We may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post. And as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Hi Friends, our family has been traveling for years, and if you ask us, “is traveling a hobby?” we would say that it is a hobby and a lifestyle. In this post, I will share how to turn it into a hobby and a lifestyle.

I wrote these tips in the order of the evolution of our relationships.

Travel for Passion.

That’s exactly how Kevin and I met. Sport is his passion, and Kevin played tennis from early childhood through college. He came to Kazakhstan, Central Asia, to participate in an International Tennis Tournament, and I worked there as an interpreter.

It was an intense project with many activities that included sports and cultural experiences. They played tennis, shopped, met locals and had meals with them, did sightseeing, exchanged experiences and gifts. Fun time!

Benefits of travelling as a hobby

• It was a great project! New places, new friends, new food, deep dive into the culture. Everything was organized and best of all, you are doing something you love with others who share the same passion.

If you are interested in such an experience, check around; many organizations need participants, join the one that aligns with your passion, and take that trip!

Get yourself a credit card with plane ticket benefits.

After Kevin and I met, he got this United Explorer Card and used points to get to Kazakhstan. That ticket was free. He took three more flights within two next years to visit me, and some of those tickets were free too. And after we got married, we got eight more free tickets within ten years, including me flying with a toddler twice.

This was possible by signing up via United’s Mileage Plus program and using the credit card for his spending anyway, and always paying off the balance each month. Here is an article about how we did it for free for both of us (mother and a child), and as a bonus, find out how to fly with a toddler stress-free.

Benefits

• The card usually comes with a sign-up bonus of 80 000 points that is enough for one round ticket to Central Asia and it is further than Europe. If you pay cash, the ticket is approximately USD 1,600. Yeah. It’s a lot of money.
• You earn points on every dollar spent and even more on certain categories.

Get a credit card with hotel benefits

Yes. They have them too. That’s another way to travel for free or cheap. We used the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant card to book our honeymoon destination at Laguna Cliffs Hotel in Dana Point, California…

Cliff ocean view, fantastic food, spa, perfect weather, gentle sun, and everything in flowers! Ah. Most romantic place in the world! It was a four stars resort with an excellent complimentary breakfast. Read more about it and its activities here.

So as you can see, our honeymoon flights and resort were free. Tada!

Benefits

This card is fantastic! It comes with

• 125 000 sign-up bonus points.
• Earns up 6 points per dollar spent
• 300 dollars Mariot Bonvoy statement credit
• Free night award at a high-class resort and some more. Please, check here for more details.

Tip.

If you are on a special occasion like a honeymoon, anniversary, or birthday, let the hotel know when making a reservation, and they might upgrade you for free. For example, we booked a studio, and they gave us a one-bedroom suite with a beautiful view.

Visit Friends or Family

We got a full taste of benefits from visiting friends and family when we planned our first anniversary (road) trip from Cincinnati. Kevin is a logistics genius and planned the trip with stops at Fort Wayne, Ann Arbor, Vermont, Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, and Niagara Falls.

Benefits

We stayed with our friends or relatives for one night for most of them. And you can imagine that we were treated like

• a Royal Family,
• had feasts of homemade food,
• great company and fun time,
• and the best existing tour guides,
• yet a lot of time just for ourselves
• free stays

Since we do not have friends and family in each city, we combined this perk with free hotel stays.

Get a job at a hotel chain

Once we got married, I never worked full time, but I worked part-time at a hotel that had a fantastic benefit or 7 (FREE!) nights at any chain hotel, and there are 700 of them all over US and Canada. Nice! To emphasize how good of a deal is, I add.

Benefits

• I worked only two days on weekends and had the benefit.
• As a stay-at-home mom, I find it a perfect job to get some adult interaction and traveling to our family.
• earned extra dollar to spend on vacation

Tip.

If you offer to work on weekends, your boss will value you very much:).

Rent from a time-share owner

You don’t have to own a time-share to take advantage of it. Many time-share owners will sell their points/nights for roughly what they pay as maintenance fees.

If you know a time-share owner, they likely have a network of other owners and can buy from them unused points/weeks at a low cost and book travel for you.

