Jeremy

Jeremy founded Living the Dream in 2008 to chronicle his long-term trip around Asia. Since then he has been on two long-term trips, visited 69 countries, and is just getting started. He is now on a Lifestyle Design quest to build businesses to pursue a life of travel.

Is a Europe Rail Pass Worth It? Tickets Are Cheaper Than You Think

Panorama Trains Switzerland

When planning a trip around Europe, you may hear about a Europe rail pass from companies like Eurail and Rail Europe that offer multiple regional segments or full unlimited use passes on many rail networks throughout most of the countries in the continent.

I know from experience that many travelers are hesitant on purchasing a rail pass in Europe for a number of reasons, with rigidity and limitations being a few of the biggest.

But for all those who can get past these minor details, a lot of effort is required in identifying the best pass and even if a rail pass is worth the money at all!

To help, we’ve put together this post as a result of our years of research on Europe’s ultimate travel question: how do you get a cheap europe train ticket?  

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A Travel Hacking Blueprint for All Budgets

Those who know us personally know that we absolutely love to travel hack.

Where other bloggers may source the bulk of their travels through comps, partnerships, and other discounts, we pay for most all of it ourselves and owe a lot of it to the insane amount of airline, hotel, and non-branded credit card points we rack up in any given year.

But we’ll let you in on a little secret: our version of travel hacking does not involve manufactured spending or crazy schemes in order to get points. It is simply through meeting minimum spend limits on credit cards and carrying on like normal!

Okay, it definitely isn’t that sexy when you really stop to think about it. This method really is as simple as opening credit cards, spending as normal, and receiving points. But while this approach may be relatively straight forward, it does have one perk that we’re going to share today- it is repeatable!

In this guide we’re going to take you down the rabbit hole of all the things you need to think about to before opening one of the best travel rewards credit cards to reap major rewards. The first task? Figuring how many cards you could possibly use in a given year!

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Rug Shopping in Morocco – The Bartering Experience

We knew we wanted to go rug shopping in Morocco before we got there, and did a fair bit of research online as to what to expect prior to arriving (including which of the many beautiful styles we would be interested in purchasing).

One thing that jumped out at us as we got started was the number of comments that shopping at Local Berbere Artisanal in Chefchaouen was much more laid back, offered better prices, and generally was a more enjoyable experience than, well, anywhere else in the country.

Even though it was the first stop of our trip, we found ourselves at the shop making a very expensive decision from the get-go and we are certainly glad we did.

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How We Paid Off $50,000 in 33 Months with a Debt Avalanche

There is one thing that pisses me off about financial savings articles, and that is the recap of a saver’s journey.

The articles generally start with the person in question sharing their debt load, the plan they followed, and skips to the fact that they became debt free because of it X years later. That’s great, but what is missing is the many years of hard work and commitment that it took to make the goal become a reality.

When boiled down to 500 words it sounds amazing that someone can pay off a big debt in a “short” period of time. We could do this in talking about how we paid off $50,000 in student loan and car debt in 33 months, but there is a little secret no one ever shares: those months or years in the middle suck.

While articles tend to shrug this off as being part of the very nature of this method (which is true), a period of several years is still a huge chunk of time. And that in-between time does not go by as quick as you’d like while large sums of money disappear every single paycheck.

But I am here to tell you today to not get discouraged- it is worth it. You just need to know a few things along the way that others are not so eager to tell you about.

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