As a quick followup to Ed’s recent post about how to save money on vacation, I wanted to point out an article from Fiscal Fizzle that lists even more ways to save on vacation.
- Research ahead of time for low-cost things to do
- Consider the cost of travel when selecting destinations
- Use cash for your spending money
- Book a place with kitchen facilities
- Drive whenever possible
- Plan repeat visits
- Build packing lists
- Use the experience of locals
Of course, Wojo expands on each of these tips in his article. My personal favorites from his list are #1, #2, #4, and #5.
We always look online for things to do before we leave for our trip. Not only does this help to ensure a jam-packed, super-fun trip, it’s also a great way to save money. You can often get discounts by buying tickets online ahead of time, and if reservations are required, you can make sure you get the time of your choice, freeing up the rest of your day(s) for other activities.
As a family of six, air travel really adds up, so we preferentially vacation in places that we can get to by car within a day or two. This great cuts the cost of travel to the destination, and also saves us the expense of renting a car on the other end. This also allows us to haul certain groceries to our destination (and to bring leftovers home with us) – which feeds into…
Booking a place with a kitchen. This is a huge one for us. When we go to the beach, we often find condos on VRBO.com that rent for little more than the cost of a hotel room, yet offer far more space and have fully-outfitted kitchens such that we can cook for ourselves and avoid spending a ton at restaurants.
One other tip, which sort of falls in line with #7, is to create a dedicated medicine bag that contains everything you’re likely to need. We use a small-ish wheelie duffel bag (remember, there are six of us!), and we never take things out of it when we’re at home. This makes it super easy to pack our toiletries, and ensures that we won’t have to run out and pay a premium for toothpaste, acetaminophen, etc.
What about you? Do you have any tips for saving money while on the road? If so, please share them in the comments.
Using booking.com for places to stay in Europe as well as VRBO. Great prices and more selection than travelocity and expedia.
Also look up reviews on tripadvisor.
Also we took our smart phones and turned the phone off and just used it on wifi at the places we stayed while out and about. We also cached the maps and used GPS to get around.
When we travel we find a way to take the dog with us in order not to board her and we find that if we can\\\’t have a kitchen, we can usually keep costs under control by having at least a fridge and microwave in our accommodations. We buy grocery store roasted chickens (or similar) and cut veggies and fruits. We take our own healthy cereals for snacking and breakfast and make our own trail mix. We also break our money into envelopes for food and subdivide it by day vs. fun money so we stay on top of our cash budget. We\\\’ve also been known to take along our bikes to get around on. One thing we\\\’ve found is if we can\\\’t do VRBO we often find discounts on lodging with our various memberships-including the one we have to Costco.
We try to get a lot of our food from grocery stores on the road since it’s a lot cheaper and healthier than eating at restaurants every day. Fortunately our sandwiches can be pretty creative and tasty.