6 tips for traveling on a budget
See the world without breaking the bank by using these tips from our travel writer.
Photo: dean bertoncelj/Shutterstock Comments
Best tip I ever got....when you are in country...travel at night...you get to other places and it saves on hotel accomodations
Living in low cost Kentucky we are able to travel quite a lot with tour group Gate1 to areas we are not comfortable doing on our own and then on our own in western Europe etc. Either way we usually have our evening meal consist every other night as local bread and cheese and wine at a park..meet locals and save enough that the other dinner meals don't keep us from traveling as much as we like...works for us anyway
I travel a lot. First of all airfare is always expensive unless you travel off season, but I would not recommend it as off season means mother nature is not on your side (ie hurrican season, siberian like temps, extreme humidity). Also the traps are not in the supermarkets, they are in the restaurants. Couchsurfing is not practical. The biggest lie here is that if you ask for upgrades that you will get them for free. I never got anything for free and I got tired of asking, not even when my.... More
I discovered for travel within the UK I was able to save a huge amount on train and bus tickets by buying online well in advance.
couchsurfing is great, but there are many hospitality clubs out there; for people over 50 (evergreen), teachers (educator's B & B), motorcyclists (motorcycle-travel.net), Mensa, Quakers, women, gay and lesbian on an on. It is a great way to travel since it costs you little or nothing to stay with the locals. They will often feed you breakfast and you get to know the area better. Accomodations will chew up the biggest part of any budget and this is cheaper in most cases that camping!
Ohhh, how great it would be to have more than a couple weeks of vacation a year. Who can spend a month or two in Costa Rica other than college students or retired people? After going home for Thanksgiving and Christmas plus a wedding or two to attend every year I'm lucky if I can get a 4 day vacation into the mountains let alone traveling across the world....lame.
I hear you Jim. It's one of the reasons I made the leap to becoming a freelancer, even though I make a lot less money (I didn't want to only be able to travel when I retire!). Since I don't have a family to support - also part of my life choices - I'm more able to make this kind of call, and realize that not everybody can. That being said, at pretty much every job I had when I had regular gigs, I would go above and beyond the two weeks' (so pathetically paltry!!) time off and take a week unpaid.... More
well, the name of this article is "traveling on a budget", not "how to get more vacation time". use the other tips for your 4 day mini-vaca...or not, stay home on your computer and complain.
Nixing the fancy travel gear is a great tip I wish I would have learned sooner! I definitely use the web to find independent accommodations. The site I mostly use for that these days is called Tripping.com. I like that you can use it to find both free local hosts and vacation apartment rentals.
Great suggestions.
As I am planning my first international trip this article came at a good time. Excellent advice. Thank you for posting it.
Do a home exchange. Your only cost for the trip becomes getting there (with frequent flyer miles, this could be free too). You can trade houses and cars, leaving only the cost of food ... purchased at the local grocery with yummy local choices. You pay to eat at home, too, so this can be a no-cost vaca.
