First Flight, Smart Wallet: Plan Your First International Trip Without Overspending

Gorrell Barbara is a budget travel strategist, financial educator, and the founder of the popular “Wallet Roadmap” blog, where she has helped over one hundred thousand first-time international travelers plan affordable, meaningful trips without sacrificing safety or comfort. After a career in credit union management, Gorrell began documenting her own transition from a nervous novice traveler to someone who has now visited forty-three countries on budgets ranging from twenty-five to seventy-five dollars a day. Her work has been featured in *Budget Travel*, *The Penny Hoarder*, and *GoAbroad*, and she regularly leads workshops on travel financial planning at community colleges and public library systems across the Midwest. Gorrell holds a bachelor’s degree in consumer economics and believes that the skills required to manage a travel budget effectively—research, adaptability, and intentional spending—transform every other area of a person’s financial life. When she is not packing a backpack or renovating a spreadsheet, she is testing street food in a new city or hiking a long-distance trail with her wife. *First Flight, Smart Wallet* is her first book.