The best part about travelling is preparing the travel budget… eh… said no one ever? Even I, a self-confessed budget-lover can feel overwhelmed trying to get the best prices and deals and attempting to not go spend-cray when we are living for the moment on holiday.
Seeing as we have just gotten back from a month in Europe I thought what better time than now to share what tips and tricks I use when travelling to stretch our travel budget.
We travel reasonably often on our own as well as on band trips and that can really add up, especially if you are not watching what you spend each time. If you are only travelling once every few years you can probably get away with going a bit all out on a hotel room, shopping trips, and fine dining on your vacation. But that’s not going to work so well for your budget when it’s a regular gig.
The cost of travel can be significantly reduced with a little bit of planning and being selective with what you will and won’t spend on, or just tweaking things ever so slightly so you don’t spend as much. Some of it starts before you have booked a thing and others are to help you maintain your goal budget once in your destination.
Check out 13 Effortless Tips to Save Money on Your Travel Budget for how you can save on your next trip!
- Shop around for all bookings
Shop around and consider all options when booking a holiday.
Is a hotel cheaper and better value for accommodation or would an Airbnb be better? If you’re just after a bed and shower and plan to be out all day, a hostel could be a more budget-friendly option.
Can you be more flexible with flight days? Booking a flight the day before or after you planned to or at a less convenient time might cost you some sleep but save you hundreds of dollars per ticket. For our trip to Japan, we avoided Easter long weekend dates and saved $1000 just by booking our trip 2 days later!
When booking hire cars get 2-3 quotes so you can make sure you are paying a reasonable rate.
A little effort at the start of your holiday planning can add up to huge savings.
Don’t forget to use the incognito mode in your browser in order to get the best deals on flights and accomodation!
Potential Savings: Picked Airbnb over Hotel room saving $40 a night on accomodation
2. Book your flights and accommodation early
Book well in advance for tours, car hire, accommodation, and flights. Bookings closer to the travel date means you will end up paying more or missing out on the dates or times you want. If you need a particular travel day or time you will most likely have to pay much more for the same service than you would have if you just planned ahead.
Most accommodation sites offer free cancellation on bookings (and after 2020 I highly recommend you always choose the free cancellation option just to cover yourself!) up to a certain time depending on their terms and conditions for the place you are booking so you can often book accommodation in advance and change the booking dates without being hit with fees if you need more flexibility. Budget Traveller recommends booking flights on Tuesday to get the best flight deals.
Potential Savings: Flying on a 7.40am flight over 11am flight saving you $$$
*** Want help planning your next holiday’s budget? Grab your Travel Planner spreadsheet here. ***
3. Walk or take public transport as much as possible
Where possible on your holidays walk to places to get the most out of your travel budget. You will not only save money by skipping an Uber or taxi, get some exercise and fresh air as well as get to see more this way than if you were to drive or take a train.
If you can’t walk or the distance is a bit far, consider taking a bus, tram or train over a taxi or Uber to reduce your holiday transport costs. Look into any travel passes such as 48 or 72 hour passes that are available that might be able to save you on transport costs over the duration of your stay.
Potential Savings: Taking the train or bus $4 fare over $15 per trip taxi ride
4. Find free activities and entertainment
Travelling and sightseeing can be extremely expensive, especially when you have a lot of bucket list items to tick off. We were happy to spend on activities we really wanted to do or see and the rest of the time tried to find free forms of entertainment.
This could include exploring your destination city on foot, checking out a local park, spending some time in your resort’s pool or at the beach, visiting a free Art Gallery or Museum, checking out some local scenery or chatting to some other travelers at a bar or cafe and swapping stories.
Don’t assume everything fun or enjoyable costs money. Seek out budget-friendly activities and your travel budget will go much further without you missing out on the really awesome stuff.
Before you head off on your trip research “free things to do in ________, and insert the city and do as much of these activities as you can to stretch your travel budget further.
