What If Luxury Travel Didn’t Require A Millionaire’s Wallet

What if luxurious, memory-rich travel didn’t demand a luxury budget—or a second set of hands? I took my three-year-old across seven countries, starting with two punchy days in Manhattan and rolling into the Caribbean’s warm, glassy waters, booking it all for free or almost free by stacking strategies most travelers never combine. This isn’t a highlight reel; it’s a field guide for parents and planners who want big experiences with fewer meltdowns and lighter receipts.

We start with practical flight tactics that actually work with small kids: why a 2 p.m. long-haul can protect sleep, how to plan an easy morning, and when a night flight can be your secret weapon. In New York, I chose a central hotel for safety and simplicity, then navigated a tense Times Square encounter that reinforced clear boundaries and smarter route planning. When we sailed away and my daughter cried because she loved the city so much, it became a reminder that children can surprise us…often choosing intensity and novelty when we expect overwhelm.

To keep our energy steady, I chose a cruise as a temporary support system: childcare, meals handled, and no grocery runs. We talk openly about the trade-offs—how to be a conscious traveler, spend locally on shore, and seek out small businesses even during short port stops. Turks and Caicos delivered instant nervous system relief: white sand after skyscrapers. Aruba brought honest lessons in heat, shade, and flexibility when resort umbrellas were off-limits and a glass-bottom boat turned into a firm no. The pivot led us to a butterfly farm, where we watched chrysalises transform a perfect snapshot of worldschooling, where curiosity wins over checklists.

Throughout, I share the exact lens that makes “free or almost free” travel possible: layering points and miles, status matches, cash-back, discounted gift cards, and off-peak timing into a cohesive plan. More than hacks, it’s a mindset—protect safety, respect your nervous system, and choose experiences that serve your season. If that means long weekends instead of long-haul, great. If it means a month abroad with a toddler, also great. You get to define freedom.

If you loved the tips and want the playbook, grab my £97 mini course and learn the precise steps I used to book this trip for nearly nothing. Then subscribe, leave a review, and tell me where you want us to go next. Your ideas shape the next adventure.

Transcript

On-Location Setup And Better Audio

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back, guys. Welcome back to the Business of Lifestyle podcast. As you can see, we are still filming on location. The gorgeous ocean is in the body of water, not my beautiful daughter, is behind us. And um, yeah, we're still live from my trip. So I thought it would be a good time to tell you about my trip to break it down a little bit for you. Now, whether or not you think this is a good thing is debatable, but we have upgraded the business of lifestyle technical capabilities to include a microphone. So hopefully, for those of you that are just listening, um, the audio quality is much improved. For anybody watching over on my YouTube channel, Miss Lauren Riley, then you will obviously get to see out of the window. We didn't get any dolphins last time we recorded, so maybe this time, let's see. So, as I told you last time, my daughter and I are on one of the most epic trips that I have ever been to in my life, let alone her. She is three years old still, and let me just tell you a bit about the trip that we're doing. I'm telling you, uh, because well, it's really exciting, and I know so many people approach me after we've done epic travel to say that I've inspired them and that they're going to create their own itinerary from what we did. So I'm just gonna share some of the places that we've been, like a few of the high-level lessons that I've learned about each of these places, and yeah, I hope that's really helpful. One piece of really important information: the brand new mini course, which is gonna teach you exactly the steps that I did to get this trip for

Why Share The Trip And New Mini Course

SPEAKER_00 2:03

free or almost free, is now live, so you can do this yourself. If you want to either get on the road and travel as a solo person, as a couple with your family, then that mini course is going to be the most cost-effective thing you can invest in. It's only £22 to get to learn the strategies that I'm using to get trips like this, so views like this without spending a fortune. You do not have to be a millionaire to live like one. Please, please believe me. So that mini course is now live, it's teaching you step by step how I booked this trip, how I got those incredible savings, and how I made it an almost nil cost experience, which is awesome. Now, let me tell you what the experience entailed so you can decide for yourself how much value that I have had out of this. So, as I told you last time, that mini course is teaching you how to layer strategies on strategies on strategies, and I have never heard anybody talking about this. Not one person have I ever come across that knows what I know about how to travel for free

