3 Cheaper Ways to Solo Travel that Skip the Tourist Script

Solita

In this episode of Solita, host Julie Pinheiro interviews Gillian Morris, creator of the cheap-flight app HitList and author of the Substack

Key takeaways

Budget travel fosters deeper connections with locals and authentic experiences by removing the tourist buffer.
Traveling cheaply doesn't mean sacrificing safety—many risks are overestimated, and most people are kind and helpful.

Main topics

Budget flight strategies
Solo travel safety and mindset

Notable quotes

"When you can't afford the touristy buffer, you end up somewhere much more interesting, in the actual city, with the people who actually live there."

Conclusion

Gillian Morris's journey from a young solo traveler to a budget travel expert reveals that the most

Transcript preview

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Listen to us on Amy and TJ on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. It's everybody's favorite time of year. Girls all over America are spending thousands of dollars at Kendra Scott, Lululemon, and going crazy on Revolve. No, seriously, guys, it is time for Sorority Rush. You'll learn about the sex lives of sorority girls. Plus, we'll reveal what frat boys really think about sorority girls. Listen to Dirty Rush on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow Dirty Rush and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app today. I think we so often underestimate. Speaker 1 (2:42) the good things that can happen and we overestimate the things that could go wrong. One of the solo trips I took that meant a lot was actually to Syria in what turned out to be the beginning of the civil war, which I didn't realize at the time. I actually hitchhiked out to, I got on the back of some Bedouin's motorcycle. I missed the bus. And I was like, I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose option B. Would I make that same decision today? I don't know. It worked out fine. And we went and I got to see these incredible ancient ruins. And ISIS largely destroyed them a couple years later. So people cut themselves off from these opportunities by being afraid, by being suspicious. And I do believe, having really made a pretty thorough study of this, that... Speaker 1 (3:40) Most people are pretty kind and want to help. This is Solita, stories of what really happens when you travel alone. The beautiful, the messy, and the moments where you say yes and surprise yourself. I'm your host, Julie Pinheiro. Speaker 1 (4:05) Here's what I've come to believe about budget travel. It doesn't just save you money, it has the potential to close the distance between you and a foreign place. When I backpacked through Chile, I had almost no money. So I used a website called Workaway to pick up a job working at a hostel in the capital city, Santiago. I worked six hours a day at the front desk in exchange for a place to sleep and one hot meal a day. I lived a somewhat regular rhythm, so I made friends with the owner of the hardware store and the university students down the street. I went to poetry readings, I shopped for groceries, and I ate my leftovers. When you can't afford the touristy buffer, the hotels, the tours, the curated experience, you end up somewhere much more interesting, in the actual city, with the people who actually live there. In this episode, I'm talking with Jillian Morris. Speaker 1 (5:00) Jillian created HitList, one of the original apps to connect people with cheap flights. Her newsletter, Super Nuclear, is a guide for adults who want to live with roommates. And she's an expert at traveling with no luggage. Her budget travel lifestyle hasn't just saved her cash, but it's led her to much deeper experiences in new places. Speaker 1 (5:27) So what were your early childhood experiences with travel? Well, I was a solo traveler from a rather young age. I did a lot of flying as an unaccompanied minor. But there was this horrible experience I had on a layover in Chicago in O'Hare Airport. There was a thunderstorm. There were all these delays. They put all the unaccompanied minors in this tiny room and then it lost power. Oh, no. So imagine. 30 kids under the age of 12 in a room with no power, but a view of the planes outside and a crazy thunderstorm and like lightning striking the planes. And everyone's screaming and crying and asking for mommy and all of this. And I was just like, this is terrible. So I put my foot down to my parents and I said. Speaker 1 (6:19) I'm comfortable flying on my own. Don't put me in this program again. And so from basically 12 onwards, I was just traveling on my own. So you were making your own way from check-in to the flight. Yes. You were finding your own bearings. When there was turbulence, you were holding your own hand. I was pretty, I was making friends. I learned early on to not make conversation with the person next to you because then you're stuck with them for the rest of the flight. but to sort of subtly notice what they watch, what they're reading, if they seem interesting, and then strike up a conversation 15 minutes before landing. So tell me about the first