One year down, another to go! 2014 is going to be a year of travel and adventure. I can already feel it in my bones. How we are going to pay for our travels is another story.
I’m very much a savvy budget travel person. We tend to go to places that are off season for tourism. This allows me to find pretty good deals. But I fear I can do better. I know several personal finance bloggers who finance their travels for the year with credit card bonuses. I’m actually considering this as a way to pay for a couple of our trips this year.
Looks like Peru may be in our sight. I have a friend from graduate school who is from Lima, Peru and he has invited us to go visit. I have always wanted to visit Machu Picchu and I would love to cross it off my list. I’m still trying to coordinate with him to see when we can go. Since it needs to be a 10 day trip to see everything, I’m trying to see if we can leave on a Friday evening and come back on Sunday. Perhaps 4th of July weekend to really maximize our vacation.
We can also go visit family in the US. We have some family in Ohio and Virginia. They live in rural parts of the states, which would be great for that trip in the wilderness we need every so often. One of my best friends is in Boston and I would love to go visit her. Maybe a 4 day weekend? Maybe I could pull it off memorial day weekend. I have another friend in San Francisco that has also invited me to visit her. It would be really cool!
I’m sure we would like to hit the beach too. We love the beach and really need to figure a long weekend getaway to a beach destination.
So how are we going to pay all these troubles. I’m not quite sure, as I’m trying to figure it out myself. But I’m checking out websites and I’m considering getting a credit card with a travel mileage bonus of some sort. At least to pay for our trip to Peru!
Some credit cards that look interesting include Aeroplan Visa. The Noob Traveler, also, posted a US Airways Credit Card. Holly recently posted an article about credit card churning and whether it hurts your credit or not. Learned a lot from this post.
I think I may end up setting one of my goals to be figure out how to travel for free!
What are your thoughts on credit card churning? Have you found it successful?
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