Budget Travel Hacks, Practical Logistics & Expert Tips
Just the meat, no filler. Don't want to read our life story? Get the exact information you need here: boots-on-the-ground travel hacks and technical hiking facts.
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Award Miles & Budget Travel Credit Card Strategy
Learning how to maximize travel credit card award miles is the ultimate secret to independent global exploration on a shoe-string budget. By utilizing strategic point redemption programs, we routinely fly across continents for pocket change—securing round-trip flights from Seattle to Japan for $200 USD and one-way transit to Tbilisi, Georgia for just $25 USD per person.
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How do we purchase most of our long-haul flights?
With reward miles of course! Since 2019 we've accumulated hundreds of thousands of miles through a combination of credit card spend, flight miles, and most importantly, signing up for our cards when the signup bonus is at its peak. The Chase United Explorer Card tends to offer around 50,000-60,000 miles if you meet the spend requirement of $3,000 in the first three months. Normally twice a year they'll run a promotion where the initial bonus can reach 80,000 miles. That's a deal worth waiting for.
The entry level Chase Explorer card comes has an annual fee of $150, but if you use your reward miles smartly, the savings are substantial. This has been our primary workhorse and personal card.
Interested in signing up for your own card? Click this button to email me and request your personal referral link. Just put "UNITED CARD" in the subject line.
(please use credit cards wisely)
Chase United Credit Card
Chase Ink Business Preferred Card
*updated 4/2026 This referral link is valid for ANY Chase Business Card, not just the Ink. Choose the best fit for you, click the credit card to find your new card.
This card isn't a universal fit for everyone but it was the secret sauce that enabled many of our international trips. The sign-up bonus with this card can be substantial and it currently sits at 100,000 bonus points. The Chase Ultimate Reward points earned through this card can be spent through the Chase travel portal and work just like cash, meaning if you use enough of them you can even earn elite status on these flights and continue to rack up miles.
For the Chase Ink Business Preferred card you need to have a small personal business to qualify but there are personal cards that participate in the same Chase Ultimate rewards program, such as the Sapphire Reserve.
This card also has a reasonable $95 annual fee and comes with some other perks we've used, such as cell phone insurance. So be sure to consider this one if you meet the criteria!
Interested in signing up for your own card? Click this button to email me and request your personal referral link. Just put "BUSINESS CARD" in the subject line.
International Connectivity: Local SIMs vs. eSIMs
For many years Samantha and I preferred purchasing physical SIM cards locally when we arrived in different countries. This almost always ensured we got the best price and typically the best coverage. And it still is the best way to get plans with unlimited data.
But... All that said, as eSIM's have continued to improve and price more competitively, often times only one of us will by a physical SIM and the other will set up an eSIM, guaranteeing that we'll have coverage on arrival. Then at our convenience we can purchase a physical SIM after arrival without the hassle of looking for Wi-Fi when you realize you forgot to drop a pin on that Cosmote Cellphone store in Thessaloniki and now you don't know where you're going (or this same situation anywhere...) Then after buying a local SIM one of us can provide a hotspot so our eSIM data needs remain low, keeping the total cost down.
This provides a good balance of functionality and practicality, having coverage as soon you've entered the next country and the larger or unlimited data caps of a physical SIM. So far Samantha has used airalo (link here and below) or use code SAMANT0932 for a savings of $3 on your first eSIM! After a small learning curve of setting up the eSIM, the coverage has been great throughout Asia, from Korea to Malaysia. And the coverage has been impressive, even in the remote mountains in the interior of Taiwan we're spent almost a week backpacking through the Central Mountain Range! Happy Travels!
Our Go-To Platforms for Transit, Lodging & Tours
Booking.com
Let's start with Booking.com. We have booked hundreds of nights of accommodations using this platform. From a last minute stay for a night or two in Alaverdi, Armenia while hiking the Transcaucasian Trail or a multi-week apartment rental in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam we have almost always found something that fit our needs.
The bookings are transparent, you'll always know the cancellation details upfront, and they've always been honored in our experience. It hasn't been without hiccups but that's almost always come down to renting new or unreviewed properties. My advice: stick with reputable facilities and Booking.com will find somewhere to sleep, almost anywhere.
Viator.com
We like to travel as self-sufficient and self-supported as possible but there are somethings you just can't do alone. Llike the tour we went on of the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. Or sometimes you're just too tired to do all the planning, or maybe you don't feel like planning at all, this is a vacation right!?
Viator uses TripAdvisor's decades of reviews and experience to offer tours and excursions all around the planet. And the best part, the guides are still local, so you don't feel like you've strayed too far from adventure.
12GO
We added 12GO.asia to our bag our of tricks early in 2025. We discovered we could book the most obscure and remote marshrutka, the local parlance for a small minivan transport, while in Armenia and Georgia. Traveling from Tbilisi, Georgia to Yerevan, Armenia was a piece-of-cake using 12GO.
Booking trains, buses or remote vans has never been easier. They have routes available all over Asia and Europe and you never have to manually translate a website from Serbian again.
And if you've ever got to the final step on your phone to book a train in Uzbekistan or Vietnam only to have your foreign credit card denied you'll have another reason to love this app. For a very minimal fee on they take the hassle out of booking and that U.S. or E.U. credit card in your pocket will work.
And if your curious, it's pronounced "one two go dot Asia".
Field-Tested Tips by Trek & Destination
Real, road-tested survival nuggets, transit hacks, and regulatory details broken down by the specific regions and long-distance trails we have navigated:
We hiked in the spring of 2024, 4/4-5/26.