trip that you ever booked and paid for yourself. So when I was 14, I was a big nerd. I went to band camp. I was also in a choir. We were invited to tour Europe, the choir that I was in, and band camp was in Maine. My parents were basically like, Speaker 1 (7:14) Choose one. You can't do both. We're only paying for one of them. So I needed to figure out how to make about $3,000, which was a lot of money. That's a lot. Yeah. For international flights and a tour and to get over there. And I did. I did a bunch of weird jobs as a kid. I feel like those are different from this podcast, so I won't get into it. But I made the money and I came to my mom and she said, great. OK, book your flights, figure it out. I remember. Speaker 1 (7:41) sitting down at the computer on Expedia. This is the year 2000. And I'm 14 years old and I'm just sobbing into the computer because I'm like, why won't my mom help me? Why? And then I was just like, oh, actually, this is really, really straightforward. Yeah. So I know that you said that it's a whole other podcast to talk about how you made the money to take this trip. But we are talking about money on this podcast. OK. Can you tell us briefly? how you made the money to take that trip. I did two things. I bred parakeets and I sold them to pet stores. Super normal, I know. That's amazing. Then I also made jewelry and I sold it. So we were commuting distance to New York. My dad worked in the city. I would come into the garment district, go into these wholesalers of like gems and pearls and things. Turns out actually. Speaker 1 (8:38) Jewelry is such a crazy racket. Like you can buy a string of pearls for like four bucks. Real pearls? Yeah, real pearls, depending on the grade. Or maybe you spend 10 bucks or something. And then you can turn that into a necklace that you sell for $200. It's insane. And you figure this out when you're 14. And basically you're like, I can have my own income. I can do what I want, including going and traveling. Yes. Okay. So this is really interesting to me because I started solo traveling in my early 20s. You started doing it much earlier. And I'm curious at what point you start to realize you can do it cheaper than most people are doing it. I think I always realized that I could do it cheaper than others. I also wasn't spending money on a lot of things that other people were spending money. Like I've never owned a car. That's like an extra 11 grand a year. Speaker 1 (9:33) Wow. That I have. That's the average cost of car ownership in the U.S. And I found just getting a deal was really exciting for me. I created an app called HitList, which had millions of users. I built this between 2013 and 2020. And specifically, it was based on like, I was good at finding flights. I would try and alert my friends when I found good flights. And then I decided to try and systematize it with great co-founders. And we built this. Speaker 1 (10:02) that it would alert you when flight prices dropped. But, you know, we had these really interesting models and would be able to see how fares were changing and trending and be able to say, this is a good deal. This is a great deal. This is a bonkers deal. You know, I don't know if it's a myth, but the saying of flights are cheapest on a Tuesday. Oh, oh, my gosh. It's so interesting to hear you say that because that is a complete myth, but it has a grounding in. So before the Internet, the airline industry used to work on its own proto-Internet. Actually, the development of airline technology in many ways laid the groundwork for the development of the Internet. And fare schedules would be updated on Tuesday. That's why. Yes, but that has not been the reality of when fares are cheapest since like 1995. Speaker 1 (11:01) There are some points of travel that are particularly expensive. Can we talk about flights? Yes. I love talking about flights. What are we missing when it comes to flights? What mistakes am I making when I book my flights on Google Flights? I mean, the biggest thing I feel people are mystified by is miles. So the amount of money that you can save by booking with miles. opening up a credit card that has a 50,000 point bonus that you can then transfer to airline miles. I spend very, very little on flights because of that. Now, these days, there's built as well, where you can pay your rent, build up miles. I happen to pay the rent for my house, which is six people, which means that I'm actually making about. Speaker 1 (11:50) $150 worth of points per month is just coming in from paying rent anyway. And a lot of people don't register to get the miles from the trips that they take. And that's just you're leaving money on the table. And there's a really great plugin called Points Hound. This came about in the last few years. So if you use Google Flights to search, it's a Chrome extension. And it's really nice because I was actually looking at flights earlier today and it's like, well, this flight is $580, but it's 25,000 points. The easiest rule of thumb is to think 25,000 points is about $250. So I can pay $250 instead of $580. Right. If I have accrued the points and if I've saved them and if I