Obviously, we have a lot of different ideas on how to get the best travel prices. Everyone has their own time, financial and energy limits; and cheating techmiques our tastes may not align with yours, but here are our best, finest, and most useful vacation planning advice.
Best Cheating Techniques Travel
Budgets are tedious, to say the least. It’s obvious. The Toshl Finance app ($2.99/month) has been a lifesaver for us since we started monitoring our expenditures five years ago. Here’s why.
To begin, we put aside money each month just for vacations. At the beginning of each month, we get down and talk over what travel expenditures we anticipate to incur, and we estimate the cost of those charges (with a simple Google search). For example, this month we intended to buy airline tickets to Europe for an autumn trip. We also intended to stay at a hotel in Hong Kong for one night during our trip (or, maybe that was just me getting itchy facing down a month with no adventure).
Because travel is a completely discretionary expense, we may set aside funds for it in months when other priorities are less likely to occur. Our European flights are always booked months in advance, don’t you know? When it comes to unanticipated travel expenses (such as an emergency trip home), we have a credit card points stockpile ready to go.
It is then that the balance of our budget is managed backwards, taking into account our anticipated trip costs. I cheerfully purchase new clothing just a few times a year in order to contribute more to our trip fund since plane tickets to Europe are so pricey. My spending will be spread out over the course of a month, during which time I won’t be making any significant trip arrangements. As an example, I’ll get some things online in August, and we won’t book pricey flights at that time.
For each new budget month, we just input the amount we want to spend in each area, and with a few clicks on my phone, I can see precisely where we are and how much money we have left (which irritates me every time).
You may either cut down in another section of your trip budget planner software if one of your vacation costs exceeds your expectations (ahem, those Europe tickets that were over budget by roughly $150 per). We had planned to stay in a luxurious Hong Kong hotel, so we lowered that fee by roughly $125 by reserving a lesser hotel, and we’ll make up the rest by slashing other costs.
When it comes to hotels, there’s a lot to discuss
They’re very seldom used these days
Rental homes outperform hotels 95 percent of the time when comparing prices and advantages. We’ve been in 33 Airbnb homes, and that doesn’t include the various private rental houses we’ve located on other rental websites.
If you’re looking for somewhere to stay, you can’t go wrong with an Airbnb property. While compaaring to a hotel of the same calibre, we often save 50% on a per-night basis. In addition, we usually look for accommodations with kitchens, so we can stock up on supplies and make breakfast in bed. We’re not in a new city and slaving away in the kitchen three times a day, so don’t worry. Even if we just have breakfast at home, we save at least $20 each day. We can also bring leftovers from restaurants or cook when we’re in the mood to do so.
There is no way I can travel without Airbnb, and I’m baffled as to why everyone else isn’t doing the same. It’s a no-brainer, really. As a primer for those who haven’t booked an Airbnb before, we’ve put together this list of Airbnb advice for first-timers.
In the 5% of occasions when a hotel is required (typically when we’re someplace for an overnight stay, or we want to be pampered at a luxury resort like we did recently at the Alila Yangshuo), we nearly always utilise Booking.com to book. Although there is no specific reason, we enjoy how easy it is to narrow down our choices and how many filters there are to aid us with that process. We’ve used this site to book more than 50 hotels, so it’s our go-to destination.
Accomplishing Your Purpose
The easiest way to get a decent bargain on a flight, train, or auto rental is to be flexible with your plans, which is nothing new. There is no denying that our travel plans aren’t very flexible, but even a one-day alteration in either way may make a world of a difference.
In addition to adaptability, patience is the second most important trick. For us to find the most cost-effective flights, we look at at least ten different options. You may alter dates with one click on Google Flights and save yourself the time and effort of retyping the dates and beginning a fresh search each time. I spent approximately three hours total, spread over four or five sessions, researching and booking those Europe tickets that I keep harping on about. Drew and I came up with a rough schedule, looked into the various options and pricing, then tweaked it somewhat.
To find the best prices, we frequently book our flights on separate tickets (instead of booking City A – City B – City C – City A all at once, we will book City A – City C – City A as one ticket and then City A – City B – City A as another ticket, if we get a better overall value). We also look over for opportunities to redeem our collected air miles, although we only use them about a third of the time.
We’ve reached a dot in our lives when we’re ready to fork out a little more money for a bit more luxury. During our Europe trip, we paid an additional fee for non-stop flights. We’ll also pay extra to travel with a favourite airline, particularly if the journey is more than 12 hours long. We found the cheapest European flight plan on an airline we’ve never used, with a layover in Mumbai, India, our first destination. An internet investigation revealed that Mumbai’s airline transfers might be a little unpredictable, and our two-hour stopover period might not be enough time to see the city. As a result, we didn’t go ahead and book that low-cost alternative.
