Without a doubt, anyone can have a free 2 week vacation. Easy. In fact, writing a post on how travel IS free, I got two reactions (well, before and after). Many people have said that travel is never free (which I ignore). And many people have essentially said, “you of all people should know that miles and points can not only be had for free, but you can do it at profit.”
Yes, it’s true. I know a handful of people now that make their living off of miles and points. I personally choose to not share their secrets, I don’t even share entirely all of my secrets, and some of it I choose not to do.
Either way, it’s true that the two camps of people who say that travel isn’t free are:
1) People who don’t know the tricks. OR
2) People who have tons of money and choose to pay fuel surcharges, pay to share miles, etc…
I personally never do the share miles promos because there are completely free ways to earn miles!
Yet, my goal is not to prove that one can have a two week vacation for free. I’ve already had way more than two weeks of free hotels a year (I mean, even including how I earned the points). And I’ve already booked tons of free international flights (even with taxes (using a points to reimburse the $2.50 or whatever).
Instead my goal is to live a life of travel, where the expenses are lower than our life pre-full-time-travel. As I said in my post analyzing two years of travel, our average hotel is a 4.2 star hotel at an average of $19 a night. I promise you that’s cheaper than rent in Charlottesville. And because of that, we publish all of our expenses. And I try to do some summaries.
Since the last four months have been in Asia, I figured we’d share exactly how that went down, like an Asian themed expense summary.
Hotels
We started out going from Charlottesville to Jakarta (via Hong Kong) using 35,000 AA miles and $22.
We started in Indonesia
Jakarta, was a pit stop purely because I didn’t have enough passport pages to go to Bali. Stupid, because it’s the same country but you only need one page to go to Jakarta and two to Bali. We spent the weekend, and on Monday I got 52 pages added to my passport and then booked a flight to Bali.
Jakarta/Indonesia was mostly about completing our IHG Big Win promos. We needed a number of IC stays, saturday stays, Holiday Inn stays, etc… We have still yet to use most of the points because the PointBreaks list was so weak.
- Holiday Inn Jakarta = $70.53/night
- IC Jakarta = $186.54/night
- Holiday Inn Bali = $44.50/night
- InterContinental Bali = $206.30/night + BOGO cert
- Hoky Homestay = $8.85/night
We went right from the InterContinental Bali to a <$10/night hotel on the other side of the island. As I’ve said many times, if you’ve never been to the north side of Bali, you’ve never been to Bali. It’s like saying you’ve experienced Thai culture from being in Phuket, and more so, Bali is all about the culture.
So that’s how we rolled for 10 nights.
After Bali we laid over in Yogyakarta and Singapore.
- Hyatt Regency Yogyakarta = 5,000 Hyatt points/night
- Holiday Inn Singapore = 20,000 IHG points/night
Then to India…
- InterContinental Mumbai = 5,000 IHG points/night (pointbreaks)
- Holiday Inn Mumbai = 15,000 IHG points/night
- some random place in Udaipur = $21/night
- Park Inn Jodhpur = $44/night
- Holiday Inn Jaipur = 10,000 IHG points/night
- ITC Jaipur = 3,000 SPG points/night
- Marriott Jaipur = Cat 4 cert
- Park Inn Jaipur = 9,000 Club Carlson points/night
- ITC Agra = 4,000 SPG points/night
- Country Inn suites Katra = 15,000 Club Carlson points/night
- The Atrium on the Greens in Katra = $58.72/night
- Country Inn Amrtisar = 9,000 Club Carlson points/night
- Radisson Varanassi = 15,000 Club Carlson points/night
- Park Inn Kolkata =$60 + 5,000 Club Carlson points/night
- Hyatt Regency Kolkata = 8,000 Hyatt points/night
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
- Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur = category 4 cert
- DoubleTree Kuala Lumpur = $40 + 4,000 HHonors points/night
- InterContinental Kuala Lumpur = 35,000 IHG points/night
Thailand
- Holiday Inn Resort Phuket Mai Khao = 15,000 IHG points/night
- Hyatt Regency Phuket = $104/night
- Holiday Inn Patong = $50
- Millennium Resort Phuket Patong = $26/night (mistake fare)
- Holiday Inn Resort Phi Phi Island = $100/night
- Holiday Inn Resort Krabi = 10,000 IHG points/night
- Crowne Plaza Bangkok = 5,000 IHG points/night
- Grand Hyatt Bangkok = 15,000 Hyatt points/night
Forgot to mention that on the way we had a layover in Hong Kong:
- Grand Hyatt Hong Kong = 25,000 Hyatt points/night
You may notice that this is a lot of low level category redemptions, cheap hotels, with a few paid IHG stays.