Potential Savings: Free museum entry over ticket entry to viewing platform $50
5. Spend your money where it counts
Following on from finding fun free activities, spend your travel budget on the things that matter to you. If you love Theatre go to a show on your trip, see a band you might not be able to see at home, or do a group tour to a site on your bucket list. By being selective with where you spend your cash, you can afford to do those really important must do activities.
Potential Savings: Guilt-free spending here to do what you really want thanks to your saving efforts elsewhere
6. Drink less
Alcohol can be very expensive in a lot of cities around the world. A single drink can set you back $10-20 or more, particularly if you prefer fancy fruity cocktails like myself. If you are going away for a week you can probably get away with buying a few expensive cocktails with dinner, but when you are travelling for a month, that cost is going to eat away at your spending money fast.
On our most recent trip to Europe we limited drinking in the more expensive cities and stuck to going to bars in the more affordable destinations. There are only so many $14 Vodka and Oranges you can justify on a trip without eating away your travel budget.
Potential Savings: One less cocktail a day at $18, total saving of $126 for the week
7. Pack your lunch and cook occasionally
Back in 2017 we were in the Faroe Islands and Iceland and were astounded at the price of food! We thought we lived in one of the most expensive cities in the world but this was a whole new level of expensive!
On our first day in the Faroe Islands we paid $40 for two small sandwiches and two small bottles of soft drink. Ouch!
We planned to stay eleven nights out of thirty in Europe in Faroe and Iceland and knew paying such hefty food bills three times a day was going to completely blow our travel budget.
Instead of forking out $50 plus per meal, we grabbed some groceries to make breakfast at our accommodation each morning to save us buying one meal each day. We were staying at an airbnb so had some handy dandy full kitchen facilities.
We also grabbed a few ingredients to make up some sandwiches to take on the road for lunch a few of the days. A handful of nights we cooked or heated up frozen meals. It’s not something you probably need to do for a short overseas trip in an affordable location but is extremely helpful when you are planning a longer stay, particularly in the more expensive destinations where eating out day to day is going to cost a lot more than you expected.
Potential Savings: Eating breakfast at your accommodation total savings $10 to $30 per day
8. Shop less
I know a lot of people who travel plan to go shopping potentially leading to Mindless consumption. I’ve never really understood this myself, I can shop any day of the week in Sydney and don’t feel spending my time on holidays stuck inside four walls at a mall is a valuable use of my time or airfare.
Since I don’t shop on holidays unless I really need something, I not only save myself money when travelling but save myself time. Time that I would much rather use exploring a new city and country, not on finding stuff I can cram my home with.
I know you’ll say, “But Jess – I am buying things at a huge discount”… And I’ll say, “Maybe, but you just spent a small fortune on this trip to waste your time shopping and not enjoying what the destination truly has to offer?”.
That doesn’t include the nuisance of lugging around heavy, packed-to-the-brim luggage on your flights or paying excess baggage fees which seem to be getting more and more exorbitant.
Once we cut out unnecessary shopping on our holidays it meant we could afford to travel more often and didn’t need to save up a whole bunch of excess cash for spending.
Potential Savings: Not shopping every day $100+?
9. Be selective with souvenirs
On our first couple of overseas trips we felt the need to bring home souvenirs from each place we visited. How could you show that you’d been to Thailand without a key ring to show it right?
You name it we bought it; decorative souvenir plates, key rings, snow globes (which always seem to break) and a new fridge magnet from each city. That didn’t include the souvenirs we bought back for family.
Soon enough we found ourselves running out of walls and space to house them all. And I’ve got to be honest with you, apart from a select few displayed around our home, we never really looked at the others sitting on the shelf. We realised that we probably didn’t need all these trinkets to remember our holidays and that the majority of them were really just dust collectors. We decided to limit our souvenir collection for future trips and decided to be a little bit more creative about what we did bring home.
This past trip to NZ we limited our souvenirs to our photos, a key ring, and necklace and some jelly bellies!
We also took many photos to remember our travels. Not buying souvenirs made traveling easier as we weren’t risking going over our weight allowance and didn’t have to worry about having breakables in our bag that might get damaged in transit.