For inter-Europe flights, we also wrongly thought that booking numerous tickets and taking advantage of the budget carriers would be the cheapest way to go. When you include in the expense of getting to and from the airport in London, as well as the additional luggage costs we’ll incur, it turns out that the alternative was really more expensive. The techniques we employ for this study aren’t unique, but there’s a lot of data crunching involved.
You may skimp and spend to your heart’s content, but a little old-fashioned research can go a long way.
Consider this comprehensive list if you reside in Europe and are looking for inexpensive weekend getaways. In Europe, low-cost airlines have made it simple and economical to travel often.
Eat Our Emotions and Stay Within Our Means
If there ever was an Achilles’ heel in our relationship, it’s our love of fine dining. In fact, we planned our honeymoon to coincide with a reservation at one of Barcelona’s finest restaurants when we were 26 years old. You guys have no idea what I just said.
Food is a top priority for many of us, but it can also wreak havoc on our economic plans if we’re not careful. For the last several years, we’ve turned down a number of 3-star Michelin experiences because we couldn’t justify spending $1,000 on a lunch. It’s true that, despite our best efforts to stay within our means, we may be easily swayed by enticing eateries. Then, when the credit card bill arrives, we regret not opting for less expensive options like street food.
We prefer to reserve upscale eateries for lunch in addition to having breakfast in our apartment. We like restaurants that serve lunch with fewer set menus and more a la carte alternatives. In addition, we are less likely to overindulge in alcohol since we are able to enjoy a large dinner in the afternoon rather than having to drag ourselves out of a 10-course tasting menu at 10pm. That’s the worst sensation there is.
The worst luxury dinner of my life was a five-hour tasting menu at a restaurant where the food was so enormous that I had to vomit in the restroom before dessert. It was hard for me to stomach any more food after that small episode, so we paid our friends’ bill and left. Despite the fact that the restaurant presently has two Michelin stars and receives regularly high praise, I haven’t returned since.
Drinks and appetisers are also on the menu at the posh hotels’ bars and restaurants we frequent. If we sit at the bar, we can typically get in without reservations, see the area and the kitchen up close, try a little bit of everything, and seldom think, ‘It wasn’t worth it.'”… I despise being made to feel as though an expensive lunch was a waste of money.
Last but not least, we prefer to do a little internet research before visiting a new city in search of local restaurant review sites that might send us in the right path. As far back as 10 years ago, we made a vacation to Montreal solely based on a single website’s suggestions. When looking for such websites, I use the search term “city + restaurant reviews + blog,” which eliminates the huge travel review sites like TripAdvisor from the search results.
It’s a good time (preferably free)
We want to keep our money on the fun side of things. When visiting a new city, one of the first things we do is seek out free events in the area on Google. When we travelled to Hong Kong for a night last weekend, I sought out free activities in the city. As the first thing on my list, I discovered a ‘beers and bitters from across the globe’ street festival coming this weekend. Sold.
Every now and then, we’d want to travel to a place for a specific experience, such as seeing a Broadway musical in New York City or taking a trip along the Li River in Yangzhou, China. It is common for us to adjust our dining budget when we are anticipating a high-ticket entertainment event. Rather of going to lunch at a Michelin-starred restaurant, let’s save our money and use it to attend a music festival.
You can’t overstate the importance of just roaming about a new location. There is nothing better than expensing an afternoon people-watching or exploring a new park at no cost.
The ‘Entertainment’ costs on our epic Balkan road trip in late 2016 were constantly negligible since we had a strict budget to work with. The same was true during our 2016 vacation to the southern United States. Not that we didn’t enjoy our time in the Balkans. Many of us like the freebies since there are so many options available.
How to Plan the Best Travel Money
You can travel and save money at the same time if you stick to our advice. It’s a win-win situation: the more money you save, the more time you have to explore. What a great thing.
You’d be surprised at how much bucks you can free up if your objective is to travel more and make it a top priority. You may save a lot of money if you give up your daily cup of joe or forego the mid-week drinks with pals. It’s possible to discover how much money you’re wasting and which spending patterns make you happy by keeping track of your costs.
We’re obviously a travel company. We can save money by using the ideal travel budget planner tool, maintaining an accurate record, searching for the best ticket deals, and staying in an Airbnb instead of a more luxurious hotel.