How to travel cheap and happy
Recently we talk a lot aboutsaving - and travel in this sense is no exception. In difficult times from a financial point of view, rest seems to be a luxury, but one should not forget that even a small trip helps shake off the burden of problems and gain new strength. In addition, the journey does not necessarily end with huge expenses. We have collected a few self-tested tricks that will help plan a cheap trip without sacrificing rest.
Organize a trip by yourself
At a time when the Turkish beach was considered the main form of recreation, and the only decent option for an overnight stay was at least a 4-star hotel, the best advice was “buy a tour package”. If today you want to spend your vacation in a similar format, then the travel agency offer will still be more profitable than booking a hotel, flights and on-site activities separately. However, for most travels today, professional mediators are not needed - access to the Internet is enough, the willingness to create your own route and spend a couple of hours on the ticket sales websites.
The advice “plan and organize a dream trip on your own” sounds like a captain, but is also fundamental when it comes to cheap and interesting travel. It does not matter if you go to Thailand to the sea or to the European capital to see the sights. The main condition is to speak English. Language - your pass to the world of independent travel. Even in a closed Japan, you can rent an apartment from some nice young people instead of spending money on an expensive hotel - you can even agree in broken English. And in the same Thailand, it is better to look for accommodation on the spot, so the option "7 days, 6 nights" will not be needed.
Plan ahead
This simple rule will save you more time, money and nerves than you might think. Make a list of the major expenses that you plan to make during the preparation for the trip. Arrange them in ascending order and methodically deal with planned purchases as far in advance as possible. Most likely, the most expensive item will be a flight. It is better not to postpone the purchase of air tickets: the earlier you buy them, the cheaper they will cost. In general, no matter what happens, by the time of departure you will probably have time to get tickets, accommodation and visas, so all that remains is to find pocket money.
Most often, traveling is more profitable to use cash rather than a card, since the internal exchange rate is usually disastrous. If you are planning a trip for, say, six months, then it’s worth changing money a little bit every month. The exchange rate will continue to float, but in the end you will receive the amount of money exchanged at the average rate. Visa registration also does not need to be postponed - in case of an unforeseen refusal there will be time for re-submission.
Planning a budget should be maximized depending on the characteristics of each particular trip: and movement (including car rental, train tickets, etc.), and accommodation (unless, of course, it is more profitable to search for accommodation on the spot), and also how much will go to the minimum program from the desired exhibitions, restaurants, concerts and shopping trips. The Internet is ready to suggest the average cost of living in a particular city. The best life hacking when planning approximate costs is to read the average cost of a day, and then alternate between “expensive” and “cheap” days. So you do not have to fit every day in some kind of a clear amount, waiting for the next day to buy something or go somewhere. Allocate one day for purchases, without refusing anything, and the other for free walks, then in the end your expenses will balance each other.
Habitual expenses on the mobile Internet on trips grow at the speed of light, so it’s also worth taking care of this in advance: either download as many tourist maps that work offline, or buy a traveler’s sim card. The local SIM card almost never pays off anyway, so just take care of the offline options that are easily located on Google. For the flight, you can download the application that will save your ticket.
Do not save to save
If you wish, you can go on vacation almost for free: choose the cheapest destination, stay with local friends or couchsurfers, decide that you will eat only from the supermarket, and instead of an airplane you are ready to shake for a few hours on the bus. All this is beautiful and extremely profitable, but for such a holiday you need to understand exactly that all your “victims” are not victims at all, but the result of a conscious choice, and treat deprivation and restrictions as an exciting quest.
If you enjoy the Spartan conditions and you do not know how and do not want - and do not force yourself. Leave it and leave to return from it happy, contented and ready for new challenges. Immediately decide on what you are willing to save, and on what - no. You will not notice any concessions at all, but others may turn the trip into hell. An example of this is European buses: some of them are comfortable enough, but it is better to spend twice as much and get there, say, by train in a couple of hours, than to spend the night in an uncomfortable chair without moving, and then all the next day lain in bed with a sore back.
Use aggregators and do not overpay
Recall: it’s worth buying plane tickets using air ticket aggregators. Such services are dark, everyone chooses to his taste, but the most popular are Aviasales, Skyscanner, Anywayanyday, Kayak; Great deals come across on Ozon. Save here will help a few extra efforts. First, be sure to clean your browser’s cache before each new search: cookies store information about what you’ve been looking for, which sites use, offering new options depending on what you’ve already seen. If every time you start the search with a clean slate, you will not be given more expensive options.
