YOU GUYS! WE’RE BACK! I’ve taken a little 2 month break while I finish out my busy season + launch a photography coaching program. But we’re back and better than ever, with no plans for a break in the near future. Thank you so much for listening while I was out. I love getting to share all my knowledge with you guys. Your love of this podcast means the world to me! Now about this pod episode… Want to become an efficient and avid traveler? Then this episode is for you! Sydney from Wildly in Love is joining me on this episode to share her best travel hacks.
Sydney and her husband are always hopping on a plane every chance they get, so you can trust she has the best travel hacks to share. You’ll learn tangible ways to save money, travel more often, book your travels, and earn rewards by utilizing credit cards. This episode is packed with travel tips and tricks, so grab your notebook and get ready to become an avid traveler!
Sydney, from Wildly in Love, has been on the show before and you guys loved her episode! She is a destination elopement planner. She also has a vlog + blog called the Wildly Life, where she shares all of her travels. Sydney hopes that by sharing all her travels, she’ll inspire others to live an adventurous life. So isn’t it fitting I brought her back for this episode! Here are some fun travel facts about her. She’s been to 44 of the 50 states, 32 of the 63 US national parks, and over 14 different countries. Sydney has loved travel from a super young age. In her younger years she would beg her parents (and Santa) for a trip to Sydney, Australia. Then in college, she used to save and skimp on other things, like food, just to be able to put all her money towards travel. She is the best person to chat with about travel hacks! I can’t wait for you guys to hear all she has to say!
Up first on Sydney’s list of best travel hacks has to do with saving for travel. She chats about how much we spend in the everyday. You truly don’t realize how much you spend just day to day, especially if you aren’t budgeting. Both Sydney + I, coincidentally, use You Need a Budget with our husbands to budget our lives. This app helps you to better forecast where you’re spending your money. It shows you the trends of the past months and where you’re buckets are likely to be based off previous data. We both highly recommend!
If you’re overall more intentional about where you’re spending your money on a daily basis, it’s that much easier to save for a trip! Sydney gives the example of going out to eat. She says that when her and her husband were living in Airbnb’s, waiting on their now home to be built, they spent crazy amounts eating out. Be super intentional. Set a goal for yourself/you + your partner to only eat out once a week. Watch your budget and you’ll be shocked at the hundreds of dollars you save!
There isn’t anything wrong with going out to eat though. If you are trying to save for a trip, that’s just an easier way to cut down on expenses for the month. Mostly, you’ll want to think about ways in your life that you can easily cutdown a few dollars a day/week. Those few dollars really do add up! Sydney also gives a few more easy ways to cut down a couple hundred dollars on expenses per month to save for that next trip. Tune in to hear more about this travel hack.
Sydney’s second travel hack is all about date flexibility for when you travel. Be flexible in every way you can be when it comes to traveling. Whether its time of day, day of the week, or season. The more flexible you can be, the better deals you’ll be able to find. Sydney suggests traveling on weekdays + off season when you can. The price difference for travel, housing, and even rental cars between peak season and off season is truly crazy in some places. Also in off season, everything will be so much more open and less crowded!
For some places, off season might not be ideal, which is okay. In those cases try and be flexible with days of the week you’re traveling. If you’re going for the weekend, fly Thursday – Saturday rather than Friday- Sunday. Or if you’re going for a whole week travel Wednesday- Wednesday rather than Monday- Sunday. You’ll find this helps lower the cost of the plane ticket even if you are flying during peak season!
Finally, time of day. Sydney and her husband take all the red eyes out of Colorado. Which end up being like 1 am! If you are someone who can’t function without proper sleep, this one might not be for you. BUT you’ll find the red eye’s are almost always the cheapest option.
The more flexible overall you can be with season + times, the better deals you’ll be able to find to fly to those dream destinations.
Google flights is Sydney’s third travel hack. She goes into so much fricking detail on this that I’m going to start off by just directing you to the podcast episode. She dives DEEP into her love for Google flights and spills the tea on some other sites.
If you don’t know what Google flights is, it’s Google’s version of a third party cheap flight seacher. What’s great about Google flights though is you book within the airline itself so you aren’t booking on a third party site. They also factor in more than just price. So you won’t be suggested a super cheap flight, but with 9 layovers. Again Sydney dives deep into why she loves Google flights so much and all of her favorite features. I’ll give you a brief overview of a few of her favorite features.
With the tracking feature, you can set a tracker on certain dates/flights. So if you know you need to book a flight soon, you can go into Google. Search the flight and then set up notifications to be notified if that flight ever gets cheaper. Sydney swears by the tracking feature!
Price graph + date combination are two of her other favorite features. For the price graph, you put in the date and destination and you can look at the forecast and trend of where the prices are going and when’s the best time to fly + book. With date combination, it’s basically a grid. You put in your dates and then click date combination. It’ll show you all the combinations of dates around what you input that would be cheaper + better.
Sydney doesn’t hold back on her love for Google flights. So for more on this travel hack, head to the episode!
It’s no secret everything in the airport is way more expensive. So for Sydney’s 4th travel hack, she suggests to pack smart. First up, pack snacks. For super long flights, she’ll pack her and her husband lots of snacks in her backpack. Depending on the time of day, she may even pack a sandwich for them to have a meal. (Without paying $15 for a subpar airport sandwich.) Anything shelf-stable is worthy of bringing from home to snack on rather than wasting money in the airport.
Off the topic of food, pack an empty reusable water bottle and fill it up after security. You’ll be hydrated and have free water. NEVER pay for an overweight bag. Some airlines offer free checked bags as well. So definitely do not pay that extra fee for an overweight bag when you’re saving more checking that bag! Sydney suggests, if you are struggling not to go overweight, to pack your heavy stuff in your backpack or carry on. That leaves you more room in the checked bag to pack more without going over. She also suggests getting a luggage scale. Then you don’t have to worry until you get to the counter. She has a list of all her favorite travel products which you can find here! (You’ll find the luggage scale in the second row.)
Sydney saved the best travel hack for last! She said that this hack was truly a game changer for her and her husband this past year. Get a travel credit card! Caleb and Sydney have the Chase Sapphire Reserve and that’s the one they recommend the most. The annual fee is a little high, but it really pays for itself. When you sign up you get tons of perks and vouchers, including free TSA-pre or Global Entry. Sydney and I, both, cannot recommend enough for everyone to have TSA-pre.
She goes into more detail on this bonus travel hack in the episode so tune in! This card also gives you access to tons of airport lounges around the world. So remember how we were packing snacks to save money? These lounges normally have free food and drinks! There are tons of perks to this card. Sydney gets into more of them in the episode, and doesn’t even list them all! Garrett and I loved the Southwest Rapid Rewards Card, but switched to the Chase Sapphire Preferred when we started traveling a lot more internationally. So we would fully suggest all of the above!
The exact perfect travel credit card for you, depends on what you’re looking for. If you’re trying to get status on certain airlines, then you’ll want their credit card. But if you’re looking for a generally great travel credit card, you know where to look!
It’s so great to be back and podcasting! Sydney DOES NOT hold back on travel hacks, tips + tricks. She goes into SO much more detail of these tips and real world examples in the episode. If you want to hear all she has to say, I would highly, highly recommend listening in. Travel is such a passion of mine and Sydney’s and we are pumped to give you all these tips! If you’ve been wanting to get into travel more or just want to travel more in this coming year, this episode is for you, my friend. Sydney has been all over and shares all her travels and destination specific tips on her instagram. If you are dying for even more information from her, head to her Instagram!
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