student travel loans - TravelPUNK Backpacker College Student Budget Travel Message Boards!

**zmsmith5** · 09-23-2007, 10:34 AM

I was trolling through various travel sites while researching for a RTW trip and I came across the subject of student travel loans at STA and I was wondering if anybody has had experience with these as I think this could help a lot as far as cutting down on the time needed to save up for the trip. Id rather go sooner and pay for it later than wait another year to save enough money.

**TheJake** · 09-23-2007, 01:55 PM

I will never ever ever go into debt to travel again. I've been paying for it for almost 4 years now. It got me into the habit of swiping that accursed card without thinking about it.....

travlvirgin · 09-24-2007, 03:42 AM

I dont kno, i think it is always a personal descision. But in my opinion i always find that saving and paying for anything myself weather it be travel or luggage or cameras, anything of expense - it always is more satisfying buying things and achieving stuff with your own money, the money you worked for..... when im off overseas im not going to get a loan iv saved a fair bit but i will take a visa debt card, so if i do get in trouble or need extra cash i have something to fall back on. i think sometimes loans can make your experience suffer because you know when you get back home you have to work hard to pay it off. a HOLIDAY should be just that, the present at the end of hard work.

I dont know i guess thats my 2cents but i do no many many friends that have done the loan option and even though they are still paying it off they said it was well worth it.

**lost in texas** · 09-24-2007, 06:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zmsmith5

Id rather go sooner and pay for it later than wait another year to save enough money.

That's how it goes man, but if you did that with everything you'd always have a ton of debt. Of course, on the other hand, if you know you're going to have a decent job or some way to pay it back, why not? Also, if you can get student loans (and don't need them for school) that's the best way to go because the interest rates are the lowest you can get, at least here in the States.

**benna2** · 09-24-2007, 06:58 AM

Those decent jobs don't always pan out my friend....Then you are stuck with a ton of debt that really wasn't necessary and not always a job to make money and pay it off!

I am a firm believer in saving your money and then reaping the rewards of all that hard work afterwards. I've never liked being loaded down with debt.

A good way to save money without even realizing you're doing it is to have your bank set up an automatic roll over into another account. If you know you want to try to save say...$400 a month for your trip fund, have your bank deduct that once a month and put it into another (locked) account. If you can afford the deduction, then you won't even realize you are doing it. I've done that a few times and it made saving money really easy.