It’s actually incredible because the majority of our nights in the last months can follow under a low redemption category…
With Club Carlson we stayed at:
- Two category 1 hotels (9,000 points/night)
- Two category 2 hotels (15,000 points/nights). But what’s better is that we got one night free for every booking as a benefit of the credit card.
With IHG we stayed at:
- Two PointBreaks hotels (5,000 points/night)
- Two category 1 hotels (10,000 points/night)
- Two category 2 hotel (15,000 points/night)
With Hyatt we stayed at:
- One category 1 hotel (5,000 points/night)
- One category 2 hotel (8,000 points/night)
And
- One Hilton category 1 hotel (10,000 points/night)
India is definately home to cheap hotels. Although, many of them didn’t live up to brand expectations for me, most all in Thailand far exceed expectations. The Holiday Inn in Krabi is 10,000 points and is a great hotel, plus they gave us a giant suite and had the best sunset ever.
Flights
Our flight over was with 35,000 AA miles + $22 in taxes (as mentioned).
But within Asia, this is easily the most number of paid flights I’ve ever done. In fact it doubles the paid flights that I’ve taken in one trip! This is for a number of reasons, but partly for things that are work related (marketing/travel industry related (which I can explain later)).
So there are 3 main reason I’ll share that the number of paid flights in my life doubled in one 4 month period (and the first two are related):
- Work stuff.
- Carrying more equipment and bags for this trip.
- I got weary of public transport in India.
A similar thing happened in Thailand years ago, where a friend took a night bus and it got in a very bad accident. Except this time, I was sincerely shook up by the Indian Train story. Sincerely. So much so that despite originally planning on taking the train, I shelled out for two absurd plane tickets. But it is what it is.
Here are the flights we took on a discount airliner & within Asia:
- Jakarta – Bali = $53.44/Air Asia ticket
- Bali – Yogyakarta = $2/Air Asia ticket
- Yogyakarta – Singapore =$30/Air Asia ticket
- Singapore – Mumbai = $184.04/Air India ticket
- Mumbai – Udaipuar = $91.47/Air India ticket
- Amritsar – Varanasi = $109/Jetlite ticket
- Varanasi – Kolkata = $168.93/Spicejet ticket
- Kolkata – Kuala Lumpur = $98/Air Asia ticket
- Kuala Lumpur – Phuket = $108.91/Air Asia ticket
- Krabi – Bangkok = $30/Air Asia ticket
- Bangkok – Kuala Lumpur = 7,500 Avios
Listing it out, I feel… ashamed. But it is what it is. I hope many of these circumstances are unique and what’s crazy is how we still come out alright.
Not including about about a week’s worth of expenses (which still needs to be calculated and has been fairly insignificant anyway) we’ve spent $1,223.90 on food since March. Remember, that’s for two people. Not bad I’d say though it’s obviously easier to keep on budget in Asia.
Conclusion
On the hotel front we did well. On flights, we’ve only gotten worse. Although, I have a great feeling about the next months in terms of flights.
