I’ve been sitting on this post for a while because it’s the least “aesthetic” thing I’ve ever shared here. But if this blog is really about planning smarter, more honest travel — not just pretty photos of it — then I can’t keep skipping the part where I tell you I’m currently paying down $20,000 in credit card debt while still planning two more trips.

So here it is. The real version.

How I Got Here

I did the thing a lot of travel lovers do without realizing it: I used airline credit cards to fund trips, told myself the points were “worth it,” and quietly let balances carry month to month. The math felt fuzzy enough to ignore — until it wasn’t fuzzy anymore. It was a number. A big one.

Here’s the part that stung the most: I wasn’t actually winning at the points game. I was paying interest rates north of 25% to earn rewards worth a fraction of that. If you’ve ever done this math on your own balances, you know exactly the gut-drop I mean — you’re not buying flights with points, you’re renting them from the bank at an outrageous markup.

I share this not for sympathy, but because I know I’m not the only one in this position. A lot of us are traveling and carrying debt, quietly, and pretending those two things live in separate rooms. They don’t. They’re the same budget.

The Mindset Shift That Actually Changed Things

The turning point wasn’t a spreadsheet (though there is absolutely a spreadsheet). It was realizing that paying down high-interest debt is a travel hack — arguably the best one available to me right now. Every dollar I put toward that balance is a guaranteed return, because it’s interest I’m no longer bleeding out every month.

So instead of treating “get out of debt” and “keep traveling” as two competing goals fighting for the same dollars, I started treating debt payoff as the thing that funds future travel. Not someday. On a real, dated timeline.

What I’m Actually Doing

A few concrete moves that have made the biggest difference:

• Freezing the cards that got me here. Not cutting them up — just locking them so I stop adding new charges to a balance that’s already working against me.
• Moving high-interest balances to 0% intro APR cards where I can. This alone stopped a huge chunk of the bleeding. Every payment I make now actually reduces what I owe, instead of mostly covering interest.
• Splitting my “extra” cash into two clear jobs each month: a set amount toward debt, a set amount into a dedicated trip savings account. No more single pool of money where the boundaries get blurry by the 20th of the month.
• Giving my trips real dates, not vague hopes. Having an actual trip already booked gave me a deadline to build a plan around instead of an abstract “someday I’ll deal with this.”
• Letting go of guilt about the trip that’s already planned. I’m not cancelling travel to pay off debt faster. I’m funding it in cash, on purpose, alongside the debt payoff — not instead of it.

The Timeline, Honestly

I’m not pretending this disappears overnight. My plan is built around milestones, not magic:

• Right now: aggressively paying down the highest-interest balances first, while automating a separate travel fund so it never competes with debt payments for the same dollar.
• My next trip: already planned, already budgeted for in cash — not going on a card.
• The trip after that: penciled in, not booked, not paid for a single deposit yet. I’m allowed to dream about the itinerary. I’m not allowed to spend on it until the first trip is paid for and the debt has moved.
• The finish line: a specific month where the debt hits zero and all of what I’ve been redirecting to it becomes travel fund, permanently.

Seeing it broken into phases — instead of one overwhelming number — is honestly what made this feel doable instead of paralyzing.

Why I’m Telling You This

Because I think a lot of us in the travel-content world only show the boarding passes, never the balance transfers. And I think that silence makes everyone else feel like they’re the only one white-knuckling a credit card statement while planning a “dream trip” caption.

You can be both things at once: someone with real debt, and someone who still gets to travel. It just means being honest about the math, giving every dollar an actual job, and being willing to let a trip wait a few months if that’s what protects the bigger goal.

I’ll be sharing more of this — the wins, the setbacks, the actual numbers when they feel useful to show — because I think “financial wellness” content is a lot more useful when it’s not just pretty graphics of a 50/30/20 rule. Sometimes it’s messier than that. Sometimes it’s $20,000 messier.

But the trip is still happening. That part doesn’t change.

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If you’re navigating something similar — trying to keep travel alive while getting real about debt — I’d love to hear how you’re doing it. Drop a comment or find me on Instagram @thereallucybattles.