Why Travel Hacking is the Best Hobby for Your Career

When I googled “actuarial hobbies”, the results were sparse (we have fun, I promise!). Of the different hobbies I’ve tried, travel hacking is one of my favorite pastimes, and many of the benefits I’ve gotten from it are useful for professionals in any career.

Reap the Benefits of (Free!) Travel

There’s no doubt that traveling provides many benefits, and that these benefits can be extremely valuable as you begin your career.

Traveling Makes you Take Your Vacation Days

Don’t let your personal vacation days go to waste! Regularly taking time to step away from your desk is great for your mental health, productivity, happiness, and stress-reduction.

Broaden Your Horizons and Get Out of Your Comfort Zone

Exploring the world improves your cultural curiosity and acceptance of different ways of life. In turn, this allows you to have a greater appreciation for the diversity of thought within your own organization. Additionally, when you get to experience amazing (free!) trips in new places, you are more likely to have a positive view of that place, promote the destination to other travelers, and connect with other people who are either from or have traveled to that destination.

Understand the History and Current Events of the World

Planning a vacation? You’ll want to do some research before-hand on the best things to do, places to stay, things to eat, etc. Through your research, you’ll learn about the histories of destinations your visiting, as well as any current events that may impact your travel plans.

Build a Solid Foundation for Your Personal Finances

Just starting out with internships or in the early stages of your career? There’s no better time to get into the habit of making responsible financial decisions. The travel hacking game only works if you set yourself up for long-term financial success and complete the travel hacking prerequisites. Make sure you’re organized before diving into applying for travel hacking credit cards.

Develop Good Financial Habits

Getting into the travel hacking mindset includes tracking your expenses and having a clear picture of where your spending goes. It also lets you see if need to adjust your spending to align with your values. Remember: money is just a tool to help you get what’s important to you.

Additionally, being familiar with your expenses allows you to better plan on how to meet minimum spending requirements for new cards without inflating your spending.

Improve Your Credit Score

Travel hacking, when done correctly, will actually increase rather than damage your credit score! Paying off your statement each month means you’ll build a solid payment history, which accounts for 35% of your credit score.

As you add more cards to your arsenal, you’ll have a higher total credit limit. If you keep your expenses level at the same time, you will end up with lower total credit utilization, which accounts for 30% of your credit score.

Avoid Interest Payments

Travel hacking properly requires that you pay off your credit card statement balances in full each month, or else the interest payments will quickly outweigh the value of the points and miles earned.

Be the Best Version of You

As you learn how to think like a travel hacker, you’ll also find that the travel hacking hobby is full of skill-building opportunities for your career development.

Organization Skills

There’s no doubt that travel hacking requires you to get organized and stay organized. From tracking your spending and points to managing logistics for your free vacations, you’ll improve at putting together plans and executing on them.

This hobby is a marathon, and one of the main mistakes new travel hackers make is treating it like a sprint. Optimized travel hacking requires commitment and diligence to stick with the strategy and the process.

Communication Skills

Even though travel hacking is growing in popularity, it is still a foreign concept to many people. The details of each credit card offer, flight routes, and membership perks can make the hobby seem overly complicated. Learning how to communicate complex topics in easy-to-digest ways for your friends and coworkers is a valuable skill!

Learn More About Yourself

You learn so much about yourself when in a new environment. Whether it’s you are on vacation to a new place or starting a new career, you learn about your hopes, fears, dreams, and motivations.

What sparks joy for you? Learning about new cultures? Becoming more knowledgable about personal finance? Earning status with luxury hotels and airlines? Feeling more connected to the world and a community of like-minded individuals? Travel hacking brings happiness in unexpected ways.

Additionally, you’ll learn more about how you operate under stress. Traveling and travel hacking are great practice arenas for staying calm when things inevitably don’t go according to plan. The ability to keep a cool head under this kind of pressure is invaluable in any stage of your career.

Conclusion

Ready to travel more (for free!), get your personal finances in order, and learn how to live your best life? Welcome to travel hacking: the best hobby for your career!