Let?s face it, most of the time vacations equate to months of getting your wallet nice and plump as you prepare for your travels, only to have it rapidly slim down with more ease than a customer on a Jenny Craig commercial.
There are tons of blog posts you can read on how to save money while traveling, money saving travel tips, and easy ways to save money while on vacation. We are here to give you our top 3 tips on how we personally save money during vacations that?s a little more personal than ?travel during the off season? or ?avoid traveling somewhere expensive?. At the end of the day, there are high-priced places you want to go, with tourist season timelines that you may not be able to avoid, and you need real ways you can save a buck or two.
Enjoy your Destination
While this may seem obvious (you?re not planning a trip somewhere you don?t want to enjoy), what we mean by this is, don?t be so focused on booking touristy excursions and filling up your days with tons of popular things to do. Instead, drive around, explore the historical spots of your vacation destination, enjoy the great outdoors, look on maps for landmarks, parks, or beaches.
You could vacation in Hawaii, never spend a dime on a single tourist attraction, and have the time of your life soaking up hikes, beaches, and driving the coast to enjoy the scenery.
One of our favorite things to do as a family is to get in the car and see where the wind (and what we find on maps) takes us. We hardly spend money on tourist activities, and in all honesty this will always save hundreds of dollars on vacations we take throughout the year.
Grocery Shop
While the last thing you may want to do is grocery shop on vacation, it?s worth the incredible cost savings, even if you?re in a hotel. We grocery shop whether we are in a property rental like an AirBNB or VRBO or if we are in a hotel. Why? Because we generally spend between $100-$150 on a grocery run for water, snacks, and breakfast items for 5 days vs $50-$100 per day on breakfast alone. I?ll let you do the math on that one.
Things that we purchase (again, even if we are in a hotel) include items like cereal, non-dairy milk, paper bowls and plastic spoons, water, fruit and veggies we don?t have to wash or cut, crackers, chips, and nuts.
The bonus to this tip is that not only does it save us money, but it saves our sanity. When we don?t have to get ourselves and a couple of kids ready in the morning to go get breakfast because everyone is hungry, it makes for a better start to our day. Less whiny kids = less fights. Can I get an Amen? Plus, we want to enjoy the hotel room or property rental we pay for, so spending a little more time in the morning eating in our room makes us feel more relaxed and less rushed.
Look for Free Activities
This may also seem like a redundant point to make, but the majority of people traveling are not putting into Google ?free actives in Honolulu?. And the funny thing is, there are tons of free activities and free entertainment in Hawaii. Which, if there are free things to do in Hawaii, that surely means the majority of cities around the world will also have free forms of entertainment, activities and attractions.
You could even look for a local church to attend for a service or two, meet the locals wherever you are, and ask for tips on where to go and what to see. It?s a great money and time saver!
Side note: most of the hotels in Waikiki have some sort of schedule of events that guests are allowed to participate in. Which, again, is a free-ish form of entertainment (hey-yo resort fees!).
