Yes, you need to have some. But the barrier is getting lower by the year, even for International travel.

For example:

San Francisco <-> Milan, May 7 - May 20, Norwegian Air+Easy Jet: $598.

Air Bnb for the duration: Central Loft, $70/night, 13 nights, $910. (you can find much lower as well, if you want to go for the minimum).

Shop local, cook & eat in the apartment, $20/day? $280.

Spend 13 days walking and exploring Milan for under $2,000.

That's not a trivial amount, but it's not the $2,000 air fare and $150 night hotel and $50 day food type of money, either.

> San Francisco <-> Milan, May 7 - May 20, Norwegian Air+Easy Jet: $598.

That's great if you are near a large city like San Francisco.

However, Madison, WI <-> Milan, May 7 - May 20, United: $1304 economy, 21h travel time.

It IS the $2000 airfare ( or approaching it).

Now, ORD <-> MIL is $687, but MSN -> ORD is at least a 2 1/2 hour trip by car, longer by bus.

It's a $60/rt ride from Madison to O'Hare on the Van Galder bus. If you drive, it's whatever cost to take your car plus at least $10/day at ORD.

Not sure about unpopular US departure cities but if one is flexible and waits for deals then it’s doable to find cheap fare even outside of a flight hub.

I used to pay ~$1500 CAD from Ottawa, Canada to Manila, Philippines. Now that I’m aware of deals and have a flexible schedule/remote-work-policy I scoff at any trip with the same itinerary that’s > $800.

You're right about those tips. It is totally possible to travel and keep the budget from getting crazy. That's the kind of stuff the wife and I do every year (BTW, I highly recommend Bologna).

A lot of folks, however, aren't comfortable with putting themselves out there into an airbnb (or equivalent) and fending for themselves with local markets and transport. It's really not that hard (depending on where you go and your tolerance for embarrassment and alienation), but there's definitely a language and cultural barrier that needs to be overcome or worked around.

I think that Rick Steves, in his unique way, makes a lot of people feel more comfortable with getting out there. It really is so much better to travel without a tour company mediating the experience.

Agreed. If you're American, maybe start with Vancouver or London so that there is no language issue, which can be the biggest issue.

It's also not hard to get by in most places in Europe, particularly Scandanavia. Most folks there speak English, among other languages.

Actually he's refreshingly frugal. Public transit + inns + hiking is cheaper per day than a lot of parts of the US, and competition among the low cost carriers means that you can find roundtrip tickets from some American cities for <$600 in the summer and <$300 in the winter (emphasis on some -- NY, SF, Newark, Fort Lauderdale).

It's certainly not inexpensive to do intercontinental travel, that's for sure. But Steves' thing is all about doing it more affordably.

> Above all, Steves told us, do not be afraid. The people of the world are wonderful, and the planet we share is spectacular.

I've done a small splash of international travel. But in my career I've been lucky enough to be exposed to people from lots of places in the world, and I've drawn the same conclusion. When people here in the US ruminate about global events and foreigners I wonder if they've ever really met any. Because you very quickly draw the conclusion -- "Hey, these people aren't very different at all -- they have family and friends and they go to work and care about their family and friends just like me!"

I've traveled with money, and I've traveled when I'm broke. Both are enjoyable, but I got more "broadening" experiences by traveling when broke.

For example, in the mid 90s we went to the Dominican Republic for a week, and we were oh-so-broke. We stayed in a hut (actual hut) behind a friend's house; we borrowed their bikes to go to town to buy groceries (including food items where I had no earthly idea what they were); we cooked on a tiny alcohol camp stove (and when it ran out, we discovered that the alcohol it used was a bottle of rum). We saw nothing that was a tourist destination; it was all "just folks." ...and we got a huge amount of understanding about what it meant to live in a poor country without resources.

I've also stayed in 5-star hotels in Paris and indulged myself for a week falling into every tourist vortex. That's perfectly fine, too, because it's okay to appreciate beauty. However, you appreciate it _better_ when you know its context and history; I highly recommend Rick Steves _Europe Through The Back Door_ because it gives us Americans a better sense of European history, not to mention how it affected art, architecture, etc.

Mind you, Steves' travel guides are rarely my favorites. He's not a foodie, and I regularly choose destinations based on what I can eat. And he's opinionated, which I appreciate, until we disagree on those opinions. (He's meh on the Black Forest, and it's one of my favorite places.) Then again, I'm not his target audience. I think he's a treasure nonetheless.

> He's not a foodie

You might enjoy watching Rudy Maxa's cheeks instead, then.

> Step 1 - Have money

One of the very best travel guide series is those books by Anton Krotov and friends written in Russian. While these travelers have gradually become pretty bourgeois and fans of posh train travel (which allows them to guide also ordinary holidaymakers), they spent many years traveling the world by hitchhiking, sleeping in mosques, etc. on absolutely tiny budgets (like 0–5€/day). Besides writing travel guides for the Russian-speaking market, they also do their fair share of public-speaking visits to small towns to encourage young people across the USSR and Eastern Europe to set out traveling even if they have little money.

Today if you come into contact with shoestring travelers in South America or Africa, you find that a lot of them are Russians and Poles. Their comparative poverty didn’t stop them from traveling transcontinentally, and it has always puzzled me that some comparatively better off Americans complain they can’t indulge in their wanderlust dreams due to lack of money.

You need some money, sure. But, it's not nearly as expensive as most people think. Rick Steves is also all about frugality where possible. His one exception is if spending money will save time, as time is the most valuable thing we have.

If you live in the US, we are living just past the golden age of credit cards rewards...I've not paid for a personal trip (flight or hotel) for maybe 6 years and travel a lot.

Step 2 - ?

Step 2 for people with passports issued by developing countries: Allocate a month to visa applications, interviews, biometric checks, gather documents and letters, then take a mini vacation to a city that has consulate services for the target country, to convince them you are not a liability or future illegal immigrant.

More discussion on that here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17778108

Step 3 - PROFIT!

Joke aside, not everyone can afford time off vacationing from work, and even with PTO covering their time off.

I try to travel with friends each year, but the core issue for most of us is, even with PTO, a few weeks of overtime is needed before or after the trip because work can't wait, and our colleagues cannot absorb our work. Speaking of our colleagues, many haven't taken vacation in years and let their unused PTO roll over and eventually expire!

Even with the seemingly-extra work (and overflowing email inboxes) I think it's important to walk away. You need to let the creative well refill, or you burn out.