I think it’s no secret that I love to travel.
I do as often as I can, and more often than not my friends and family ask me the following: “How can you afford to travel and take month long European vacations the way you do?”
And the answer to this question is two-fold. Like most others, I have debt. And probably will for at least another couple of years. And then will accumulate more debt when I decide to buy a home. People often find themselves afraid to live because it seems unaffordable. But what they don’t think about is the sacrafice that goes into being able to travel and experience the things I do.
However, the other answer to this question is well… I just search for the best travel deals. I like to say that I am bougie on a budget – I’m okay with flying low-cost airlines (I’m looking at you Ryanair!) if it means being able to spend a few days in Rome eating pasta and tiramisu day-in and day-out. I’m okay with sharing a bathroom with other hostel-goers if it means getting to see the sparkling lights on the Eiffel Tower at night.
And if there’s one thing about the solo female travel community, it’s that these travel girlies don’t gatekeep how they can afford to travel. So how do I find said flights, one may ask. Google Flights.
In the United States, around the Thanksgiving holiday we have a ton of promotional holidays, such as Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Week – similar to what is known as ‘Boxing Day’ to our Canadian Neighbors. But what most people don’t know about is Travel Tuesday.
This past November I was watching the news in lieu of Thanksgiving and other current events taking place in which they were talking about Travel Tuesday. I had heard of this before, but transparently, hadn’t done any shopping on this day in the past. Knowing that I’d have both the time and flexibility to travel depending on when the good deals were happening, I knew I wanted to take advantage.
But I also wanted to make sure that my community would have the opportunity to take advantage as well. So I posted a TikTok. The next day, I came across this very informational article from Conde Nast Traveler about what travel deals would be coming down the pipeline for this semi-secret promotional holiday for avid travelers.
This TikTok ended up getting over 14,000 viewers and just under 300 likes.
This method of communication is also known as the two-step flow theory. According to Communication Theory, in the two-step flow theory the opinion leader is a leader for a certain group who gives details and information to lesser active persons in the group. In this scenario, I recieved my information from the news. I then acted as an opinion leader on the subject and shared the information I learned with my friends, family, and social media audience.
Oh, and by the way, I’ll be heading back to Italy in March thanks to my finds.
I still have a lot to learn, truly. I haven’t mastered the art of credit card hacking for flight points or hotel stays, but I do what I can to save a few bucks. I have had some of the most amazing experiences due to this and can only hope you are able to as well.
