I love travelling and exploring new places, let’s face it most of us do - it’s natural human curiosity. But there’s been numerous times I couldn’t afford to travel or take holidays and I’ve had to compromise on visiting the places that I wanted to see. Using a few tricks and tight budgeting methods, I soon learnt that I could find a way to travel anyway. I just did it in a much smarter way. By being extremely frugal with my money and what I spend it on, I’ve become one very savvy traveller!
There’s many small and simple things you can do and things you can avoid in order to travel with little money and still visit the destinations you dream of. So how can you travel on a tight budget? Apart from the obvious clichés of booking cheap hotels and low cost flights, it’s actually quite easy. Read on to find out how…
Whether it’s a cheap weekend away, a 2 week holiday in the sun, or a longer term travelling adventure, here are my top 10 tips to help you travel with less money:
- Sign up for Airline reward programs. It’s not just the big airlines offering these now, many of the budget airlines do too. Vueling, Wizzair, Norwegian and Monarch all offer reward programs and it takes just a few minutes to sign up on their sites. Each time you fly, you earn points that can go towards purchasing other flights or products.
- Travel light, take only carry-on luggage. Whilst this is not always practical for longer trips, I’ve learnt some tricks of how to carry as little as possible whilst not compromising on the necessities. Roll clothes instead of folding to save space, stuff clothes into shoes, and pack only travel sized items. Not only will this save you a lot of money in extra air fares for checking in bags, it will also save you time - no more hanging around airport baggage carousels.
- Choose your dates and flying times wisely. Don’t fly at popular times of the year such as Easter or on public holidays. Check local events in your desired destination. If there is a big event happening around the dates you choose to travel, chances are the airfares might be higher. Early morning and late night flights can be inconvenient to some, but I find they are usually much cheaper.
- Book a hotel room with breakfast included. Take advantage of the breakfast on offer, especially if it’s buffet style. Granted not all hotels will offer an amazing breakfast spread, but I’ve often found myself surprised by some. My favourite site for finding rooms with breakfast included is booking.com.
- Email your hotel in advance politely asking for a quiet room/a room with a view/a room with double bed/etc. If the hotel is not full and there is such a room available during your stay, there’s a small chance that you might end up with a better room or even a free upgrade, this beats paying extra for that room with a sea view which can be an expensive extra luxury.
- Pack cereal bars (or other similar packaged food). This saved me a huge amount of money when visiting Rome one weekend. Known for being an expensive city for eating out, cereal bars were a handy snack to carry around for when I felt hungry in between sightseeing. Avoid eating at restaurants in the main tourist streets or squares, you’ll usually be charged more for the privilege. Instead check out the restaurants in the side streets, a little off the beaten track.
- Pack a water bottle. This was another money saver for me in Rome. The city (and many others across Europe) is full of drinking water fountains, simply fill your bottle up instead of purchasing a new one, it’s also kinder on the environment!
- Check prices of museums online before travelling. Many European cities have free museum entry once a month, Barcelona for example offers free entry to many of its big museums on the first Sunday of each month. Look up free things to do. Every city offers things for free, whether it’s a museum, art gallery, gardens, etc. One of my favourite sites for discovering free attractions is Lonely Planet.
- Buy a city pass. If there are a lot of paid-for tourist attractions you want to visit then it’s worth checking to see if there is a city pass you could purchase. In Florence I paid €72 for the Firenze Card, it’s valid for 3 days and gives access to over 72 museums, art galleries, and other attractions. It saved me a lot of money and also included queue jump on most museums and galleries.
- Check airport transfer options before you arrive. Instead of hopping into a taxi from the airport, which can be very expensive, check if there is a bus or train connection. Barcelona has its own airport bus that goes direct to the city centre, it’s also very well connected to the city by the airport metro. If there are no public transport options consider booking a transfer in advance. Pre-booking a taxi usually works out cheaper and takes the worry out of your arrival, it also prevents you from getting ripped off.
Final word
If there’s one final thing I can recommend it’s to plan your trip or vacation in advance as much as possible. Work out what your daily allowance will be and then simply be careful with your money and have common sense over what you spend it on. With just a little extra thought and planning into your next trip, you’ll be amazed at how much travel you can do on a small budget!
I’d love to hear your thoughts on budget travel - have you had any good or bad experiences you could share here? Feel free to leave a comment.
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Davina lives on the Mediterranean island of Malta where she works as a UX designer. Originally from the UK she has also lived in Barcelona. See some of her work here: www.davinaspriggs.com
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