How to Travel the U.S. for Free or Cheap (and Safe)

Traveling can definitely be expensive, but if you plan and do your research, you have a much better chance of saving big money. I have traveled my whole life, but I never was a college student who had the opportunity to get and see the world, because I went to school and I worked to pay for my schooling and the few bills I had. I lived at home, but because books were so expensive for my classes, I really didn’t have any leftover cash to put toward travel. It was also a time when I didn’t know all my options for jetsetting for nearly no money.

Now, there are so many ways to save for students wanting to get out and travel the globe, it’s crazy that there aren’t more packing their bags. Though many want to backpack through Europe, there are just as many things to see in the U.S. and just as easy to save your pennies to do it. Here are some tips to travel for cheap or free, while still staying safe, because that’s even more important that saving a few bucks.

Housesit

A lot of people like to suggest couchsurfing as a way to save money and spending nothing on your accommodations. Sure, you could do that, but if you’re like me, you don’t enjoy staying in a complete stranger’s house. When I travel, I need space and alone time and privacy. I also don’t really trust people that much. Instead of doing this, look for housesitting opportunities where you can stay at someone’s house while they’re on vacation. You have full run of it, might actually make some money, and all you may have to do is take in their mail, water their plants and feed their pets. Sounds pretty good, right? It’s like being at home where you travel.

Walk or Bike It

You could totally take a cab or rent a car, but those are going to cost you a ton of money in the long run. Uber will save you a bit, but it’ll still end up taking a big chunk of your travel budget. Instead, rely on your feet whenever possible or get on your bike. It’s easy to travel with your own bike now, but a lot of big cities have rental bikes that won’t break the bank. Use these modes of transportation before you break down and use public transit. If you need the bus or subway, try to get a full-day or multi-day/trip pass when you can, because these can save you over individual trips.

Hit Up Happy Hour

You gotta eat and you aren’t going to want to make all your own meals when you’re traveling, because it’s not always fun, plus there’s so much good food out there. Treat yourself to some great restaurants by visiting during Happy Hour. This way you can get a few plates for the price of a full entrée, which is perfect if you aren’t traveling alone.

Go to the Farmers’ Market

First of all, this is a great way to interact with the locals. Second, it’s an equally great way to see regional foods. Third of all, you can pick up affordable snacks and a quick meal from vendors there.

Take a Free Tour

There are quite a few groups that run free tours in different cities, you just have to Google to find them. Usually they are run by local volunteers who know a lot of awesome stories and facts about your destination. You should just contribute a few bucks as a tip when the tour is over. You might even make a new friend!

Stop In for a Home-Cooked Meal

Everyone likes a home-cooked meal and if you’re into meeting some new people, check out MealSharing and hook up with a local person/family who wants to share their home with you for the evening. You make some friends and get a free meal and they get to feel awesome about helping you out and meeting you. Maybe pick up something as a hostess gift, like a cheap bottle of wine or bring a little something fun from your hometown.

Go Out with Others

If you would rather go out to eat and meet people, hook up with locals and travelers alike by logging on to InviteForABite and find others who also want to get together and eat with “friends”, because it’s not always exciting to eat alone, even with your smartphone on hand.

Check Out Free Attractions

This is one of my favorite ways to stretch a buck. All cities have free things to do, including museums, landmarks and more. Just get online and search “free things to do in (insert city here)” and you might be surprised by how many things you find. The great thing is, many tourists don’t take the time to seek these things out, so you’re going to see a totally different view of the city than most other people who visit. You can also ask locals what their favorite hidden gems. I’ve learned a lot about places to go and things to see by doing this as well.

There are a lot of fun ways to save money when you travel if you’re resourceful and plan ahead. Know where to go, what to do and where to eat before you leave home and your trip will be more fun, more fulfilling and much more affordable. 

You can find more tips like this in A Student's Guide to Traveling Without Spending Money, a free ebook that can teach you how you can enroll into various programs, scholarships, internships, and trainings that allow you to travel without actually spending money.

