“Vacations on a budget” doesn’t sound like an appealing term. When I think of planning a vacation on a budget, I imagine staying in a rat-infested motel near an eroding beach filled with litter. It’s probably wintertime and extremely cold, and raining everyday. Vacationing on a budget sounds like an oxymoron. Trips should be a luxurious experience, not something that you do as cheaply as possible, right? It is actually very possible to save money, even a lot of money, while having incredible experiences. My best vacations have been those done on a budget (to be fair, all of my vacations at this point in my life have been done on a budget). Here’s how to plan incredible trips without destroying your finances.
Travel during the off-season
If the place you are planning a vacation to is a popular destination, try your best to not visit during peak tourist season. This doesn’t mean visiting the beach in the dead of winter, but maybe visiting in the early summer or after school starts back to save money. If you are able to be flexible when you go on vacation, you can save so much money. It is likely that in the off-season travel will be cheaper, accommodations will be cheaper, and even food and entertainment will probably be a little cheaper. Everything will probably be less busy, too, which means it will be easier to find a place to stay, easier to make restaurant reservations, and more.
Buy flights as cheap as possible
Websites like Google Flights allow you to not only compare flight prices between airlines, but see whether prices are currently high or low historically. Flights can be one of the most expensive parts of a trip, especially if you are traveling internationally, so keep an eye on flights for the dates you are interested in and wait until you are getting a great price to book seats. If you are flexible with departure or return dates, you can potentially save even more money on flights. The more sacrifices you can make, the cheaper your airplane tickets will be.
Book accommodations in advance and be flexible
Hotel or other lodging accommodations are another very expensive, if not the most expensive, part of your trip. If you are planning a vacation you actually want to enjoy, you probably don’t want to save as much money as possible on accommodations. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get a great deal while still staying in an awesome place. If you are staying in a really popular destination, see if there are accommodations a little bit further away that are significantly cheaper. For example, if you are planning a trip to watch your favorite college football team play, staying 30 minutes outside of the city could be significantly cheaper. There are many different websites you can use to compare hotel prices, but it is always worth calling the hotel directly to see if they can offer a better rate.
If you use travel credit cards, you may be able to use rewards points to pay for all or some of your stay. For our honeymoon, my wife and I paid for our entire stay at an all-inclusive resort with credit card rewards. Renting an entire house is nice, but I’ve found that hotels are almost always cheaper (and nicer) after accounting for all of the fees associated with booking on services like Airbnb. Plus, at a hotel they make your bed for you and clean up after you, which makes me really feel like I’m on vacation.
Ask locals for travel advice
You may not know anyone that lives in your travel destination, but with the power of the internet it is possible to see where locals recommend dining, visiting, shopping, and for entertainment. Not only are the spots locals recommend probably much better than tourist traps, you’ll likely save money by living how the locals live. I enjoy some very “touristy” attractions, but the best places we have gone while on vacation have all been local spots not frequented by tourists.
What you do while on vacation is another very big expense. Prioritize your money on what you enjoy the most. I love good food, so for me dining out is always a priority on vacation, but that isn’t true for everyone. Maybe you really want to prioritize shopping or entertainment instead. If you can identify areas that aren’t priorities, cutting back on spending there can be very beneficial without taking away a significant amount of enjoyment from your daily life.
You don’t need to break the bank to have a really enjoyable and memorable vacation. More importantly, you don’t need to be miserable to save a lot of money on travel. If you can plan your trips in advance, book flights at the best time, shop around for nice (and reasonable accommodations), and shop, dine, and go out where the locals do, it is easy to have a great vacation while sticking to a budget.
