One of my New Year’s resolutions this year was to travel more. Another one was to spend money more wisely, and it seems that most of the time, those two resolutions might work against each other. But there are a lot of simple ways to save money for travel, or while traveling, even while commuting! Here’s how.
1. Go off-season
Photo Credit: nature55
Money Saved: from $100 up to $2,000
Additional Time Spent: 30 minutes
Additional Trouble Level: 8 out of 10
If you love to travel, but have a hard time paying for hotel and airfare, you may want to consider going during the off-season. If you travel when everyone else is at home, airlines and hotels will be hungry for your dollars, and will offer you savings and other incentives. Why would they offer deals to travel to Florida or Mexico for Spring Break, when everyone will be going anyway, regardless of how much it costs? It’s much less expensive to travel there when no-one else is going, say, during the summer months.
2. Shop around
Photo Credit: lomokev
Money Saved: from $59 up to $2,000
Additional Time Spent: 90 minutes
Additional Trouble Level: 8 out of 10
With the internet at your fingertips, there’s no reason you can’t shop around for the best deals on airfare, rental cars, hotels, cruises, and more. Feel free to compare packages, prices, and amenities. And haggle if you can! Some sites will allow you to offer a price if you think theirs is too high!
3. Go obscure
Photo Credit: lovelydesign
Money Saved: from $200 up to $4,600
Additional Time Spent: 0 minutes
Additional Trouble Level: 4 out of 10
If there’s a place you’d love to visit, but it’s just too expensive, try a nearby alternative that may be less expensive, because it’s not a tourist trap. Besides, wouldn’t it be fun to send vacation postcards from places no-one’s ever heard of? Again, the internet, or a trustworthy travel agent, can help you choose a unique destination, one that you might have difficulty locating on a map, but that will be the trip of a lifetime!
Vacations! My #1 hobby.
I splurge a lot during holidays. I never feel it’s a vacation unless I can stay in a very nice expensive hotel. Good for me that I have parents to pay for such stuff. Because if I were on my own I could never afford it. Even booking earlier on different websites wouldn’t be enough.
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Hey Fatima,
What can I say….you are one lucky girl! :D
I want nothing more than to travel the world!
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Aaaa Fatima,
You lucky lucky girl! :)
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When I take a vacation only to relax myself I’m not into shopping or spending money. I used to make another trips to some famous cities just for shopping or spending buy on buying what I needed.
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Hey Tavia,
That’s a great way to go about it. Some vacations are meant to splurge and some are meant to be enjoyed lazily =)
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Thanks for those wonderful suggestion Jen. It’s difficult for me sometimes not to spend money, especially on clothes and when going around if not clothes, small souvineirs for me and my loved ones. But going off season might help alot!
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I love that you mentioned go obscure. That’s so adventurous. I wish I had more funds to travel but if I did it would be to less touristy destinations but definitely nothing too remote – I don’t want to get lost in any jungles or something. And I agree about off season – so worth it and also returning on specific weekdays can save you a pocket full of dough :)
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Hey Theo,
Ooo me too! Like in the movie, “Under the Tuscan Sun”, I just wanna go to a quaint, beautiful place with few people and no modern amenities (okay maybe a few :p)
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