Philosophy: Freedom Lifestyle Not One-Size-Fits-All

SPEAKER_00 3:16

or almost free, or if they know it, they're gatekeeping it and using it for themselves. And on Miss Lauren Riley on the business of lifestyle, we are not gatekeeping, we are sharing this so you guys can have exactly the same experience or your version of this experience for yourself. Now, once again, freedom lifestyle is not me sitting here telling you that this is a trip that you must do, or that you that your life only has validity if you travel outside of your home country, or that you need to go away for a month or a year or any of that. This is personal to you. I'm gonna give you the strategies. How you decide to implement them is totally, totally your call. If you want to go away for long weekends only because that's your preference, or because you've got some responsibilities at home, have at it. Like use the strategies just to travel a little bit. Maybe you need to build up to doing massive trips like this. I'm away for a month with my three-year-old. I get it. Like, I have been living this lifestyle for so long that I'm doing things that the average person probably wouldn't do. Doesn't mean you can't do it, doesn't mean it the most amazing trip is waiting on the other side. But I'm not here to say that what I'm doing is right and your week-long holiday vacation trip to see family somewhere is wrong. There is no right and wrong in this, there is just personal preference. So without further ado, ado, oh I always get that wrong. Um, I'm gonna walk you through exactly what we've been doing. Well, not exactly, because it would this podcast podcast episode would be about oh, easily three days long, and we haven't got three days, so I'm gonna try and condense it into ten minutes.

Flight Tactics For Traveling With Kids

SPEAKER_00 5:07

So we flew from Manchester Airport, which is I live in the UK most of the time, and my local airport. So, as I told you last time, September and October are the most amazing months for me because they're exactly Freedom Lifestyle. Half of them, half of both months will be spent in the UK and half of both of the both months will be spent on the road, and for me that's absolutely perfect. I love that. So um we went from Manchester Airport in a taxi to sorry, we went from my um hometown to Manchester Airport in a taxi. Now um it'd be great if someone could give us a lift, but we just didn't have we didn't have we don't have the village around to be able to do that, so we paid for a taxi and that is all included in how the free travel, by the way. I've included all of those little bits to still make it free. Um then we flew from Manchester to JFK International Airport, which to be fair was quite an easy flight. Seven and a half hours, it's like it's it's long haul for sure, but we did it in the day. We flew at 2 15 pm, which is a great time to fly with children, by the way, because you get your full morning routine, depending on how far you live away from the airport, of course, your full morning routine at home. Um so I I love that I love flying at that time. There are two times that I recommend flying with children. That's one, 2 pm. If this is if you're doing long haul, short haul, all bets are off. If you're doing because it's just so much easier, right? If you're doing long haul, flying at 2 pm is great because they get the full night's sleep, they get the breakfast at home, you get to get dressed in a leisurely-ish fashion. We left we left the house at 10am, which is just perfect, and they by travelling seven hours, she got to bed at her own bedtime on the new time zone, so it worked out perfectly. Um, the other time I recommend flying with a little one is overnight, and I know that sounds so counterintuitive, and every parent that's listening to this is going, Oh my god, Lauren, are you recommending that my child has zero sleep for an entire night? Do you know how much hell on earth that is gonna be? And I'm not gonna lie, that is potentially something that might happen to you. But my experience having the highest energy child I know, and I don't just mean like, oh, she's a bit, you know, she's quite energetic. Like she does not sit still, she yeah, all of the things, but at some point all of those little people have got to take a nap, have got to sleep, and they might not get the full 10 hours, but I find night flights easier to entertain them, easier to keep them in their seat, etc. Depending on the age. Anyway, this is a whole other topic I didn't mean to get into.

