2024-03-02 08:23:23
There are certainly not a few people who have ever dreamed of making a living just by traveling. Slovakian Janca Schweighoferová really succeeded. The future lawyer became a full-time traveler after a vacation in the Seychelles. For nine years now, as “Janka Travelhacker”, she has been giving people practical tips on how to travel cheaper, more comfortably and without worries.
How has travel changed in 2023 and what to expect this year?
There are so many passengers after the relaxation of covid measures last year that costs have no reason to go down, on the contrary. In 2023, demand simply exceeded supply in many countries. Already in February, plane tickets are more expensive than I expected. In addition, some destinations do not go down in price at all. While for years it was true that the most advantageous tickets are two to four months before departure and buying too early would make them more expensive, this is now changing. For some destinations, it now pays to buy tickets five to six months before departure. This was not the case before, at first the tickets were expensive and then the price went down.
So does this mean air holidays will be more expensive this year?
You can no longer buy tickets for 500 crowns, but they will cost you three times as much. You will pay extra for desired destinations, this applies in particular to places for which there is not a lot of competition. For example, very few companies fly to Madeira, so it is expensive to get there. On the contrary, many companies go to, for example, London, Rome or Bari, so you can get there cheaply. Over the years, I have also discovered that if tickets to a destination are cheap one year, they are expensive the following year. This is for example the case of Athens, which used to be almost the cheapest destination in Europe. So it pays to keep track of prices and compare them.
How exactly do you track prices?
You can see a graph of some prices on Google Flights, and it is clear that they are more expensive on average. This applies to European tickets, but not all. For connecting flights, it’s more difficult to track price developments because there are more variables. The second way is to have alerts set up on the Flightor.com service, which collects the best airfares and accommodation offers from various servers. For example, if I want to go from Vienna or Budapest to Southeast Asia sometime between March and April, I set up an alert there and I always get an email when the price drops.
How do you search for cheap flights?
I use Kiwi.com as a search engine for “low-cost flights”, Google Flights or Kayak for classic airlines. I then buy the ticket directly on the airline’s website. That too is news. It used to be better to buy tickets from sellers, after the pandemic it changed a lot. Airlines have realized that it pays for them when a customer buys a ticket directly from them because they don’t have to pay middleman fees. And it’s also the safest because they almost always have better customer service.
Do you remember the lowest price you flew for?
I think it was for 90 cents, so about 20 crowns. Ryanair used to give a voucher when you created an account on their website. I flew to London, where the ticket itself was quite cheap and I saved money after using the voucher.
What is the worst flying situation you can remember?
Fortunately, I have never experienced turbulence, when the plane drops for example 100 meters and the oxygen masks start falling out. I have a friend who has never been afraid of flying, but ever since she experienced such turbulence, this type of travel has become a problem for her. The worst was when we had to sit on the plane for three hours due to some technical problem and then we had another twelve-hour flight ahead of us. Sometimes your seat is also occupied by an “overgrown” neighbor, but thanks to the fact that I spend transfers in VIP lounges, flying is very pleasant for me, I am relaxed and at ease. I have a proven routine on the plane and flights are pleasant for me. I just avoid night flights, I don’t like to throw up my sleep rhythm.
What does your routine look like?
I wear active noise canceling headphones on the plane all the time. If possible, I stretch every two hours. I wear compression stockings on long flights as they help minimize the risk of blood clots in the legs. When they give me food on the plane, I don’t eat it unless it’s at a time when I would normally eat. This means that if my night flight starts at 8 p.m. and I’m full because I was in the VIP lounge, which by the way has much better food than on the plane, I won’t eat anything on board. People are then full, they get a lot of calories, they have a lot of energy, and in the morning they are exhausted and destroyed. I don’t even drink alcohol on the plane, hangovers are worse.
At the airport as a VIP
You mentioned that you enjoy flying in airport VIP lounges. How does one get into them?
There are several ways. The most practical one is through your bank and bank card. Most banks offer access to lounges in Prague, Bratislava and Vienna. However, the conditions for obtaining such an advantage differ, so you need to study in advance what is most advantageous for you. In addition, there are some external companies such as Lounge Pass, Priority Pass or Dragon Pass that offer these entrances to VIP lounges. Thanks to them, you then have access to VIP lounges around the world. You can even buy a one-time entry to some of them.
We have discussed flying, but what about accommodation while traveling?
This is really the most expensive item, because plane tickets can still be purchased relatively cheaply, but accommodation has become so expensive that I definitely recommend dealing with it well in advance. Last night, for example, I booked housing in Croatia for June. And it’s quite late, it’s expensive. It is therefore worth looking for accommodation with free cancellation, as you may find better, cheaper or nicer accommodation. I usually book it through Booking, because I know their system, they have a lot of accommodation offers and I use coupons for a 10% discount. Of course, I also do a price comparison elsewhere.
How?
Again, I use Google’s comparator for this. Basically, it works the same way as flights, it compares accommodation prices from different sellers. If accommodation is significantly cheaper somewhere than on Booking, I will of course take it there. Plus I have a great app called Pruvo. I always enter my reserved accommodation in it, and if they happen to lower the price, I get a notification and I can change my reservation.
