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Luxury travel doesn't afford us with the same richness as living with the local people in a place for a longer period of time.
Work / Travel
  • Au-Pairing​
    • ​I spent 4 months living in a tiny fishing village in Brittany, France as an au-pair for a lovely family after finishing my degree. The family was comprised of a young mother and her spunky, 9 year old daughter. We met via Skype twice before I committed. ​Au-pairing is essentially living in somebody's home while taking care of their children. I highly recommend AupairWorld.com as a good place to start looking for families. For the au-pair, creating an account is free and easy. I decided I wanted to live in either Spain or France, ticked a few boxes, and chose what kind of family I was looking for to start my search. In order for families to know who they might be talking to, it is recommended to spend some time on your profile so you look trustworthy and kind. I wrote a bio in English, French, and Spanish because I didn't know where I wanted to live. Even though my grammar wasn't perfect, it didn't matter. They appreciated the effort. Within a week I had been contacted by 21 potential families! 
  • Teaching English
    • Two of my best friends currently live in Ecuador and Spain teaching English full time. They got their TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certificates and signed up for great jobs out of University. ​Programs out of some countries, like South Korea, China, and Japan, will actually pay you to do your TEFL certification and fly you out to the job! One of my friends lived in South Korea on a year long contract teaching English, and made a base salary of $40,000 with her apartment and flights included. With that money, she was able to travel to surrounding areas during her weeks off. I got my TEFL certificate online and taught English in Ecuador for a few months. I'd recommend having a job set up before you land in a place, because getting somewhere without a job (like I did) can cause unnecessary stress.
  • University Internships
    • Some Universities will give you stipends to complete interesting internships abroad. I had an experience in Kenya and another one in Tunisia because I applied for McGill-related bursaries.
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Free Volunteering in Exchange for Room/Board
  • WWOOFING 
    • ​Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) is a worldwide movement to link visitors (WWOOFers) with organic farmers. You find a farmer, agree to work for them, and you don't need to pay room and board. It's a pretty good exchange! One of my friends recently did this in Scotland. Make sure you do your research before agreeing. 
  • HelpX
    • ​HelpX is an online listing of host organic farms, farmstays, hobby farms, lifestyle blocks, homestays, ranches, lodges, backpackers hostels and even sailing boats who invite volunteers lodging and food in exchange for room and board. Make sure you do your research before agreeing. 

Flight Deals
  • Google Flight Matrix
    • ​This is my go-to place to search for flights. You can search for entire months to find when the tickets are the cheapest, rather than searching for specific dates. 
  • Sky Scanner​
    • ​Skyscanner is a metasearch engine which has a neat option to "search anywhere" when you have no destination in mind. This allows you to find cheap flights to places you might not have considered.
  • Airfarewatchdog​
    • ​Sometimes airlines make mistakes. This website allows you to take advantage of those mistakes and book insanely cheap tickets before the airlines fix them. 

Study Abroad
  • Check out my study abroad page for that information! It's how I've managed to travel cheap for the past 8 years.