Adventure Awaits: The Ultimate Guide to a Travel Savings Account

When was the last time you took a trip to celebrate yourself?

We all deserve a break to travel and explore new places. Honestly, you deserve to treat yourself to whatever it is you want in life. You deserve to have that opportunity to take a break from your normal routine and create new memories in new places. Whether it be a solo trip or with others, traveling opens your mind to new perspectives and self-discovery.

Now traveling can be costly but it doesn’t mean that you have to empty out your bank account or rob Peter to pay Paul to experience new places. Proper planning and flexibility are all you need to prepare yourself. Setting up a dedicated savings account for travel allows you to set a clear goal and eliminate the stress of dipping into your checking account that is dedicated to other expenses. In this blog, we’ll explore the benefits of having a dedicated savings account for travel.

If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail – Benjamin Franklin

I miss the days when I was younger and all my friends lived in the same city but now that we’re older we’re all over the US. Seeing them truly requires effort and energy. I don’t have the luxury ability to just wake up and say “Hey girl I’m hoping on the next flight to your city.” In a perfect world, I would love that but in this world (especially this post-pandemic world), I have to make plans of where I’m going. As I mentioned above, we don’t want to put ourselves into a cycle of robbing Peter to Paul by dipping into funds that already have an expense attached to them. That’ll lead to a downward spiral of poor money management. A savings account dedicated strictly to travel will provide you peace of mind, discipline, and a fulfilling travel experience.

Setting Up A Travel Savings Account

There are several banks you can choose from that offer free high-yield savings accounts (HYSA). My personal favorites are Ally and Capitol One. Both allow you to have subaccounts within your main account. For example, you can have a dedicated sub-account for travel, celebrations, and your future home. Separating your funds is key. Research different banks to determine which is best for you and be sure to avoid the bank with your checking account. This will remove the temptation of dipping into it with quick transfers back and forth.

Decide How Much to Save

Once you’ve decided on where you’re traveling to and when next, create a target budget and timeline. Be sure to think about hotels, flights, transportation, entertainment, food, etc. After the estimated budget is set, decide how often you will contribute to your account. If the trip is soon, a more aggressive strategy may be necessary to meet your deadline but if the trip is far out, you can spread out your payments over time. Contribute at a frequency that is comfortable for you.

Automate Automate Automate

Manual transfers can be time-consuming and easy to forget. A wise choice would be to set up automatic transfers each pay period. Every time you get paid, your travel fund gets paid! An automatic transfer can be set up from your checking account to the savings or directly from your payroll provider. Different strokes work for different folks so do what works for you. Now life can be unpredictable so if you ever need to pause on contributions, change the amount, or the frequency that is totally fine. Find a number that works for you ($1 is always better than $0).

Relax and Watch Your Account Grow

Watching your account grow closer and closer to the goal you set is so satisfying knowing that you remained disciplined with consistent contributions.

You don’t have to have a trip planned to start saving. Consistently contributing to the account will allow you to stay ready and give you a head start when a new trip opportunity presents itself. For example, let’s say you don’t have anything planned but there’s $500 already in your travel fund. A friend reaches out about a trip 5 months from now. That $500 could be put towards your flight and now you only need to focus on budgeting for lodging, food, and entertainment.

With a travel savings account, you are in control of transforming your travel dreams into reality to create long-lasting memories. If you don’t already have a dedicated savings account, I challenge you to open one today regardless if you have a trip planned or not.

Wander more, worry less