How cheap for exotics?
First of all, you need to find a country that is cheap. A lot of people are trying to figure out how to fly cheaply to exotic places, but if you buy a cheap ticket to Japan, for example, then everything else is expensive there. The Numbeo application is good for this, which compares the average prices of various commodities in given countries, for example meals in restaurants or food. Another very similar site focuses on nomads. It’s called Nomadlist.com, and there you can find prices for long-term rentals or coffee in cafes. Based on this, you can get an idea of how much you will spend on average in that country.
And what destinations can you recommend?
Certainly Cambodia, Vietnam, even Thailand, even if it is more expensive than it used to be. India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia are also worthwhile. It’s different in Africa, I was recently in Burundi and it was really cheap. Rwanda exactly the opposite. I think it is worthwhile to fly to Africa with an adventure tour company, that seems to me to be the very best option in the case of this continent. Argentina, Colombia and Bolivia are still cheap in South America. Brazil, Nicaragua, Mexico are also cool. Panama, Costa Rica, Chile and Uruguay are expensive. Mauritius already has higher prices, just like Seychelles.
Places that are really worth it
You have visited over 80 countries. Where did you like the most and where would you like to return?
I can’t say one country, but several: Seychelles, Georgia, Iran, Buenos Aires, where I felt at home, and Kathmandu, Nepal.
What interested you the most in Kathmandu?
The atmosphere there. The fact that they suddenly have all the Buddhist temples right in the middle of the metropolis. Near Kathmandu lies the beautiful historical city of Bhaktapur. It’s just a fascinating place.
From your list of most popular places, the closest is Georgia…
Georgia is beautiful and cheap, has great cuisine. And there are many beautiful places in it. I can definitely recommend her.
How did traveling actually become your job?
Nine years ago, I was studying law in college, I was sitting in a lecture and I opened a link on the Internet where there was a very cheap return ticket to Brazil. I said to my boyfriend at the time: “Let’s fly!” And I was all rattled. I was so nervous and didn’t even know what I had actually booked. She didn’t know if it was for two people and if it was really a return ticket. But suddenly I had it in my mail, so we flew to Brazil. Rio de Janeiro’s iconic statue of Christ was then scaffolded. My friend and I decided to climb it. We were sitting there looking at the city and I thought, “Wow! If I’m experiencing this here, what would I be experiencing anywhere else?” It was an idea that has kind of stuck with me ever since.
Janka Schweighoferová
- In February 2015, she wrote her first article in the Seychelles, which was read by more than 100,000 people in the Slovak Denník N. Thus began her career as a travel blogger
- Since then, she has visited more than 80 countries, written hundreds of articles, and her blog ranks among the best-known and most read in Slovakia
- He gives practical travel advice not only on his blog and Instagram account janka_travelhacker, but also through the book Travel Without Millions, which he updates every year
Source: Petra Stěhulová
When did it get to the stage where you really started to make a living from traveling?
When I flew to the Seychelles, from where I wrote my very first article. Back then, everyone said to me: “Janka, what are you doing in the Seychelles? Who paid you for it? Everything is expensive there.” And so I wrote about how you can fly there cheaply. And it was a huge success. Over 100,000 people read the article on Denník N’s blog in three days. And so I realized that there was an interest in it, so I profiled myself in such a way that I would write about how to travel cheaply and give practical tips. Later I won Blogger of the Year in Slovakia and my community started to grow. I do it authentically and try to create practical content and somehow it comes out. I enjoy it very much.
And don’t you ever get tired of traveling?
It was like that last year. There was a lot going on, I was publishing a new book and for that I traveled a lot and had a lot of collaborations. I was already taking about a month’s break towards the end before I flew to Africa. And I thought I’d take some time off after I got back. Maybe until May, but I experienced so many adventures in that Africa in 10 days and I came back so excited that I’m looking forward to traveling again. But even so, I have to be careful about what I promise and where, because I tend to say yes to everything and then find out that I can’t keep up.
You recently returned from Africa. I saw on your Instagram that you were excited to meet gorillas in the wild…
Yes, that was incredible, but perhaps an even greater experience was Burundi. It is a non-tourist country, and when you fly there, you don’t even know where to look. You don’t read much on blogs. But the female traveler we were there with also runs a charity there. The owner of the tour guide, Baloo, has been running an orphanage there for ten years helping children, so he took us there and it gave us a completely authentic experience of Africa. It wasn’t the kind of situation where locals put on a show for tourists.
What will you not forget?
I liked the moment when we got there the most. The children were afraid of us and we were afraid of them. They could not speak English and were ashamed. I wanted to make contact, so I thought I’d give them my phone and show them how to film and take pictures. And suddenly they were completely different children, suddenly we were a group. And then it turned out that one boy knew about 300 words in English. He told me that they don’t have WhatsApp so they will never see the photos again, so I promised to print them for them. It was a completely authentic experience and I gained a visceral sense of understanding of the culture.