The travel bug you have within you need not be denied for long. With a well planned trip and some budget hacks, a vacation to a destination of your choice can be easily undertaken on the cheap. But are you wondering about how you could do more on a limited budget?
At the moment the costs of travelling abroad is really expensive, especially compared to pre Covid times. Flights for example are estimated to be around 3-40% more expensive than just a few years ago. The same goes for hotels.
But it is still possible to visit amazing locations around the world, and all you need to do is plan ahead, look at the right websites, find places to stay and seek out places to go to.
To help you plan the perfect on a budget we are going to take a look at how you can enjoy the best vacation with some very simple and easy budgeting tips.
Read on for some important travel tips to have an incredible vacation within a tight budget.
1. Budget Before You Travel
Before your travel, you should know exactly how much spending you can afford. This will not upset your regular payments towards bills, mortgages, credit cards and the like. Properly planning your finances will ensure that you do not overspend during the vacation and put you into debt. If you want to go overseas, be sure to check the currency exchange rates to see if you will be able to get good deals before you go.
2. Choose Your Destination Carefully
To help make your vacation cheaper you will need to take into account flight costs and also how expensive the cost of living/activities in the destination are. You might find a really cheap place to stay, but if the destination is far from where you live, the cost of flights might be really expensive.
You could choose a country closer to home which will make flights cheaper or consider, do you even need to go abroad? Could you find somewhere close to home which will save you lots of money on transport?
Another recommendation is to choose less popular locations. For example if you want to visit the beautiful Greek islands, some are a lot more expensive than others. Your money will go a lot further on an island like Crete, compared to desirable hotspots like Santorini and Mykonos.
You could also visit a country where food and sightseeing is cheap.
3. Book in Advance
It’s time to play it smart. Plan your vacation early. And plan it with the right tools. Go online to book hotels and flights preferably months in-advance and it will help you save a lot. Apart from last minute special offers, the chances are the longer you wait to book, and the closer to the time of departure gets, the more expensive flights and accommodation will be. Especially for summer breaks in popular destinations.
4. Travel Off Season
Off season trips allow you to get better discount options at hotels and offer you a crowd free opportunity to explore the destination. Typically, travelling during the season, like the summer breaks or long weekends means that you will have to pay more for airfare and sightseeing.
Similarly Christmas and thanksgiving holidays are also rife with bucked up rates everywhere. Additionally, off season travelling allows you to plan better and you can take advantage of advance booking rates for flights and accommodations, which are generally lower than usual.
5. Plan a Shorter Break
Shorter trips are more easy on the pocket. Also, taking a holiday to a destination that is closer to home means that you do away with expensive airfare and make a road trip out of the event. Train rides are convenient too.
Making short trips helps you to priorities your itinerary and you can easily do all the stuff you want to do, without taking weeks out of your schedule or thousands out of your savings.
6. Take Advantage of Deals
Travel deals can go a long way in saving time and money set aside for a your next break. Sales and combination packages on airline tickets, accommodation offers and much more are good options to help stay within the vacation budget. This, however, will require you to be a little flexible with your dates.
7. Travel with a Group
Group travel and tours can be good options if you are looking for additional discounts. Some hotels can offer up to 15% off on accommodation when catering to large groups. Group travels typically start with minimum 10 people and some organizer’s customize groups to suit customer needs, like family groups, all women groups and the like.
8. Travel Blogger Tips
Some of the best travel bloggers literally travel the world constantly and share their tips how they do it. You can get some great ideas for budget friendly destinations and tips for keeping costs down. Websites like ours, YouTube and other travel websites can be a really helpful resource when planning trips. We have written guides to some of the most popular world locations to check out, for example how to visit the Maldives on a budget.
With these travel hacks, you will certainly stay within the vacation budget, and might even save some. Happy tripping!