On the travel front, we didn’t see a lot of new things. Have almost been to Bangkok probably as many times as I’ve seen my family since they moved to Texas. But seeing India was completely new. It was nothing like my experience in Sri Lanka and it blew my mind.
Next Asia trip I would like to see Myanmar and/or Borneo. And would love to get to east Indonesia some day (like Raja Ampat), but it’s not so easy with miles and points. All though United does go to Koror, Palau…
I’m really a fan of your off the beaten track travel choices, but your accounting style rubs my finance brain the wrong way (yeah, mixing metaphors). Perhaps a more complete listing of your expenses would include costs to acquire the points used (gift card fees, cash back foregone for min or manufactured spending), ground travel costs, etc. I have no doubt you spend far less than regular travelers, but would a fuller accounting perhaps indicate costs more like 1500-2000 per month instead of 1000? Still a great bargain, and possible to generate enough out of MS and deals, but not as low a bar as I see in your numbers generally.
Jig, please understand that this isn’t the complete list of expenses. Carrie lists every single expense including taxis, food, credit card fees, hotels, etc… on her blog. And if you don’t want to dig through my daily pad thai, she does a monthly summary as well.
I’m sorry, I forgot to link to it:
http://freakinflyers.com/category/totals-by-month/
I feel this will give a much more complete view. My blog is often narrowly focused on redemptions, and I’ll try to give more context next time.
Also understand, that these are our only hotel expenses, and it is also how we are earning points. So last quarters expenses explain this quarters redemptions. I’ve seen that it evens out. What I spent on hotels this 4 months pretty much covers the hotel redemptions too.
Drew
Travel might be free because of your income from your cc referrals. Your whole blog gives off the vibe that any of us could do the same thing you’re doing if we wanted. This is not the case. Without that money coming in, how are you even paying $10 a night for a hotel? How are you applying for credit cards and getting bonuses when you don’t even have a home address? There are plenty of missing pieces in your so-called Travel is free for the “broke” blog. Broke as Mrs. Clinton I guess! lol
Hi jack. Not to defend, but I don’t see a bunch of affiliate links on this site. (Though if Mr. Drew could secure them …) In fact, I don’t see any on the page I’m on now, except perhaps CreditKarma. You do know that there are other ways to procure an income while traveling substantially. I do it without a website at all. 🙂
What he said. Plus it takes special skills to keep a blog going, putting quality material overtime that keeps people interested. No one realistically thinks they can travel like him non stop without having some supplemental income.Hope drew doesn’t have to eventually go over to the dark side of non stop affiliate link bombing :).
To some degree I think you’re right jack. Not everyone can have an location independent job. Although, this blog doesn’t even cover all of our expenses. :-/
Well it should cover your expenses. Your blog is one of the best ones out there. I would be happy to apply for all my credit cards with your links, if you had them. I have used your Credit Karma link but not sure if you get total credit on that.
I disagree with your blithe (and rather smug) black-and-white view of the world.
The way you characterize people who disagree with your view is pretty revealing (and it does not reveal nice things).
Yes, I know people who appear to be “making a living” off of points. I know how they are doing it. I am not interested in that for a whole raft of reasons, including the fact that much of what they do is (in my view) unethical, sleazy or at best right on the edge of those. No, I do not pay fuel charges, pay to share miles, hefty fees or other dumb things. But I do have a real job, a real home I like to return to, and a real life. Your condescending attitude toward others is pretty unattractive.
I’m sorry you got that vibe Brad.
But I do want to clarify one thing. It’s not that I think there are two camps: people with tons of money OR people who don’t know all the sleazy tricks.
My basic premise is that anyone can get a little vacation for free, just via a credit card sign up bonus or something easy. Unfortunately many people don’t even know about these easy tricks.
Some people choose to still pay, and some people choose to travel even more, like myself. So I fall into the gray area in my black and white world. I neither do for profit or have tons of money. I’m not sure if I would say I’m condescending towards myself, but I do feel I was unclear in my original statement.
