Traveling is a common hobby among many people, and for a good reason. It offers you a sense of freedom and exploration of different cultures, unique traditions, beautiful sights, interesting foods, etc. It helps you to expand your horizons while giving you a welcome break from the mundane routine.
Unfortunately, traveling often requires quite a lot of money. As a result, many people don’t travel as much as they would’ve liked or are managing an exhausting routine of working extra hard for a couple of months, traveling for a similar amount of time, and repeat.
The good news is that there are plenty of ways to travel for cheap and save a significant amount of money, allowing you to travel more often and for longer periods, without working yourself to death in order to afford it.
Table of Contents
How to save money while traveling?
Traveling on a budget
In order to know how to travel for cheap, we need to pinpoint what people usually spend the most money on whiletraveling and see how we can decrease those expenses. Most travel expenses are spent on flights, lodging, food, and local transportation.
Flights
A big part of people’s travel expenses goes on flights alone. Fortunately, there are many ways to save money here. Actions like picking a closer or cheaper destination, using connection flights, flying off season, booking tickets well in advance and looking for the best deals, while comparing different offers, can help lower the price of the flight considerably. You can also choose a nearby destination that is accessible by much cheaper modes of transportation, such as a car, bus, or train.
Lodging
While many hotels can be quite expensive, there are other ways to sleep cheaply while traveling. Renting an apartment via Airbnb or staying at good-reviewed hostels can be a smart savings option. And if you don’t mind living with strangers and are careful enough, you can always try Couchsurfing, which offers you lodging at a local resident’s house at a minimal cost. Another good option, if possible, is to choose a destination where you have close friends or relatives that would be happy to host you for free for at least part of your vacation.
Food
As a basic need, we spend quite a lot of money on food in our day-to-day lives, not to mention while traveling, as many people want to experience as many local flavors as possible when they are traveling to different countries. A good way to save money on food is to find accommodation that has a kitchen, so you can cook for yourself with the minimal cost of basic supermarket ingredients. Another smart way to save money on food is to eat at local restaurants rather than tourist traps, which are often less tasty and overpriced.
Local transportation
When traveling to different places, you probably want to see and explore your new destination. For that, you’ll need local transportation, which can cost quite a bit of money. If you want to travel and experience multiple cities and rural areas, you can save money and make your trip more comfortable by renting a car. If you travel to a big city, however, you can buy a smart card for the local transportation system for the duration of your trip, which is a lot cheaper and more efficient than buying a single ticket every single time.
Applying these tips wisely will save you a considerable amount of money while traveling.