Two Days In Manhattan: Highs And Lows

SPEAKER_00 7:53

But yeah, so we flew to JFK, we spent two nights in central New York. I did not skimp on that hotel. I paid for a nice hotel, four-star central Manhattan, because I'm a single parent and I did not feel and this is no disrespect to New York, but I did not feel comfortable. I don't know it enough to go to some of the suburbs, which I'm sure are perfectly safe and lovely. But I wanted to stay in central New York. We had the best time in New York. We didn't meet the best people, I'm not gonna lie. Like, I in fact, I I was verbally abused in Times Square by a photographer who uh we got into a minor disagreement and they were just absolutely like horrible to me. So I don't recommend necessarily and I'm not saying that all New Yorkers are like that by any means, you cannot stereotype an entire um city like that, but I was warned by a friend of mine who's local to New York not to go to Times Square, and I didn't listen because I really wanted to take ocean there, and it was still like we still had an amazing experience. I still got the most incredible photos, and it is still a memory, but like that person should not have spoken to me, and I know that I'm not your average woman, perhaps like how they expected me to turn up in my like feminine shell, and I did not, and I'm not going if someone speaks to me in a way that's inappropriate in front of my daughter, like I will stand up for myself and it doesn't always get me the best results. Um but yes, that unfortunately just was not um yeah, that was not a positive experience, but it didn't take away from the fact that New York was an amazing experience altogether. Um it's just a whole thing to get one's head around the different mindset of being in a city versus maybe the island life that that Ocean and I are used to. So yeah, but we did so much in New York, and again, I'd probably have to do a whole episode because we're up to 10 minutes and I've only got on the first stop. And guys, we're going to seven countries, so I'm probably gonna have to maybe split this up. But if me doing an entire episode on what we did in New York and my tips for that would be helpful, please comment below if you're on YouTube, or please go find me on social media. Miss Lauren Riley is my handle, and tell me what you guys want because I'm guessing at the moment, like I get quite a lot of feedback saying, Oh, I love this episode, but not that many people coming up to me saying, um, sliding in the DMs and saying, actually, this is what we'd love to hear a bit more of. Could you give us guidance on this? Or we love that tip on that. So if you have a preference, like don't be shy. I'm not, you know, I'm not being paid to do this, so like I'm not guaranteeing for sure that I'll say, Oh, yeah, sure, I'll cover that. But I do want it to be relevant to you guys. I care, you're giving up your time to listen to this, or want it to be relevant. So, um, yeah. So, New York for two days. We then got on a cruise ship. Um,

Choosing A Cruise For Ease And Safety

SPEAKER_00 10:55

let me tell you that I was nervous to go to New York before I went because I did feel that you know, she's only three, it's very young. Will she like it? Is it gonna be a bit overwhelming? I have like sensory issues, I'm neurodiverse. Is it gonna be too much for me? And it was a lot. Like, New York was a lot, I'm not gonna lie, but it was worth it. Like, my daughter loved it, she absolutely loved it. Like, out of all of the places that we've been, and let me tell you, there's like amazing lists. I'm gonna sh um before the end of this episode, I'm at least gonna tell you where we went. Um, she absolutely adored it to the point where when we sailed away from New York, she cried tears. Actual tears that we were leaving New York, even though I was telling her all of these amazing places we were gonna go, things we were gonna do, she didn't want to leave because she had such a good time. Now I couldn't have predicted that. That's what I love about travel. That's what I love about expanding the minds of the little people that we're responsible for raising through travel, is I couldn't have predicted that, and I almost excluded it from the trip because I thought, oh, I just used it as a transitory stop. So I thought, is it gonna be too much for me, for her? And it was a lot, like it's not for the faint-hearted, it's not easy to travel in New York with a three-year-old, they just don't make accommodations the same way as a lot of other places would, however, she loved it. I had unforgettable experiences there, like some positive ones as well. So yeah, and that was that that was the start of the trip. Then we sailed away, and if you follow me on Instagram, you'll have heard me talk about this, but I don't really cruise, and it's not that I'm negative about cruising, but I really love contributing to the places that I go, and I'm aware that I'm gonna talk through about some of our trip now. I'm gonna tell you some of the places we've been, some of the things that we've done, and I've only scratched the surface of that country. I would love to be anywhere for a minimum of a month to be able to qualify a really good opinion on that place. So that's my caveat for me talking you through these places. I didn't live like a local, I literally came in and came out of some of them in very short time periods, but I'm still gonna tell you my experience. But that's my caveat. I always want to find a way to give back to the local community to spend my money there, and I know that all inclusive resorts and I know that cruise ships don't do the best for that piece of work, so I've tried to find ways to mitigate that. I'm a very conscious traveller, but I'm also respectful of my own nervous