There are also Facebook groups of time-share owners looking to rent out their weeks, and there is a website Redweek.com. It is a time-share marketplace where you can get nights at a reasonable price.

Benefits

• great hotels for a cheap price that are created for long stays.
• no lifetime commitments
• We spent 6 nights at this beautiful 4 star Marriott Vacation Club, Crystal Shores on Marco Island in a humongous three-bedroom suite with a side ocean view. Check the room review and activities here.

Is traveling a hobby? Attend a time-share presentation

When we were looking for a time-share for ourselves, we stayed at Westgate Lakes Resort&SPA for three nights. It was a good size two-bedroom suite, and we stayed in it for free in exchange for a two-hour presentation, which is a business meeting at the end of which you are expected to purchase the time-share.

Of course, no one can make you buy it, but the pressure is pretty intense, so I would not recommend going this route unless you are looking.

Benefits

• free stay
• property tour

Is traveling a hobby? Travel for work

My husband used to travel a lot for business, which was a great way to travel together at a low cost. However, the work provided a hotel, and I would need to find a cheap plane ticket or, even better free reward ticket or companion ticket.

If we wanted to extend our trip, we would again use free hotel stays via rewards. Some of the best travel reward programs we have used are as follows.

Chase Ultimate Rewards.

These are flexible rewards that you can transfer to various airline and hotel programs. For example, CHASE Sapphire preferred credit card or CHASE freedom credit card can earn you 5x points on multiple categories and can be combined with points from the Sapphire card to book rewards with travel partners.

Chase Unlimited has no fee, earns 1.5x points on all purchases, and can be combined with points from the Sapphire card.

Also, co-branded hotel credit cards like Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant and IHG provide free stays annually for a very modest fee.

Check with your work if you qualify for conferences or training and book a trip for you and your family!

Benefits

• paid stays
• paid ticket for an employee
• Complimentary meals at least for one person.

Is traveling a hobby? Check Costco Travel

Costco has pretty good deals on traveling. We were looking for a place to stay in Orlando while visiting Disney Parks. Since we were coming at a peak season, all free options were not available, so we searched for something spacious but cheap because there were 5 of us and we were going only to sleep at the hotel.

We found this deal at Costco Travel membership with a two-bedroom suite, swimming pool, and complimentary breakfast. It came with five daily passes for five people to Disney, a $55 Costco gift card, 10 minutes away from the park, and cost us approximately $3k for five nights, including tickets. Here is how our room looked like.

Benefits

• free gift cards
• discounted stays

Stay at AirBnB

We would rent a house or apartment for a sizeable group or extended stays (2 weeks or longer). For example, we found a four-bedroom house with a swimming pool for 1,000 dollars/week in Kissimmee (Orlando), 15 minutes away from Disney.

• low prices
• much space
• you can split the cost

Start a Travel Blog

I do blogging because I like it. Writing, photography, and creativity bring me joy and satisfaction. I love traveling too, so travel blogging combines all my hobbies and gives me a constructive release of my creative energy. So if I don’t do it for my blog, I do it anyway. 

As a stay-at-home mom, I have little time to work on it, so I do it at my convenience when my baby naps or while waiting for my kids at their practices. Plus, having a travel blog opens up unlimited opportunities for complimentary stays, meals, tickets, and stuff.

Of course, you get them in exchange for your blog posts, videos, or pictures. Successful travel bloggers travel worldwide, and some make seven digits income per year. The ones that I learned from are Pete and Heather Reese. Here are two courses that I took, and they equipped me with everything I need to succeed.

Blogging Blastoff taught me how to set up a successful blog on any niche and ways to monetize it.

Travel Blogging Blastoff teaches how to succeed specifically in travel blogging and monetize your blog.

Benefits

• work at your own pace
• work from home or from any place on the Earth with Wi-Fi
• do what you like
• unlimited opportunities for income growth
• you are your own boss
• unlimited opportunities for travel

This is not the ultimate list of tips and tricks. However, our journey is continuous, so we plan to discover more ways to travel for free or cheap to our dream destinations and make the most of our experiences.

Is traveling considered a hobby or traveling is not a hobby? Write what do you think in the comment section..