If some international travel appeals to you Chac, I myself love to go on cruises.
It's a great experience that has an all-inclusive kind of setup. You make friends with people on board the ship who share the experience with you. It's a floating hotel room with onboard entertainment activities and nearly 24 hours a day all-you-can-eat food. The food is free. (Unless you want to go to the specialty restaurants.) So you're not having to deal with daily questions (in a strange city) of, "What am I going to do today about breakfast, lunch, and dinner." "How much can I afford to spend on each meal per day to stay within my budget?" You don't have to set up reservations in advance with multiple hotels of unknown quality or try to do a best guess as to its location with regards to where you want to spend most of your time exploring in the city or general area. You don't have to take your chances (with regards to unknown expense or quality) with motels on the road as you go to and from your destination(s).
So living on a ship for however many days, it is much less likely you'll run into unexpected financial emergencies that can cost you really big bucks. And you only unpack your suitcase once. lol There are onboard expenses of your own choice like a casino, specialty dining, pictures taken by staff photographers, spa treatments, etc. There are costs for optional pre-paid excursions to the ports of call, and any souvenir buying or entertainment one might want to do while onshore. Drinking alcohol can be very expensive on a cruise ship. (As it is just about everywhere.) One can buy drink packages in advance that are pricey but still a steal if one is a big drinker on vacations. Some cruise lines' drink packages include a maximum of 15 drinks per day. Other cruise lines' drink packages can truly be unlimited.
But the point is that it's much easier to stay within a set budget for cruises. Because again, the majority of extra expenses are going to be optional at your own discretion.
One downside admittedly is that if you choose to travel by yourself on a cruise, you will pay pretty much double for your cabin. Most of the pricing shown online will be based on a per person, double occupancy room.
At first glance it would seem like you would have to have a passport for this kind of international travel. And for the most part, depending on which countries you would be visiting on certain itineraries...you
do. But... There are also some cruises to specific Caribbean countries, which allow you to travel with only a birth certificate. You couldn't fly to or from these countries without a passport. But sailing to them from a U.S. port is a different story. If you're the least bit interested you should probably speak to someone directly by phone from a particular cruise line of your choice, who could really narrow down for you and recommend what options of particular cruises, with precisely the right match of ports of call, that would allow you to travel with just a birth certificate. I've been on some cruises myself in the past with friends and fellow passengers who've only had a birth certificate.
As time goes on it's true that there are fewer and fewer countries still willing to do this. But there are also some countries (mostly in the Caribbean) that are so reliant on tourism that they go out of their way to make it easy for Americans to travel there by ship. So not having a passport is not necessarily a total deal-breaker for
some international travel.
Just food for thought.