If you do find joy in souvenirs pick one or two you would love to display in your home from your destination but just keep in mind if you do love to travel these are going to add up over time.
Potential Savings: Limiting souvenirs $50-100+
10. Pack thoughtfully
By bringing what you need you can reduce the money you spend at your destination and help your travel budget. Unless you do your research, some destinations can really set you back for things you can buy affordably at home.
I lost one of my gloves in Iceland and the cheapest pair I could find as a replacement was $40. I left my raincoat at home due to limited space in our luggage thinking my umbrella would be fine, and after realising that umbrellas are redundant for Faroe Island weather, the cheapest raincoat at my destination that I could find was around $150 AUD.
A simple solution to packing thoughtfully is keeping a travel checklist. This can help you to remember all the important things you will need for your trip and save you buying them! Packing a Capsule Wardrobe can go a long way to covering you for all your clothing needs on your holiday.
Potential Savings: The cost of buying clothes etc $20+
11. Utilise Free WIFI
Save money on your travel budget by taking advantage of free WIFI. Buying a sim at each of your destinations can add up. For most of our destinations in Europe, we got away with using our Airbnb’s or hotels WIFI and Free WIFI in cafes. Downloading Google Maps of our destinations also really helped us to access the maps we needed whilst out and about.
Whilst you are there be sure to download things you want to stream, listen to on Spotify or Apple Music, or Audible books to keep you entertained when you don’t have access to wifi.
Potential Savings: Buying a different sim for each country you are visiting
11. Keep your mind open to alternative tourist attractions
Consider alternative options, outside of main tourist areas to help your travel budget go further.
In Iceland, we realised that we’d left it too late to book the Blue Lagoon Pools. We decided rather than going at night we’d try and find another Geothermal pool on our road trip. We found one on our route that ended up only costing $80 for both of us versus the $200 + it would have cost had we booked at the Blue Lagoon. It ended up being a very similar experience and meant we had saved a fair wad of cash for more adventures!
Potential Savings: Picking a lesser known tourist attraction for a similar but more affordable one without the crowds $100
12. Shop around for your travel card
If you plan to use a travel card, know that they can charge a range of fees and eat into your spending money. After purchase fees, reload fees, currency conversion fees, ATM fees, and the like, they can quickly eat up your travel budget.
When shopping around be sure to compare as many options on the market. A good starting point is Choice’s Travel Money Card comparison but be sure to check the card’s website before deciding to ensure you have the most up-to-date information.
A good starting point is to find a card that has no purchase or reload fees (fees to add money to your card), and ideally one with a low currency conversion charge or none at all, and no ATM fees.
Some cards allow you to earn points as you spend. Or if it’s less hassle, take your bank card with you, just be sure to do your research on whether you can use the card at your travel destination and check out the fees associated with using your card. On my most recent trip, I bought my bank card along which waived all overseas transaction fees which saved me some $$$$!
Potential Savings: $5 ATM fees per withdrawal, reload fees, conversion fees, international transaction fees.
13. Set a daily budget before you leave for your holiday
Don’t wait to arrive at your destination to think about the travel budget. Before we left for our trip we set a daily budget and converted that amount in each currency we needed based on how many days we were staying in each. This gave us a stopping point so we could visibly see when we were nearing the end of our budgeted spending money.
If you are budgeting $150 a day as a couple and staying somewhere for two weeks, only convert $2100 in spending money. If you need more you can always add more later, but that limit will help set you a travel spend budget boundary that will help you to know whether you are within your travel budget or over, so that you can adjust your spending accordingly.
It’s best to research the cost of local restaurants, transport etc from travel bloggers or ask a friend who has been before to get an idea of what you should be budgeting.
Potential Savings: Sticking to your $150 a day travel budget rather than not having one and ending up spending $200 a day or $500 extra than planned over a week
How do you travel on a budget? What are your tips for stretching your dollar further whilst still having an amazing, fun holiday? Share your tips in the comments below 🙂
Want more tips on how to save money for your next trip? Check out these 10 Easy Tips to Save Money on Your Groceries!
