TravelMuse’s Yaycations Calculator

If forced to choose, I’d easily pick a trip abroad over a lot of things in my life. For some reason, it’s hard for me to remember that.

That’s what the TravelMuse Yaycations Calculator is for. It brings a reality check to the mix, calculating 20 expenses that you might consider giving up in order to save travel money. You’ll see what trips you could take if you gave up the daily cup of coffee that you swear you need. It’s a wake-up call to recognize opportunities for mindful saving, even in the smallest of increments.

A few things that I could probably cut back on or find a substitute for: the gym, haircuts, eating out. A few things don’t apply to me as much: I don’t splurge on jewelry or art very often (and ironically, if i do it’s often on a trip!)

I used the calculator for myself—not being too rigid—and somehow found an extra $2018 that I could set aside for travel. Where did that come from? That’s money that could stretch for months at a time in Vietnam or India. Just as I try to encourage others to realize their long-lost travel dreams, my own suddenly seem within reach, too.

Of course, as a travel-planning website, TravelMuse goes the extra step to recommend trips that I could potentially take with that money. Choosing the themes ‘experiential travel’ and ‘outdoor adventures,’ I got 8 cities as suggestions, including Santiago, Chile; Barcelona, Spain; and Krakow, Poland. Each city profile was broken down into budget (everything from $1050 to 2037), travel time, themes, and links to content on TravelMuse.