During my senior year of college, I traveled to over twenty something countries across four continents. I do not come from a wealthy family nor do my parents support me through college, but here’s how I did it:
- The obvious. Work.
Get a part time job, or two or three. I worked an average of two jobs during the school year not only to pay rent but also to save up for traveling during breaks and have money to use when I go abroad.
- Financial Aid.
If you qualify for financial aid, good news is, financial aid usually rolls over to study abroad programs, USE THEM. The government is paying for you to go abroad! Even better news; because everything is so expensive in the states, there are so many places you can go that will cost a fraction of what you pay for back at home.
P.S. I will write a post later about how you can work the financial aid system to maximize the aid for Semester at Sea.
- Cal Fresh (Food Stamps).
If you qualify for workstudy, or work at least 20 hours a week, or you’re a part of the EOP program (see number 4), you probably qualify for the Cal Fresh program. With Cal Fresh you get $194 a month for groceries and you can buy as much as your heart desires at Trader Joe’s, or other grocery stores if you REALLY want to shop there, (Do you though?). Yes, it pays for ice cream and cookie butter too, just not hot food (like Albertson’s potato wedges and chicken strips).
- Education Opportunity Program (EOP)
The Education Opportunity Program is a service the UC system provides for keeping first college generation students and low income college students in college by providing academic, career, and financial counseling. One of my favorite feature of the program is the grants. It provides grants to help pay for medical bills including emergencies, dental, optical, etc. I have used this resource to pay for my glasses and contacts every two years. This helped to speed up my savings and I was able to get that next plane ticket a lot sooner.
- Student Discounts
Utilize your student discounts! There is an international Student Identification Card (ISIC) that will get you discounts abroad, however, many places also accept your normal student ID from your school, so its up to you if you think the $25/year is worth it and what you’re using your discount on. It was not really worth it for me personally because I didn’t buy a Eurail Pass nor did I book any flights through STA Travel and almost everywhere I went accepted my UCSB ID as a valid ID. (So I didn’t really save more than $25).
STA Travel is another site that allows students to book cheap flights, and it does require you to have an ISIC, however, always check skyscanner too, because so far I’ve always found a better deal on skyscanner.
- Deals
Follow pages that have great deals! One that I really like is Travel Pirates; it tells you when there are great deals on flights, packages, etc.
- Be a Peasant
If you don’t have to sleep on your however many count linen bed sheets with 24 hour room service and would rather have a more local experience while meeting cool new people, hostels is the way to go! I use HostelWorld to compare prices/cleanliness/safety/location etc. to find my perfect match. It has been great for me every time so far. Even when I plan on exploring a city by myself, I always end up meeting someone cool and exploring with them instead. Airbnb is also a great choice if you’re traveling with a group of friends!
Ditch the taxi and use public transportation in cities that have them! Don’t worry about language barrier because most places (everywhere I’ve been so far) has English translation on their metro map and it’s really fun and easy once you figure it out!
- Scholarships
I personally suck at writing scholarship essays (as you can tell from my writing here) so I can’t really tell you much. What I can tell you is I know a lot of people who went abroad with scholarship money and there are so many scholarship opportunities because there are people/corporations/programs out there who love to send people abroad! Try it out anyway because it’s a chance to free money!
- Credit Card Rewards
A credit card with no foreign transaction fee is really convenient if you plan on going abroad, and many of these credit cards also offer awesome rewards. These rewards paid for numerous plane tickets for me!
Most of the people I know are lucky enough to be blessed with a nationality, a passport that will allow them to leave their country and travel freely beyond the boarders. The first step is always the hardest, but once you get that ticket, everything else will fall in place. You don’t need to be rich to travel, you just need to have a little courage and work a little harder.
YAY thanks for reading! I am taking requests for countries to write about first (places I’ve been to of course). Message/text/email me and let me know! misskayhou@gmail.com
**Disclaimer: The financial aid money was used on education purposes: tuition, room and board, books and things financial aid normally covers me for to attend school at my home university. The other things were just way to help me survive and save quicker!
Kay's Declassified Travel Guide 