Ways to Make Your Vacation a Little Cheaper
Recently I have been trying to plan my second trip to Japan and i am finding it incredibly hard. We had even considered just going to Europe to save a little bit of money, you know, by not traveling all around the globe. Usually I plan everything and do everything myself, but this year I wanted to do something “all inclusive” so I could actually enjoy and relax on my vacation instead of stressing out over whether everything was going as planned. You know, so I could have fun on my vacation?
So, anyway, I decided to go to a travel agent. My husband and I were thinking about a trip to Europe, with a few places we might want to travel in mind but no where set in stone (see, we wanted to see what the deals were), maybe a cruise or something tour bus-y. So, having never gone to a travel agent before, I set aside my pride and walked into the office. I told the woman what I have told you here, and she laughed in my face. Well, I also told her how much I wanted to spend. I think that is what made her laugh. It was only a thousand dollars less that what we spent to go to Japan before but she laughed in my face and told me that the cheapest two people could do all inclusive in Europe was $7000.00 before plane fare.
Somehow I don’t believe this. She wouldn’t tell me if they had any specials going on, she told me I had to know where I wanted to go. That was not the point, I said. We were flexible, we wanted to go somewhere that was running a special. Travel Agent 007 told me that that is not how it works. I was left in wonder how all these people got great deals to go abroad and how it doesn’t work for me. I guess the bottom line is don’t get a 007 Agent to tell you where to go on your vacation. Oh, and use the internet. I just was trying the small business support and stuff, and of course as with most human interactions, it backfired in my face. Don’t mind me if I sound a little jaded, I was just hoping she would have been nicer, since the internet is taking her job away.
Anyway, you don’t care about that, you are reading to find out cheaper ways to travel. Now, mind you these are not all going to be luxury five star hotels, but if you can afford that, why are you reading this?
First off: plane fares. It’s nice to check all of the main sites like travelocity and orbitz, but why not go to a site that will check them all for you at once? It’s much more convenient that way. Check out sites like Air Ninja and Travelzoo that will help you to search multiple airlines at once. Another good thing to check out when deciding when to buy your plane tickets is Farecast, a website that tells you when it’s the best time to get the lowest airfare. One last thing to say on airlines, you might want to check out Love My Seat, it helps you decide where you would like to sit on the airplane.
Moving on, lets talk about where you are going to stay. Most of these sites want to book you a hotel as well, and sometimes the combo gets you a discount. If so, great for you. If not, well, lets begin. If you don’t mind staying in a hostel even after you saw that movie about the kids who get brutally murdered in a German hostel, you can do it for cheap. If you don’t mind sharing bathrooms and bunk beds, no continental breakfast (but they do serve tea occasionally), sometimes bringing your own towels (but if you’ve read Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy you would know to bring your own towel anyway) and only playing as much as $20 a night for your stay, this is the place for you. Check out Twizi , where you can find hostels all around the world for around $25 a night per person. Twizi is also nice because they have travelers reviews of almost all of the hostels listed which include the anmeities you can find at these as well as the atmosphere and where it’s located.
If you are still terrified at the thought of staying in a hostel because of that Eli guy, then you could stay in a hotel. Check out this site, it searches a database of all of the hotels that have online booking features. I can’t say it will save you a whole lot of money, but it will save you time.
Well, that is all I have for you today, I might come back and so some research on how to get discounted cruises or something if I find a way. If you have anything to add, please help yourself. I always love finding a new way to travel cheap.
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Here is a GREAT site that was not mentioned in this article — http://www.airfarewatchdog.com. These guys track the lowest fares to domestic and international destinations and alert you when the price drops so you can swoop in and grab a great deal. I’ve saved hundreds with them.
July 27th, 2007 at 9:52 am
You are exactly right about travel agents - the Internet is taking their jobs away. I bet there will be a few in business still, and they’ll be the ones who go upscale (millionaires only) and the ones who offer really great personal service. So, a couple more years, maybe only the nice ones will be left.
Another thing to save money on travel is to go slightly off season. That’s the opposite of what we did in our Greece trip, but we had to fit it into our schedules and July was the only time.
July 27th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
Here are some more sites I found while I was looking,
http://www.couchsurfing.com/
-if you don’t mind staying in a stranger’s home in a strange country, this is for you, staying for free!
http://www.yapta.com/
Here is another site that helps you determine when to buy airline tickets.
http://www.railpass.com/
and of course, I forgot the railpass. Very useful. I wish we had a great interconnected rail system in the US but I can see how it would be difficult. I still think it would make for better public transit.
July 28th, 2007 at 10:52 pm
I should’ve known all of these, aside from just planning my next vacation destination what better way to have it cheaper.
March 1st, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Wow, I’ve never heard of travel agents treating people so poorly and being so unwilling to work with you! I’ve used several vacation package / tour companies in the past and most of them have been great at working with us to set up a vacation on our budget. Our last vacation to Turkey we used http://www.centralholidays.com and they were great. Anyway, thanks for the travel tips and thanks to Jonathan for the watchdog site.
April 1st, 2008 at 9:40 pm