about 6 months, I did not buy one thing that I would not also be bringing on our trip with us (not including food and other necessities of course).

If you really want to save money and you have expendable income after your important expenses are handled, you will be able to save. It’s about mindset and priority!

Of course, I recognize that not everyone is in a financial situation where saving money is a possibility. Please hear me when I say I know it is a privilege to have expendable income!

Preparing To Leave Home For 6 Months of Travel

I thought that there would be a lot to do to feel prepared to leave for 6 months of travel, and I was right.

But, it wasn’t nearly as much as I thought and I think that had to do with our situation at the time.

We were renting an apartment, so we didn’t need to sell a home. Plus, we don’t have children, so we only had the two of us to be responsible for. We both wanted to transition in our jobs, so quitting was easy. And, we didn’t have a lot of monthly expenses because we lived a pretty simple, minimal lifestyle.

It certainly helped that we weren’t entrenched in a lifestyle that was too difficult to leave. Our monthly expenses were pretty minimal.

But, that being said, I have heard many stories of people that have left so much more than we did and still did something very similar in traveling long-term. Like The Bucketlist Family, for example. They have 3 children and have learned how to travel full-time with them so well!

While it might not be easy to leave it all behind for a time, it is possible, if it’s what you truly want. Everyone’s situation is different!

What We Did Before Leaving For 6 Months of Travel

Sold furniture, home decor, kitchen gadgets, clothes, and really anything we owned that we hardly used or didn’t want once we came back.
Sold our motorcycle & one of our cars (it was time for it to go)
Canceled monthly memberships that we would not use while abroad (we kept Netflix and Spotify).
Dove into the world of travel credit cards and accumulated 300k credit card points.
Ended our lease, moved out of our apartment, and canceled renters insurance.
Opened a Charles Schwab Checking account to use while abroad.
Purchased travelers health insurance from Safety Wing.
Purchased new suitcases and travel essentials
Put away some money into a ‘when we return home’ savings account
Booked one-way flights and accommodations for 2 weeks out on Booking.com

5 Comments

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Ed Wiedemeier says:

May 5, 2024 at 12:08 pm

Exactly what I was looking for. I fealt reasured because what you laid out is very similiar to what I was thinking. So, logic prevailed in your suggestions.

B. Inge says:

May 10, 2024 at 5:37 pm

Nikki! Glad to see you’re doing so well! I enjoyed reading about your adventure and appreciate you laying out the many many details that went into it! Stay awesome!

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