Brad,
Although I’ve never gotten the impression of Drew being condescending, smug, or any other synonym of supercilious that you choose to throw out there, your comments about your “real job, real home, and real life” blatantly do give off that vibe.
1) I respect the fact that “in your view”, many of the more hush-hush tactics in the points game are “unethical and sleazy”. I actually agree with you. There are plenty of different methods that I wouldn’t ever consider using because they fall on the far side of my moral boundaries. But apparently unlike you, I realize that “unethical and sleazy” are both subjective terms that mean completely different things to different people. Illegal is one thing, something I would never condone to get points. But who am I (or you for that matter) to degrade someone because their views and opinions don’t match mine. Isn’t that the textbook definition of condescending?
2) I could fully rebut your comments regarding your “real job, real home, and real life”, but not only would that elicit pages of response from me, it would also boil down to more-or-less my first point. It’s great you’re proud of your chosen lifestyle. If that’s what makes you happy and content – good for you. But why are your opinions of what constitutes as “real” more valid than Drew’s, mine, or anyone else who follows this blog? I know handfuls of people who earn more than enough money to get by, sometimes well into the six-figures, with location-independent jobs. I also have friends who work for large MNCs, based out of headquarter offices in major cities, but spend 45-50 weeks out of the year on the road for their employers. Does that count as less of a “real job” than someone who works for the same company but reports to the same office from 9-5, five days a week? If not, how is operating a location-independent business for yourself any different?
And as far as a “real life”, Drew has spent the last couple of years traveling the world with his wife, seeing countless places and things, and discovering more new experiences than most people will in their entire lives. If being with the person you love and doing the things that make you happy isn’t living a “real life”, I have absolutely no idea what is.
Jonathan, thanks for your thoughtful comments. On the part about unethical and sleazy behaviors, I too have misgivings and sometimes clear disagreement about some of the things various bloggers mention (and other things they don’t mention). And I wouldn’t hesitate to call them out when they talk of doing those unethical things that are directly harmful to other travelers, such as booking substantial numbers of redemptions speculatively, thus selfishly blocking out everyone else from the award space, before finally settling on which fraction of those flights and rooms they really mean to use.
A little different, but still very problematic, are things like merchandise returns done to get points to a credit card rather than because of any defect in the product, or fake hotel complaints in hopes of getting compensation. Those may not hurt another traveler immediately, but can influence companies’ policies in ways that will likely be detrimental to all in the long run. I much prefer to read blog posts about best ways to use programs appropriately, rather than how to lie, cheat and abuse your way to success. Fortunately the large majority of posts are in the former category, both here and elsewhere.
Drew, love your blog, very informative post as always.
It’s refreshing to see a blogger showing us ways to travel within budget and not advertise hotel loyalty… etc (unlike other bloggers).
Please ignore the haters and keep up the good work!
Thanks Cliff,
Will do. 😉
Very informative post. Have a question here. Did the paid flights you listed include tax/fees, especially baggage fees? Low cost carriers are notorious about the fees I thought…
Yep, after fees. Air Asia isn’t stingy really. And they never notice how many bags I carry on. 😀
Would you recommend the Holiday Inn Krabi as part of a November honeymoon for three nights? We have IHG Platinum, do you think chances are good for an upgrade? Is it easy to get to from airport? Easy to get to Phi Phi for day trip?
So wait, I don’t get it, are you saying it’s possible to travel completely free, or not? Because this blog post seems to indicate otherwise. No matter how you slice it, there will always be mandatory out of pocket expenses, and some places don’t have chain hotels or flights that can be booked with points.
Maybe flying to Paris for a week and staying at a Hyatt + Marriott might work, but even then, you have to pay for taxis, trains, museum tickets, inflated food prices, etc..
