One Way Ticket To Portugal
I met this one person recently, and he drastically changed my perspective on traveling.
I've always felt that I could only travel no more than two times a year and that was pushing it. My goal is to see the world, and all of it. Yet traveling felt like it was something of a far off dream that I'll be able to do one day.
This person was visiting from abroad and working full time back home, but somehow he was able to make enough time to travel almost four times a year.
If he can do it, so can I.
(if you're reading this, thanks for stumbling into my life)
I've been to several places through out my life. My parents have always emphasized the importance of learning different cultures. As a Japanese descendant, I've visited family in Japan almost every summer for my first 10 years and once every five then on. We tried to take every opportunity to travel, but it didn't happen frequently.
Every year I get the itch to fly, catch a plane somewhere. This year I visited France for the first time and I realized how much of Europe I have not seen.
Balancing class full time and working part time was hard enough, but I wanted to travel so desperately. With my college being all funky, my winter breaks are only a week versus a typical month winter break. I decided that if I didn't buy a flight, I was never going to do it. I believed that it would some how work out in the end.
I didn't have enough money at the time to buy a round trip ticket to Portugal, so I bought a one way ticket to the city of Porto.
Yep. It sounds a little crazy, but it felt practical to me.
I knew that I would buy a ticket home eventually and I did.
AND GUESS WHAT
It was cheaper to buy it separately than to buy it together so YAY
PLUS
I figured out that I'm going to fly to a different city in Portugal so I'll be leaving from a different city than the place I will be landing in. So I'm flying into Porto but leaving from Lisbon!
AND
My flight from Porto to Lisbon was $11 with RyanAir.
Sometimes you just have to have faith it will work out and it will.
Don't get me wrong though, I didn't irresponsibly just decide that I will have enough money. I made a spreadsheet and calculated all of my monthly bills, expenses and revenue (income) and realized that if I saved my money correctly I will have more than enough to travel.
At one point I freaked out that I wasn't saving enough money and began selling a bunch of things I had lying around in my room online and I actually made $173 in one weekend. (I'm pretty good at making money in weird places legally, so maybe I'll write about that soon)
Point is, be spontaneous and daring but also be diligent about your travel funds.
You can make it work if you want it bad enough and I wanted this BAD
So go for it, I know calculating your expenses and revenue is such a drag but it'll be worth it. I promise.
~Amazing Adventure Awaits~
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