Shereen Travels Cheap Turns 6

Woo. This blog has survived six years and I still feel like there's more to teach and more to learn. In fact, usually I like to shout my achievements, but this birthday I'd like to do something different. Instead of taking you back to old posts, I thought I'd write a new one. For 2016, let me give you a list of 16 things I've learned from my travels that make me want to travel more and continue to learn from in the future. 

1. Sometimes you gotta go with the flow 

In life, things don't always go as planned. "hope for the best", but don't be surprised if that's not what you get. Travel is unpredictable at times. Maybe you'll get mugged. Maybe there'll be a hurricane. Maybe you'll make a new friend. Maybe you'll have the chance to do something amazing. You never know. When something unexpected happens, don't be so stuck to your schedule that you miss out. Also, don't freak out that something went wrong. Make a new plan on the fly and deal with the problems or push something less awesome from your day and do the other thing.

2. Know how to use a compass and paper map

There are going to be times when your electronics fail you. Either roaming doesn't work or your battery dies. Whatever. Having a map and possibly a compass with you can get you out of a jam. Once we were on our way to meet my uncle on our second day in London. We decided to cut through Hyde Park. It's beautiful. I highly recommend it, but there are quite a few pathways and not enough signs. Luckily, we had a map and a compass (that was built into our guidebook) and we're able to turn ourselves around and go in the right direction. You're more likely to find yourself outside of the city when you need help the most, but this can certainly still work.

3. Keep paper copies of your travel info

Again, your phone may not always work (case in point, the crappy "updated" Delta app that can't deal with flight changes), so having the address and phone number to your hotel, your confirmation number for your rental car and directions to your airbnb are all pretty important. Have that backup copy in case you don't have WiFi to get onto TripIt.

4. Compromise is key 

I know when you travel you want to do things you want to do. I do too! Unless you're traveling solo or with your own clone, you're gonna have to stuff they like as well. Try to plan a good balance and talk about it before you go. Trying to figure out stuff in the fly is just going to make you both mad. Fighting on vacation sucks. I don't like swimming in the ocean, but my husband does. He swims, I sit out there and read and watch him. He doesn't particularly love to shop, but he tolerates enough to make me happy, then we go to a museum.

5. Don't forget to put the camera/phone down and enjoy your destination

I see people everywhere I go just staring down at their phone. Yeah, Candy Crush is fun and there are all those pics on Instagram you haven't liked or drooled over, but come on! Save it for when you're standing in line or back in your room. You paid money to go on this trip and the scenery is the same as at home, because you can't look away from your screen. Put it in your pocket/bag and enjoy your trip. The same goes for cameras. I love taking pics and probably take more than most to use here on the blog, but only viewing life on that tiny screen is sad. I make a point to put it away and look around me too.

What's IN there?

6. Packing light makes you hate life less

You never want to just abandon everything you own faster than when you've walked up the third flight of steps with your heavy *!# luggage. Whether that's in the subway, the airport or your hotel, it doesn't really matter. You can revel in all your stuff at home. On vacation, taking the bare essentials is a lot more fun and freeing. Your bag doesn't weigh 4853367 lbs, you don't have to pay $900 in overweight baggage fees (or, preferably, any fees at all) and you have way less stuff to wrangle when you head home. I'll tell you what: It's so easy to get dressed and out the door each day when you have a nice little capsule wardrobe.

7. Have small bills and change

If you're traveling out of the country - and sometimes just in smaller towns - it's possible that you'll encounter merchants and transportation (or toll roads) that will only take cash. A lot of places won't accept larger bills for a small amount. Keep $20-40 in small bills and change for those times when you haven't hit the ATM yet. When I stayed in the University district in Phoenix, a lot of the shops and restaurants only took cash. Luckily, I had some.

