Can You Realistically Do Budget Travel?
Photo Credit Keith Fulton
A lot of people ask me if it is realistic to do budget travel these days. And by this I don’t just mean stay within a defined budget for your trip, but get the most out of your travel dollar. Most of us aren’t college backpackers taking a final trip around Europe before we have to get a real job. The majority of the people that ask me this have jobs, but want to do something more with their vacations than visit Mt. Rushmore or Niagara Falls. They want to see the far flung places of the world, but have to do it on a limited amount of money. And to those people I say, you can do it.
Budget travel does not necessarily equate to sleeping in dive motels in some run down part of a third world country waiting for the next infestation of bed bugs to come and get you. It is all about finding the best deals, and using what I call travel currency arbitrage to make the most of the money you have. I’ll cover some of these thing more in depth in later articles. Today I just want to talk about how we can realistically achieve a fantastic travel experience on a budget.
Two of the most expensive things on the travel menu if you are heading overseas is airfare and hotels. This will probably make up the biggest chunk of your budget. Now there is not a lot you can do about airlines, they pretty much own the market and you will get the best deal you can. Forget all those urban myths about getting a job as a courier to carry a package on a flight to Europe for $10. It might have happened once, but not these days. And even if you could find something like this, most people have a set vacation schedule and couldn’t take a chance showing up to the airport hoping there was a courier spot to Amsterdam.
If you want the best air travel deals, you need to plan ahead and start looking early and often. I usually plan my trips overseas six months in advance and watch the airfares like a hawk. I use sites like Kayak to provide me an overview of the different airlines going to my destination. Then I look at the individual airlines sites to get their prices as well. I will get a base line price on the rates and continue to watch what they do. However you don’t want to wait too long to purchase your airfare, because once you wait to long, you enter a pricing zone where seats are filling up and they can raise fares. There are some other good tips to save you some cash that I’ll cover in another article.
In regards to hotels or accommodations, that is another big drain on the travel budget. But where you stay and how long you stay can play a big part in getting a good deal. And depending on where you go, you can leverage the power of the dollar to live like a king or queen on $50 a day. But you may have to forgo one destination for another. Right now the dollar is pretty weak compared to other western countries. Instead of visiting Venice Italy, you may want to try Thailand. Bangkok is the Venice of the east they say. But those are the types of things you need to think about to get the most for your money and travel on a budget.
I’ll talk more about all this in many future articles. There is no way to fit years of travel advise in one page. But budget travel is real, and it will open up the world to you.