After 18 months at home, who else is ready to GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!?!?!

Travel is so incredibly important to me, and it has been extremely difficult on my mental health to stay home during the pandemic. In fact, I’ve been so tired of staring at my apartment that I literally started taking items down off the walls and selling them at my local consignment shop, ha!

But I’m vaccinated and ready to hit the road, the rails, and the friendly skies—anywhere that’ll have me!

However, as a someone who is self-employed, I also need to be mindful of my spending and make every dollar count. So, I’m always on the lookout for a deal, especially when it comes to travel.

If you know what it’s like to yearn for the open road but have all the feelings about your finances, I’ve got you covered.

Here are a few of my favorite budget-friendly travel resources:

• Chase Sapphire: This is BY FAR the best travel card out there, and that’s not just my opinion but the opinion of many travel pros. The awesome thing about Chase Ultimate Reward points is they can be used for all kinds of travel and entertainment deals, not just flights or hotels. Additionally, when you redeem through their site, your points have up to 25% greater value. And the offer right now is fantastic, so don’t miss it!
• TrustedHousesitters: Like pets? If so, you can stay in someone’s home for free and watch their pets while they’re away. I’ve done this a few times for both staycations and cross-country adventures, and I look forward to a global sit at some point.
• TravelZoo: They have an awesome newsletter each Wednesday that will send you the top 20 travel deals from your destination. There are some incredible deals, and this is where I found the travel company I used to go to England, Ireland, and Scotland.
• Travel Pirates: Another great weekly newsletter with a sense of humor to consider, and they also have trip flight and destination giveaways a couple of times each year.
• Secret Flying: There are some unbelievable flight deals on this website, and they also post “error fares” which are mistakes the airlines make. If you’re interested in error fares, I suggest getting Twitter notifications so that you can find out about them immediately and take advantage of them quickly before the airline corrects them. This is how I got my $250 airfare to Barcelona—that I bought it in just 10 minutes!

There are, of course, many other wonderful travel tools out there, but if I could only share a few with you, these are at the top of my list.

By the way, if you have multiple travel reward programs to track, I recommend using AwardWallet to keep all the details and points handy and be able to update them at once. I have 19 different accounts including airlines, hotels, rental cars, and Amtrak and this makes it easy to see everything at once.

I hope I’ve inspired you to get out there as soon as you feel safe. There are certainly deals to be had!

Happy travels!