Sea Days And Caribbean Reset

SPEAKER_00 13:30

system. Guys, I'm a solo parent. This stuff is hard, like before like, particularly because I had an operation over the summer, right? I'm fully recovered now. Thank you, God, I'm in a great place. But I was also like, you know, it's been a lot for us this summer, it's been a lot, and I recognised that I needed the childcare, I needed to have support around me, you know, people cooking for me, cleaning for me, um, you know, making making our meals, making the bed, you know, like a gym membership, fully stocked, snack cupboards, um, not having to go to the supermarket, you know. I just needed a break from some of the real reality of life that is being a mum or being a parent, um, or just being a human being, actually, because you still need to eat, right, even if you're not a parent. So I just needed a break from that. So I decided to give myself an easier life by doing something that was kind of like all-inclusive, something that was like resort-based, even though we're moving from place to place. And the other reason that I decided to be on a ship is because, with absolutely no disrespect to any of the countries that we're visiting, some of them I probably wouldn't have gone to live in for a month. They probably don't meet my digital nomad criteria. And again, on another episode, I'll tell you what that criteria is, what I'll look for when I'm gonna spend at least a month in a any given country. But some of these countries maybe don't meet that, or maybe there's they're just not on my bucket list, right? This is very personal, like no offence to these countries, but maybe I wasn't gonna go spend a long time there. But I still want to be able to say that I visited these countries, I still want to contribute somehow, I still want to see, like, even at the highest level, what these countries have got to offer. I want to show ocean, different parts of the world. So that's why this particular cruise ticked those boxes because it's it's beating a path less travelled, these are not typical places that you would go. So the first place we went on our cruise was the Caribbean. So we had two days sailing when we so we saw the Statue of Liberty out of the this window behind me, which was just awesome because when we were in New York it rained, so it was quite foggy, so we had seen it, but not in any great clarity. Oh, there we go. It's not a dolphin, but there is a ship in the background, just to prove this isn't a green screen behind me, some sort of cargo type ship, I think. But anyway, there we go. Something in real life um floating past behind us. Um I now I've lost my train of thought. What are we talking about? Oh yeah. We did two days of sailing, we left the Statue of Liberty, literally waved off on the ship, which was a honestly brilliant experience. Like I said, she cried when we left New York, which was sad, we never want to see her cry, but also a great tick in the box for how enriching travel is and how much she loved that city. Then I went well, we went to the Caribbean, we went to two islands, so the cadence for that was two days on the ship, and honestly, the ship days have been amazing for all the reasons. I'm gonna do a whole episode on cruising and cruising with families, but the ship days

Turks And Caicos: City-To-Beach Whiplash

SPEAKER_00 16:36

were amazing. We did two days on the ship, and so that was kind of recalibrating of nervous system after New York City, and then we did um one day in Turks and Caicos, which is a Caribbean island that I have not been to before. I've been to the majority of them, but that's one I haven't been to. So um, for anybody that doesn't know, I am part Caribbean. My grandfather is Jamaican, um, sadly no longer with us, but my grandpa was Jamaican, and so I've been to Jamaica a couple of three times, and I lived in Barbados. Everybody will know that story. If you don't know, like where have you been under a rock because I talk about it all the time? Um, but I used to live in Barbados and then yeah, I've just been to a bunch of Caribbean islands, but Turks and Caicos that was my first visit. It again, like just high level because I didn't go around the entire island, but it's a very, very small island, um, and it was great. The the juxtaposition of imagery between New York City skyline and Turks and Caicos White Sand Beach just set my soul on fire. Like, what an amazing few days to have those two experiences, and particularly for my daughter, for her to be living city life and then living beach life inside of one week was a vibe. Like, I loved that for us, I loved it for the photographs that we've taken, I loved it for the experience, I loved it for the different impacts on my nervous system. So that was a really good start to this trip from a travel perspective.

