Practical Ways To Save On Travel Expenses

People are always asking me how we can afford to travel so much.  Yes, travel can be costly but these Practical Ways To Save On Travel Expenses really help us to make it work within our budget.  Sometimes the little things add up to create extra funds, and other times it happens when you are willing to spend a few extra hours researching the best deals.  Making the most of your travel budget isn’t easy, but it isn’t difficult either. It simply takes work.  As with anything good in life, you have to invest some time into it.  These ways to save on travel expenses are practical, easy for you to understand and should be fairly simple to apply to your own vacation plans this year.

Practical Ways To Save On Travel Expenses

Rent a condo or home instead of staying in a hotel.  This is truly the most practical thing I can recommend. Once we realized the difference in costs, as well as the benefits we haven’t looked back.  For single night stays on the road we still book a room at a moderate motel, but when we are staying a few nights in one location this is the way to go.  There are a multitude of websites that offer condo and home rentals.  Do your research and find a reputable site to go through.  Instead of paying $75-$150 a night for one room in a motel or hotel, you can spend $500-$600 a week for a 2-3 bedroom condo or home.  Additional perks are that you can spend $100 on groceries for the whole week instead of paying $25-$50 every time your family goes out to eat. Saving money by cooking at least half of your meals at your condo can make a huge difference.  If you are driving, you can bring groceries from home out of your stockpile or pantry.  If you are flying, you can check out and plan for local grocery store trips to stock up on just what you need for the week.  A few boxes of cereal, fresh fruit and a gallon of milk for $25 can feed your family breakfast all week.  Eating out for breakfast for a family of 4 at a fast food chain can cost up to $20 per meal.  That’s a huge savings over the course of your vacation.

Read: How we saved with a Vacation Home

Choose a closer destination.  When you really have to work on your expenses, this is truly the best way to go. Choose a destination that is fairly close to home.  Why?  Less travel expenses to consider.  You can spend $100 in gas to get to and from your destination instead of $500 per plane ticket, or $500 in gas one way.  Even a destination only 2-3 hours away can offer a great new view and fun time for everyone in your family.  Look into tourist destinations in your state, beach destinations a few hours away or even cabin rentals in the mountains for a nature escape.

Cut household frivolous expenses to save for a bigger vacation.  If vacation funds are the issue themselves, some families can merely cut out a few things each month to save enough to cover travel expenses.  Stop eating out, turn off the cable television or cut back and use coupons on your groceries.  These can all save you hundreds of dollars a year.  If you already do that, then perhaps you can switch to an envelope cash payment method and put aside all lose change and $1 bills into a jar to save for travel.  Sometimes it is hard, but you can almost always find some way to save a few hundred dollars.  Even one night away from home for a special travel experience can be revitalizing for the whole family.

Travel with other families. This one takes some love and understanding from all parties, but can be a great way to split expenses.  Especially the cost of lodging while traveling.  If you are able to split a condo rental, you can easily make the cost per night under $50 per family.  That is often a huge savings over motels.  Other discounts include group ticket prices at area attractions with groups of 10 or more, and splitting gas costs if you are able to carpool in one vehicle.

Read: How to start saving for a vacation now!

These are some of our go-to simple yet practical ways to save on travel expenses.  There have been many years when we simply couldn’t afford to go far, but we managed enough extra cash in our budget to go to a city 2-3 hours away and stay in a motel for one night.  We took in a movie at a different theater and let the kids play in the pool at the motel.  Sometimes, just s change of scenery is all we really need to feel like we have gone on vacation.

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Love to travel? Looking for tips on what to do in Orlando? Be sure to check out the travel section of the blog!

 A Mitten Full Of Savings where I cover lots of different ways to save on all kinds of things from shopping and travel advice to budget-friendly hotel ideas, and all kinds of other stuff as well.

You can also head over to A Worthey Read  will cover my travel adventures and will offer travel and destination tips!

Two blogs which cover all of your saving, shopping and travel needs.