Getting Started + FAQ
Hey, hi, hello. I’ve gotten a few questions about international travel/solo travel and I’ll continually add to this post when I receive more but I wanted to go ahead and get this FAQ list started! As a disclaimer, this is all just what’s worked for me. I took my first international trip (which also happened to be a solo. month long trip to Scotland) September 27th, 2022 and have learned so much since then!
Follow along with my adventures, tips, and other random shit you may/may not care about!
How do you choose where you want to go?
- Have a gigantic running list of the places in the world you want to go! Any time you see someone post a pretty picture on IG that makes you say “fuck yeah, I wanna go there” add it to your list.
- From that initial list figure out the time of year you want to/are able to travel. If you’re a teacher you’ll probs be traveling in the summer or around the winter holidays, so from your list take a peek at the weather. If you want to go to somewhere like Cape Town South Africa their summer/optimal travel months are December-February. When I went to Amsterdam for New Years I initially thought it would be insanely cold while I was there but turned out that it was 55F and Kentucky was going through an ice storm and -5F. Point of this is to check the average daily highs and lows wherever you want based off of time of year you get time off.
- Now that it’s narrowed down a bit more check the average cost of a vacation or cost of living in the capital of the place you’re looking at (typically those are more expensive areas than the smaller towns and cities nearby). If you have a specific city in mind already then just look up that info for the city!
- Chances are if you make your list based off of the beautiful places TikTok and IG are pushing for you to see, they’re in safer areas or countries. But please, please, please make sure to look up crime statistics/reports in the areas you’re interested in. General crime reports are good resources but look at the specifics not just the overall ratings: rape, theft, violent crimes, etc. One thing I’ve found to be a great resource is reading solo female travel blogs about the places I want to go, if a solo woman can feel safe in that area with a general knowledge of how to not draw attention to themselves then I feel like I’d be good there too!
- Another fun thing to do is to go onto google fights and click “explore destinations”, put your nearby airport in and go from there! I do highly recommend using a VPN while searching for flights. That might help you find places you hadn’t originally thought of and get a general idea of cost for flights. That’s typically your biggest expense when traveling to anywhere in Europe. Flights to South America can be less than domestic flights within the US (which is mind boggling tbh).
How do you go about finding places to stay?
This one can be super tedious to be 10000% honest and might take longer than choosing an actual country to go to. Being comfortable, conveniences of home and having the amenities you want/need to stick with the goals you set forth for the trip are obviously most important when it comes to looking for a place to stay or live. For the 6 week Colombia trip we quite literally looked at hundreds of houses, condos, apartments, detached houses, and hotels before we found the space we were in.
- What’s your budget?
- What area(s) do you want to be close to?
- What amenities/conveniences are nonnegotiable for you?
- Example for my 6 week Colombia trip:
- Reliable AC in the master bedroom
- Fully stocked gym on-site
- Fast and reliable wifi
- Outdoor living space
- Separate bedroom (not studio)
- 1.5 bath (highly preferable when traveling with someone else)
- Pool and jacuzzi
- Laundry on-site (preferably in-unit)
- Safety: good area, 24/7 building security
- Convenient location: less than 5 min walk to grocery store, 10-15 min drive from city center/prime area to hang out or shop
- Example for my 6 week Colombia trip:
- TIP: start out looking on AirBnb, filter out all of the ones that don’t meet your above needs and then if it looks like a corporate run thing (you can usually see the host’s name and look to see if it sounds like a business or management company) then try to find the company’s website directly. By doing this you can usually get a better rate, they’ll get to bypass the AirBnb fees and will typically treat you a bit better (this is the same for hotels – book directly, not through booking.com, Expedia, etc).
Let’s talk moneyyyy!
Let’s chit chat about the cost of traveling. There are some things that you might know and some you might not sooooo yeah.
It costs more to stay somewhere short term if you’re traveling for a longer total period of time. Hi, what the actual fuck are you talking about Lindsey? Wellllll, here’s an example.
I went to Amsterdam for 5 days in January with my significant other, here’s an approximate cost breakdown for 2 people:
5 days at a nice hotel $1,475
Transportation to and from airport $160 and then walking the rest of the time (free)
Flights (2 people) $2,200
Meals + drinks (eating out every meal) $500
Now we’re looking at going back to Amsterdam for at least 1 month (likely 2) and here will be the approximate cost breakdown for 2 people:
Renting a 1 bedroom apartment $1,200 (per month) all bills/utilities included
Transportation: biking and walking 99% of the time and to/from airport likely $160
Flights (2 people) from Greece where we currently are $300
Meals (making most at home not to save money but because I have a sensitive tummy) $800-$1000 at the high end, we eat mostly organic and pescatarian.
My Personal Finances:
Although I no longer own my home in the US, I do however have the overhead of my photography studio in Kentucky (approximately $1000 in rent monthly) so we can pretend that’s my mortgage. I do still pay my US phone bill ($65 per month), car insurance ($70 per month), storing my car at a safe location ($40 per month) I no longer have a car payment but pay for private health insurance ($106 per month), business insurance ($56 per month) and those basic necessities.
Packing Tips + Essentials:
I have a whole separate post about this (click the button below)! I go in-depth about how I pack, what I use to pack (Amazon faves), luggage, and other tips that you probably wish you knew before you took your most recent trip.
Credit Cards:
This is the way I “pay” for most of my flights, hotel stays anddddd with my cash back card (Chase) I use that (non-taxable as it was explained to me by my CPA) cash to pay for anything I want! How do I do that? Let me explain:
Sooooo, every month I put all of my expenses on my 3 credit cards – and I mean absolutely all of them! Phone bill, groceries, gas, eating out, hotel stays, clothes, bills, etc. Then I pay off these cards twice per month, I try not to let my total credit use exceed 20% (it’s recommended to keep your credit use to less than 30% of your total available credit). Let’s say one of my card’s credit limit is $10,000, if I see that I’ve spent around $2,000 on that one card midway through the month I go ahead and pay it off! I also want to have a zero balance at the end of each payment cycle so anything that’s left on the balance at the end of the payment cycle is automatically paid (auto pay is a must especially if you’re juggling multiple cards). A good rule of thumb that my mom taught me way back when: if you can’t pay for something from your actual bank account within a day or two of purchasing it, it’s probably a good idea not to purchase that thing until you can! We’re building our credit and leveraging these cards to get the benefits and points from them, not fucking up our credit score to go on pretty trips. Ya feel me?
American Airlines MasterCard: There isn’t a referral link for this card but I personally use the Platinum AA card, there are always kick ass promos going on where you can easily earn 40,000-50,000 miles if you spend $X in the first 3 months.
Marriott American Express: Here’s my referral link and the exact credit card I use, you can earn extra points by using it and ya girl earns points by you signing up! We love a win/win situation.
Chase Cash Back Card: Freedom Unlimited is the exact cash back card I use! This is the referral code
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