A Smart Traveler is a Smart Investor

Travel is an expense, often a luxury that bleeds the piggybank. However, I'd like to argue that the skillsets you develop to be a smart traveler are transferrable when it comes to managing finances.

Nature, flights, food trips, and adventure are some of the least expected places to learn about personal finance and investing. Yet after flying more than a hundred hours across Southeast Asian and East Asian destinations, I learned that the principles of a smart traveler have significant overlaps with that of a smart investor.

Eyeing Value for Money

We usually misunderstand “value for money” as the cheapest ones we can find. To some extent it can be true, but zooming out, some things we thought as cheap actually costs us more. For example, if someone chose the cheapest luggage out there but needed to replace it every two years, it probably costs them a lot more than buying one good quality luggage that can last them decades. Just because something is cheap doesn’t mean it’s the best one to buy.

Likewise, in the world of stock market, just because a stock is PHP 1 doesn’t mean it’s undervalued or it has a lot of upside. When we look at their financials, they can even be overpriced or overhyped.

However, it’s important not to use this principle to justify our luxuries. Is this sports shoe, luxury bag, or iPhone 17 Pro Max really functional and beneficial to you in the long run?

Mastering Delayed Gratification

Along the lines of hunting value-for-money bargains, it requires a lot of waiting and delaying gratification. Flights are expensive but they seasonally go on sale, depending on the airlines. Based on my experience, the hottest sales often happen in Independence Day for both Cebu Pacific and Philippine Airlines. It’s important to hold back the temptation to buy flights now because a P20K flight could suddenly go down to P4K with the right patience and masterful timing.

In the world of investments, some people go all in so they can “go big or go home” while others slowly dollar-cost-average through the highs and lows of the market. There’s merit in both trading styles depending on one’s risk tolerance. However, those who stay long enough in the market are those who allow their wealth to compound slowly like a tortoise, postponing any temptation to swing with the crowd and get quick bucks now.

Willing to Go Against the Bandwagon

Beach destinations go on sale during rainy months because everyone wants to go to the beach when it’s predictably sunny. Theme park tickets are lower during weekdays as family bondings usually happen during weekends. Michelin-awarded restaurants even at the level of carinderias or hawker centers have significantly long queues during peak seasons in lunch and dinner.

By going against the tide, smart travelers often can book flights and parks for up to half the price and reallocate those savings to other things that enrich the entire tour, like experiences or food. By eating during unconventional hours, they can skip the queue and have more time to explore the city.

Personally, I go to Disneyland rides when others are eating lunch/dinner. I skip traditional pre-packaged tours and always “DIY” with my well-curated itinerary, hitting two birds in one stone — it’s deeply personalized to my travel style and it’s definitely cheaper.

Resourceful Problem-Solver

For years, I said “no” to leisure travel (well, honestly, it was my wallet who said “no”).

I took it as a challenge and positioned most of my energy to make things happen. During my teenage years, I got to travel all-expense-paid trips to Hong Kong Disneyland, Davao’s Eagle Sanctuary, Baguio’s Mines View Park, all because of my writing, math, or science competitions. Honestly, in retrospect, it was not the trophy I wanted, it was the feeling of being in a new place, experiencing all these novel tastes and sights.

Even as an adult, now with bills and priorities, traveling still needs resourcefulness and problem-solving skills. Sometimes it’s being willing to sleep in cheaper hostels to allocate more to tours and experiences, or sleeping with relatives to save on hotel, or ultimately juggling more side hustles to fund the itch to travel.

Traveling is a gift.

Needless to say, being a resourceful problem-solver could also be helpful in managing finances and rebalancing portfolios during extreme market events.

Starting Small

Counterintuitively, you don’t have to fly somewhere far to truly experience the benefits of traveling. Challenge yourself to little “adventures” like walking out of your desk to see some nature, discovering a new food spot you’ve never tried before, or deliberately walking a different street on your way home. It starts with the appreciation of the little things. And then the well-awaited tour comes, you’ll be delighted but at the same time it feels familiar since you’ve been deliberately trying the joy of discovery every day.

Let me tell you one more secret that’s applicable to traveling and in personal finance. Haggle and negotiate everything — it empowers you to be in the habit of trying your luck every day. Consider requesting for extra whip cream in your frappe, perhaps getting an extra ref magnet, or rounding down the price of 1,040 down to flat 1,000. Eventually, you’ll have more muscle to negotiate the more important things like your monthly salary, sign-in bonus, supplier terms and other things that could save you millions by just a few seconds of awkwardly asking.

Above all, as a smart traveler and investor, one should also be able to discern which practices can you adopt and which ones aren't exactly your style. It’s always tough to balance splurging too much on traveling versus being mindful of expenses and hence trimming some travel goals. It all depends on one’s priorities and one’s tolerance to losses (travel expenses that could’ve been invested). Factoring everything, I strongly believe that being a smart traveler can co-exist with being a smart investor — a fine line we’ll always balance in this grand journey called life.