There might be a matter of different interpretations in some of the discussions here. I don’t think Drew claims to live on $0. What he may be claiming, and may be able to back up, is that he can be traveling the world all the time and doing it for no more overall cost of living than the typical American who has homeownership or rent expenses, car expenses, local groceries and dining, entertainment and on and on, even without setting foot outside the local community. If you look at “travel expense” from the perspective of that which goes beyond what it would cost anyway to live at home, I can easily believe “travel is free” in that sense for him.
That I can agree with, if there’s no mortgage or rent back in the US to pay then obviously anyone whose housing is on average $30-50 per day is doing fine.
Love this post, as well as the rest of your blog.
My question, now that I’m preparing to be a nomad post-graduation for at least 8 months to a year (or longer? who knows how it will work out):
Is it worth it to you to spend all this money to stay in the avg 4* hotels?
I ask this question in all honesty. It would be quite easy to stay in much cheaper and local places in lower-cost countries. I’ve often had much better service staying in a 200 baht guesthouse than a $100 hotel room. I see that you switch it up a bit but $19/night is probably more than I’m going to want to spend. Also is that $19 a night between 2 people or per person? That would make a big difference.
I’m a solo traveler ( 🙁 but excited to make this finally happen. 32 and no longer waiting for friends/partner/whatever!) I need to keep my costs low so I’m just wondering mentally/physically, what are the effects of staying in the hotels. Do you find you really benefit from the nicer places or could you just as well do without? I understand that part of why you do the hotel thing is just to figure it out so you can teach others. I also see the value (especially now that I’m older) of the odd hotel stay strategically placed at the end of a trip to recoup before heading back to the clinic/school. I’m wondering though for long-term travel whether or not that’s necessary or no?
Thanks once again for your site, it’s truly an inspiration!
Switch to Airbnb and try to stay with locals. I’ve been doing that for the past few trips except in cases where selection is slim and hotels are cheap, and it’s been a lot of fun.
AirBnB can be cool…or not. If I was traveling with someone, I wouldn’t hesitate. But in general most properties seem much higher than a decent hostel (that has infrastructure to meet other travelers, which is important to me as a solo traveler. I like a mix of meeting locals/meeting like-minded travelers). Also keep in mind that many hostels are being run by locals as well- often college-aged, who often know where the hip cheap stuff to do is. In general I find even the cheapest AirBnb, in a reasonable location, to start around $20 a night. I try for $5-10/night when possible, depending on country of course.
Some recent examples for me:
Beijing- cheapest AirBnB in neighborhood I needed=$20. Hostel w/light breakfast included=$6.
Izmir- AirBnB cheapest= $20, no breakfast
Nice hostel right on Alsancak, with breakfast and free daily yoga class= $13/night (was actually on AirBnb for $3 more/nite)
Tokyo- found the same hostels listed for several more $/night, in this case I lucked out since there was that $50 off in Japan coupon. Other than hostels cheapest rooms were almost $40 a night, and in far neighboorhoods. My hostel was around the corner from 250 yen Bento palace (no, seriously!) and 5 minute walk from Senso-ji. Drank wine with the local kids running the place that was “mostly not expired”, got a free ticket to a museum featuring a resident’s artwork, and hit up some amazing video game parlors.
I think for solo-travelers the priorities are a little different. Like I’d rather have privacy. Heck, I’ll be honest and say after enough time in Thailand, I avoid hostels and other travelers. But we often did local homestays where it’s the same price as a hostel, local run… just less westerners. :-p
But man, if you’re willing, in many places, particularly Asia and Latin America, you can do $5/night every night.
I enjoy your blog and Carrie’s a lot. You both have views that come from atypical angles and the posts often get me thinking in new ways.
One question: In looking through Carrie’s numbers reporting your expenses, I can’t figure out how you two eat as inexpensively as you do. Maybe I need to spend more time with the numbers, and I know some of those places in Asia are on a different price scale. Still, our travel costs show food as an ever increasing portion of the total, yet yours seem to stay almost ridiculously low.