We didn't make food or water caches for our hike. Why? Two reasons I guess, one, it sounded super inconvenient to drive all around and bury food. Two, I had never been most of these places, outside of Arches National Park and the Grand Canyon and I wanted my first experience to be when I arrived on foot. Perhaps an ego driven existential reason to make a hard hike harder, but that's what we did.
Don't start too early (April 4th worked for us), it could be far colder then you expect. Unless it's a terrible water year. (Bugs)
Not knowing everything is half the fun. Enjoy some novelty again. (Bugs)
Rim to Rim in the Grand Canyon is the least of your worries. The 26 miles and 6000' of gain go by with relative ease on the sidewalk like trail. Enjoy! (it was a favorite of mine, Moose)
Towns in Utah where far pricier then expected. Most are gateway communities for the nearby national parks and that is definitely reflected in the cost of everything.
We hitched into Kanab, UT on Hwy. 89 without any difficulty. One of the better towns and a cheaper location for a zero day before the Grand Canyon.
The Grand Enchantment Trail
Brett Tucker at www.acrossutah.com provides the best trail/route description and water chart. Thanks!!
If the cactus don't get you, the cat's claw will! (Bugs)
Try to catch the Superstitions during a super bloom for an incredible display of desert flowers. (Bugs)
Expect AMAZING food in the small Southwest towns long this route! Try the chicken fried steak (Bugs). The menudo (a Mexican soup with cow's stomach) was a favorite of mine (Moose).
Lawson, FamilyMart, and 711 all have really fun and affordable food and treats.
Get the discount grocery store sushi at night before they close! It's a great breakfast the next day, just remember to refrigerate it...
Include a vending machine budget! They're everywhere and the temptation to buy another new tea every 15 minutes is real. (Bugs)
Long distance high speed trains are not cheap. Consider the JR Pass but do the math! You need to complete several long trips to exceed the cost of the rail pass after the most recent price increase.
Another note about food, this might be rather American of me, but I found a lot of Japanese portions to be on the small side. Small enough that after a month stay this actual had a significant impact on our food budget as I often needed to eat double what I expected. (Moose)
Central Asia (Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan)
Russian is the most common second language and knowing a few basic words proved more useful than the Uzbek we attempted to memorize.
SO many soups and salads on the menu, people say this is a meat dominant region, and while lamb, beef and horse, yes horse, may dominate the spread there are numerous other options available, often times remnants of the Soviet past and the large Korean population, thanks Stalin.
Yandex Go, get the app, it's in the Google Play store. It's Uber for Uzbekistan, we're talking 30 minute taxi rides for dollars. It was so easy to use, no negotiating rate with the driver, and bumpin' music. Like loud music...
All the city parks and squares in Uzbekistan come alive at night with vendors and carnival rides. Honestly one of the safest and most family friendly night life's we've experienced.
The Uzbek bazaars and markets are a real experience, not overly touristic, they still maintain a local feel with people doing their personal shopping.
Istanbul, Türkiye
Juice! Fresh squeezed juice on every corner. Finding the old man with the sweetest oranges becomes its own adventure.
The Aya Sophia (Hagia Sophia) is best visited at night when the crowds are almost nonexistent.
The large street dogs can be unsettling at first but we learned that the ear tag most of them sport indicates they're vaccinated for rabies and they all seemed to be really friendly!
Watch out for "fake" restaurants! Often times a famous or popular spot will have copycat restaurants pop up right next store or nearby with an almost identical name and menu!
The Grand Bazaar is definitely worth visiting but unfortunately heavy tourism has replaced a lot of the shops with identical tourist knickknack spots, but there are still a few hidden gems and great eats!
Amazing food at fair prices, eat the Greek staples but don't shy away from some modern interpretations of classic dishes, you may be surprised.
Aggressive city drivers, if you a rent a car and you're from the U.S, Canada or Northern Europe be prepared to learn the Greek way of driving. When we visited Corfu Town the city actually had shut all the traffic lights off...
Rental cars price scams. They will aggressively try to upsell you nonsense insurance stuff. Don't be afraid to negotiate, kindly that is.
Don't calculate your speed by in miles per hour by assuming its about one half what it is in kilometers per hour. You'll end up driving way faster then you think. 160 km/h is about 100 mph, not the 80 I estimated on the fly. Ooops.
The modern tollways are well build and easy to drive but if you cross the country we'd recommend using an old mountain highway like we did. They're so much more scenic with surprise villages along the way. We took Hwy 74 from Olympia to Nafplion across the Peloponnese and really enjoyed it.
There's more to Greece than Athens and the islands.
Thessaloniki, it's Greece's second biggest city and worth visiting. Every alley seemed to contain a hidden restaurant with prices about 20% less than Athens and every bit of the quality.
Visit Nafplion, it's the vacation destination for the modern Athenians. Located on the Argolic Gulf, it has a great waterfront and a laid back vibe. And you get ice cream at midnight if your heart desires, restaurants are open for food and drink well into the night.
Meteora contains a complex of monasteries, one of which was featured in the James Bond film, For Your Eyes Only, (see picture). Featuring impressive feats of ancient human engineering these structures stand balanced atop stone outcropping, boggling the mind. This area should be included on any Greek mainland visit.
In lieu of the more traditional islands we visited Corfu in the Ionian Sea, where we rented a small apartment in the hills above Palaiokastritsa. Then we rented a cheap boat in town and cruised around our own ocean paradise, full of snorkeling and swimming in crystal clear water.