Dez Bartelt shares her advice - I can’t afford to travel right now…

How many of your friends use this one?

I have lots. And I’m honest with them. Put your plasma-TV dream on hold and open up a travel savings account. You can make your travel dollars worth a fortune in a very short period of time.

By depositing $25 a week for 6 months, your savings will be $600 plus interest. That should help cover your flight. And unless you’re set on vacationing in 5-star style, you can do accommodations and food relatively cheaply.

Don’t let the small stuff get in your way of an adventure of a lifetime.

I’ve been traveling around the world for more than 25 years and sometimes it felt like I had very little money. But as I was sitting on a seaside cliff looking over the Mediterranean Sea, I relished the fact that I didn’t need a lot of money to enjoy the truly finer things in life.

The view is free for the taking. I just need to travel and the sights are mine for the taking.

OK GBD girls here’s your first challenge. Find away to start your travel fund. please email me back with creative ways you are doing this.

Keep traveling

Dez Bartelt
Founder of Best of Both Adventures

Even though I have not started the world trip, I took a look at the GBD site and saw there were some comments on the upcoming trip so here are some answers. It looks like everyone is curious about the same thing- How can I afford to do such an amazing trip especially during this crazy economic crisis?  If it’s ok, I would like to address all of these questions with the same answer.  For the reader’s sake, I have also added the questions from all the girls below.

Jessicaf Says:
March 9th, 2009 at 12:19 am
This is pretty bad a**!! I can’t wait to read about this, since I can’t afford traveling the world myself. This is going to be really exciting to read. yay!

Kathy Says:
March 9th, 2009 at 12:36 am
I know right??
Here’s my question for Dez…How the heck are you able to afford all of this?? lol.

Jessica Says:
March 9th, 2009 at 12:46 am
I know. I wonder how? Maybe smart investing! Or sponsorships? Either way I’d like to know…maybe I can start my own “travel the world” fun later on in my life bc I’m stuck working on the “send Jessica to school” fund.

Emma-Lu Says:
March 9th, 2009 at 1:48 am
it sounds A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. I was also wondering about funding?
At least now we can travel vicariously through Dez for a bit. Probably definitely sponsorships or maybe an inheritance fund?!

Yes, I have to say I’m very lucky to be able to travel. I have been traveling around the world since I was 18 years old.  I would work every day after school and save as much money as I could and during every school break I was out of there.  Most of the time, I went climbing in the Dolomites of Italy or around Fitz Rory in South America.  I also spent a lot of time on short breaks climbing in the mountains of the US.

Here’s the thing. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to enjoy the outdoors. I had my tent and climbing gear. I cooked all my own food and enjoyed nature.   Yes I had to buy plane tickets, but that was where my saving and hard work came in. In the end it is a cheap adventure.

As time passed I expanded my travels.  I wanted to do more than just climb and so I worked out a new plan- I started my own travel company. Now I’m not saying quit your jobs and do the same, but for me it only made sense. I have been in the outdoors all my life and until 12 years ago I was a professional alpinist so I had some amazing opportunities to travel and it taught me a lot.  Starting my own adventure company was an easy choice for me and has given me more opportunities to travel and to see the world.

But how can I afford a 7 month world tour? Because of you! I could not do this is if it was not for all of you that read my articles and blogs as well as travel to one of my Best of Both locations. For without you, this would not be possible.

Emma-Lu’s comment was that definitely sponsorships or maybe an inheritance fund helped out. The answer to that is hum I wish so, but no.  None of the above. It is years of hard work, owning my own adventure travel company and having such amazing women to travel with me.  The 7 month trip is to show all of you how you can travel. Remember that you don’t have to do a world trip. You can read about just one of the amazing places I will be in and start there.  Start slow. No one said you have to do the world the 1st time.  You can do it in stages and I will give you insights on each country and help you work out how it’s possible to travel there.  There are lots of ways to make this happen and the easy one is to save your money. Now I know saving money doesn’t sound easy in this economic crisis. You can though, maybe not a lot but if you cut back on some of the frills and you and take that money and add it to your travel fund then you will be surprised how fast you can get on the road. You can also give back and work with a world charity organization which not only helps people or even animals but you can see the world at the same time.  There’s many ways so don’t let the small stuff get in the way of your adventures!