8. Learning helpful phrases can get you far

Nothing is worse than when Americans travel and expect everyone to speak English. Don't be that guy. Even if you botch your attempt at the language, you tried and that effort is much appreciated. You don't have to learn all the words, but things like "hello", "please", "thank you", "I don't understand" and "where is..." are helpful. Pimsleur sells great beginner audio sets that aren't too spendy and use repetition to teach you the basics.

9. You can find a lot of good stuff off the beaten path

You're probably going to hit up tourist attractions, and that's cool, but chances are that you're gonna get hungry or want to go shopping and see the easy stuff "right there". Sometimes it's good, but more often it's overpriced and caters to tourists, which means it's also not all that good or authentic. Head. Few streets over and look for more out of the way eateries and shops. You'll get something more local and probably tastier and cheaper. Travelers who are willing to get out of the popular areas are often rewarded for their extra effort with better experiences.

10. Make sure you know about the crime

Ugh. Crime. Am I right? We wish it didn't exist, but that's life. Make sure you know what to expect, like getting mugged in a certain area or drug activity or gangs. Had we done a better job of researching when planning our trip to Quito, we would have figured out where the nearest car park was instead of just parking on the street and going about our business. If nothing else, the $50 replacement window wasn't a huge price to pay for our ignorance, but it wasted a big part of one of our days.

11. Don't be afraid to talk to strangers

Yes, Stranger Danger is real, but don't be afraid to talk to everyone. Talk to shop workers, wait staff, cab drivers and people on the street. Ask about their favorite places and what they like best about their city. I ask them where THEY tell people to go and not where they're expected to go, because I don't want a cookie cutter vacay. This is how we ended up at Eltham Palace outside London instead of Windsor Palace and how we've discovered lively restaurants full of locals and no tourists at all.

12. You can learn a lot about a destination by visiting their markets

I love a market. It doesn't matter if they sell food or antiques or books. It's fun to interact with locals, challenge your haggling skills and learn more about your destination. When planning any trip, I check out when and where the markets are. My favorite thing is a farmers' market. I like to see the different produce where I travel and pick up goodies for breakfasts and snacks. There's nothing better than trying out new fruits while you're walking around or getting ready for your day.

13. A pair of shoes can mean the difference between a great day and a miserable one.

Ask me how I know. Find two great pair of shoes that don't make your feet cry. One pair of casual that you can wear all over the city and one pair of slightly less casual shoes that can be worn for a more dressy outfit, but also works with your regular clothes. I suggest ballet flats, sandals or loafers. I can wear them with shorts, jeans and even a skirt/dress.

14. Getting lost can be a good thing

I'm always getting lost. It's the reason I own a GPS and look up directions for where I'm going before I leave home. Oddly, I only do this when I go somewhere alone though. When I'm with someone else my attitude is "Eh. We'll get there." If w'ere traveling and out walking, I'm happy to ask someone for directions, but getting lost has almost always ended up with us finding some awesome stuff that's out of the way and that we wouldn't have found otherwise. As a child, my parents use to pack up the car and we'd drive with no destination and purposely "get lost" to find new things in our area. I take this attitude into my traveling.

15. Research dining before you leave home

So, when I went to France, I never looked up places to eat, because I figured there would be delicious food around every corner. It wasn't and we ended up having some crummy food on that first visit. Everyone complained about how crappy the food in the UK was, but we had amazing food there, except for the one time we arrived late, were starving and just went into the first place that served food we saw. Make a plan, look at reviews, keep some snacks in your bag so you don't make decisions based on how hungry you are. Which brings me to...

16. Snacks are the answer...to say lot of things

I am notorious for getting hangry. That's so hungry that you move to angry. I know when it's coming and I'll absolutely threaten your life and yell at you for everything. I keep snacks in my bag for just that reason, because there's not always a time when the hanger takes over and my husband can just steer me into a restaurant or towards a food cart. Protein, like nuts, is always good to have and packs well, but having some fruit on hand is nice to raise your blood sugar and give you a burst of energy too. I keep a homemade granola bar or two in my bag along with some dried fruit like raisins. They're hearty and I can eat them while walking or waiting in line or on public transport. It's also nice if you have littles that want to eat every five seconds or your partner isn't hungry yet to sit down for a real meal.