Aruba Realities: Heat, Shade, And Flexibility

SPEAKER_00 18:05

Then we did another day at sea, and then we went to the Caribbean island of Aruba. Now, Aruba's white sand beaches are next level. Again, I've lived in Barbados, they've got beautiful beaches. Aruba was, I'm not going to compare Caribbean Islands because it's not fair and I don't have enough information on Aruba, but the the sand was beautiful, like picture perfect beaches, the sea was warm, the weather was hot, probably too hot to be honest, travelling with a child. I'm always very conscious of sun exposure and things like that. Because we weren't staying on the island, we didn't have the same level of knowledge, the same level of being able to stay in the shade. And that's something that actually I would warn not against, is in don't do it, but just to think in your mind if you're gonna do short pla short stops in places like I was in Aruba, and you're not gonna know the landscape and you are travelling with children, it's potentially a little bit higher risk because you don't know where the shade is, you don't know which beaches have got the umbrella and which don't belong to resorts. That was one thing that tripped us up quite a lot. I managed to get us to this most amazing beach, but a lot of it was the Hilton and you know the big resorts, so you couldn't use those beach umbrellas. So I was walking much longer along a promenade and we had the pram, but I was walking much longer than I anticipated, so that was a bit of a fail. Um, because I I personally was exposed to more sun than I would have liked, and she was under the shade of the pram, but it still wasn't ideal. Um, and then she didn't want to do the glass bottom boat, which I was a bit disappointed about because I thought that would have been amazing. I took us to the pier and she was just not interested. Sometimes, as a parent, you just got to lower your expectations and just roll on through and say, you know what? I thought that was gonna be amazing, it probably was gonna be, but right now it's just not for us. Let that go with grace, let it go with gratitude. Because if you try and force those things with a top. You are gonna pay for that. So I didn't. We just had a beach day. She loves swimming in the sea. It's my it reminds us of the time where we spent a month or two or three months in Barbados in different trips. Um, just floating in the sea. She's so confident in the water, I'm so proud of her for that. So that was really cool. And then we went to a butterfly

Butterfly Farm And Worldschooling

SPEAKER_00 20:20

house. They call it a farm, but to me that sounds like you're gonna eat something, and it's definitely not that, it's very conservation friendly. So we went to a butterfly farm in Aruba, which was gorgeous. They had those blue morphous butterflies, which are those. If you look on the emoji, if you put butterfly into your iPhone and you look at the emoji, that is a blue morphous butterfly. Stunning. I love butterflies. I don't know why I've got such an affiliation, but I absolutely do. Love them. Um, it wasn't as peaceful as I thought it might be because I had my toddler with me, and at that point of the day, she was a little bit mm-frustrated, bored, hot maybe. So it wasn't as peaceful and relaxing as all of the photos will lead you to believe. She was we maybe got about like 20 minutes in there where I would easily have spent an hour, but again, that's the reality of travelling with children. I'm only gonna tell you the real stuff, it's not always easy, it's not always picture perfect. But at the same time, and this is a whole other thing, so we'll talk about world world schooling on another episode. But she watched live caterpillars, chrysalises, and like evolving into butterflies and saw that which caterpillar made which chrysalis and made which butterfly. Like you could learn that in a textbook, but talk about world schooling in real time, that was an amazing experience, and I'm so proud of myself as a parent for taking her and allowing her to witness that in real life, um, even if it wasn't the most peaceful experience for me. And that was the

Cost Breakdown Tease And CTA

SPEAKER_00 21:50

first section of our trip, and I've only scratched the surface, and that was 22 minutes of a podcast episode. But again, I have done all of that and it hasn't cost me up until that point anything at all. It was free. If you want to learn how you can experience trips like that or your own version by using my strategies to find either heavily discounted, cheap, or free travel. The mini course is now live. It's £22. If you go on to my Instagram, Miss Lauren Riley, then it's linked in the bio. I'm gonna drop it down below in the show notes. Please subscribe. Um if you've enjoyed this episode, do go like, do give me some feedback about what you're looking for next, and I'll talk you through the next part of our trip soon. And I hope that you recognize it. I'm not just talking about my holiday or my trip, my travel. I'm trying to find ways of explaining the reality of traveling with children, the reality of travel, and also like tips and things that I might I think you might find useful. I'm not scripting these, they're very genuine conversational. Like, I've not got a piece of paper or anything written. I just want to talk to you, and hopefully, you'll find value in them. And you'll be like, actually, I remember Lauren said if you've not been to this resort before, remember like it might not have half as much shade if it's very hot, sun exposure, etc. So hopefully you're getting value from these guys, and I will see you for the next episode very soon.