I hope you enjoyed my list. What are some things you've learned from traveling?

Celebrating Harry Potter (Part 2)

Late last month I gave you a big Harry Potter post to celebrate Harry's birthday and promised you more from the various activities that happened over the next week. I have acquired quite a few more Potter things since that first post about my Christmas Snape, so my house is more and more like Hogwarts every July. Here's how I celebrated my magical week .

This is my house's Potions cabinet with a little corner for Divination.

On July 31st at 12:01am, we were let into Powell's to purchase the new "book". I knew this wasn't a true Rowling book, since she didn't write it and it was the rehearsal version of the script of Cursed Child, and I had one preordered on Amazon, but then I really wanted to relive the excitement of midnight releases of the other books and go be with "my people". We played trivia games in line and chatted with some others around us. And, of course, we put on our Potter gear.

There were even some fun photo ops while we waited: 

Eric seems way too excited to be an Undesirable.

Got my book signed and stamped by "Harry Potter".

Loved this muggle wall that allowed anyone to share their thoughts about Harry Potter.

On the afternoon of the 31st, we headed to the main library in downtown Portland for Hogwarts Early Admission Program, an event put on by Portland's Harry Potter Alliance. The event was a fundraiser for Youth Progress, which helps underprivileged children get the necessary things they need for success. We donated school supplies for this event, because it matched the theme and back-to-school was actively happening. 

Before we went in, we wandered around the library (because it's gorgeous) and took some pics. Here I am dressed as Luna, scoping out a Spanish version of Half Blood Prince. 

These stairs are the best. Too bad this photo didn't get the full effect. 

Once inside, we got these cute little broomstick pencils, a program for the day's activities and snacks, like these Bertie Botts. 

One of the "classes" was Defence Against the Dark Arts, which Harry excels at and Eric and I do not, apparently. We did this by playing the wizard version of Rock Paper Scissors: Reducto Protego Expelliarmus. Here are some last duelers. 

We played for house points. This little one helped keep track.

After Transfiguration (where we had to transfigure a lump of Play-Doh into things from the books) and trivia (we came in second!), they did a dramatic reading of the new book, which made me a little teary, I'll admit. 

My Weasley Wizard Wheezes shelf.

On Saturday we had our annual Potter Party (usually we do it whatever Saturday is the closest to the 31st, but had to push it this year). Over the last three weeks I've been really putting much of my effort into decorating "Hogwarts" and then "Diagon Alley" and making the remaining prizes and goodie bag inserts.

We played bingo, where I gave the guests a list of Potter-related words and allowed them to use whichever they liked to fill in their card. This way everyone had an equally random chance of winning. Winners received 25 points for their house, some sweets and Chocolate Frog cards.

We sorted into houses while everyone was filling out their cards. It was casual. I put the sorting hat onto their head and they reached into a cauldron to pull out a house pin. I also had a different cauldron filled with wands that I made myself and attached tags to each with the wood, core, length and "personality".

Everyone is required to dress up and my friends have a reputation for going all out, which makes me really happy. Here's Slughorn in his jammies with his daughter, Draco Malfoy.

Here I am as Ron again, this time with freckles, in Diagon Alley. 

Eric as Delores Umbridge

After trivia and a quick Horcrux Hunt, points were added up and the House Cup was awarded to...Gryffindor. I swear there was no preferential treatment happening there. Each member of Gryffindor house got a special prize which included a mini house cup and some other goodies. We ended the night with Pensieve memories, where I asked anyone who wanted to to share a memory of their favorite part of the HP books or the party. We'll share some of the best ones at the next party, which I'm already planning.

I hope you all had a great week and if you're a Harry Potter fan, that you got a chance to celebrate properly. Did any of you fans attend a midnight release? Have you read the book already? (I have, but please no spoilers in the comments for others.)