Second, do not neglect the loyalty programs of specific airlines. If you fly frequently, then the accumulated miles may well be enough to pay for the ticket. Thirdly, buy tickets not only in advance, but also choose the low season - so the flight will be even cheaper. Fourth, do not forget that the recalculation of tariffs occurs on Monday and, if you have found a good ticket, you have time until Tuesday to buy it at the current price. Finally, go against the rules and look at the prices on the website of specific airlines - sometimes there you can find the most advantageous offer.
It is not necessary to make a choice in favor of the "official" low-cost airline like EasyJet in order to fly cheaply. So, AirBaltic, as an example for American airlines, now offers to pay separately for everything: luggage, check-in at the airport, a specific place and food on board. But if you can register from home in two clicks, put everything in a rather bulky hand luggage and be patient for three hours without a cold sandwich - why pay for it? At the expense of such steps, tickets turn out to be very profitable at a price. Well, do not shun indirect flights - they are often much cheaper.
Stay in an apartment, not a hotel.
Airbnb service is not for nothing that has been pumped over the past couple of years: no one has yet invented a more convenient, safe and profitable search system for housing. Hotel rooms finally remained an option for employees. A short business trip is one thing, but if you try to relax and not go broke, renting an apartment will be even more profitable than staying at a hostel, especially if you are going to an event like a music festival. Places in hostels have long come close in price to rooms in cheap hotels, while not offering special amenities.
Services like Airbnb allow you to cut all those "optional" expenses that are inevitably included in the price of a hotel room. In the case of an apartment, you yourself are free to choose the ratio of location and price (look for housing in cheerful areas where local poor young people or settled migrants live), and as a bonus you can get friendly owners who will give you recommendations on their favorite places in the city. Removable apartment will help to save including on food: instead of cafes and restaurants, if you wish, you can cook at home. If hotels and hostels are nevertheless nicer to you, it’s convenient to search and book places in them through aggregators like Booking.com and Roomguru. Do not forget about couchsurfing - if you're lucky, you can find an option and completely free accommodation.
Travel by car with fellow travelers
Separately, it is worth mentioning services that offer to become a companion or to take those who want to travel by car. BlaBlaCar, the most famous of these services - is a kind of Airbnb from the world of travel, a kind of planned hitchhiking. If you need to get from point A to point B, you simply search the site for those traveling the same route and join them for a small fee at the designated time. At first, traveling with strangers on empty roads may seem not just frightening, but frankly dangerous, but in vain. All transactions and payments go through the company's website. It is worthwhile to focus on the reviews of grateful (or not) customers, and if nothing is in doubt, the trip will hardly differ from the Uber call. Finding a comfortable option is not difficult: for example, many girls choose exactly female drivers.
In Europe, this method of travel has long become the norm: airplanes and trains are very expensive, and buses are inconvenient, while by car you can get to much and quite quickly. For drivers, this is also a very good deal: most of the good roads in Europe are paid, so, taking an extra passenger, they beat off the cost of their trip, not to mention the cost of gasoline. By the way, if you are traveling abroad, try to access the localized version of the site via Google translator - there are always ten times more offers.
Explore free and cheap entertainment options.
Even in your hometown there are more cheap places and free events than you think. Sites around the world tell about this category of entertainment with an enviable regularity: starting with the friendly The Village, which made a guide to cheap Moscow last year, and ending with tourist portals like TripAdvisor, iknow.travel and Stay.com. Before the trip you should rummage on the same Yelp or the banal TimeOut and see what interesting and budget places there are in the city. There are hundreds of blogs dedicated to exploring the best institutions in their hometown. Applications like Like a Local Guide also help, but their fullness varies from place to place. Most importantly, if the budget for everything about everything is small, do not put off the question of entertainment until the last, when you are standing on the street and do not know where to go and where to eat. If you have pre-marked with a dozen favorite places in advance on the offline map, the problem will disappear by itself.
When it comes to museums, concerts, exhibitions, markets and so on, always try to buy tickets in advance. If you are a student or you are under 26, then perhaps you are subject to discounts or you are entitled to a free visit - check it out. Also in many countries there is a day of free access to all major museums - it is quite possible to tailor the trip to such a date. But to buy a tourist card, which everyone advises, do not rush. Its discounts are designed for a very specific and sometimes "purely tourist" circle of interests and may well not apply to the museums and cafes you need.
Spend more time outside
To lie in a fluffy blanket at the hotel before lunch is a good option, but not for this we are going to another country. Make yourself get up and go for a walk, eat and have fun: a change of activity is always the best form of rest. In general, a conditional street can be a source of two good ways to save money. First, if the chosen place (for example, European cities) allows, then walk as much as possible on foot. Walking is a great useful exercise, which will also save on the subway and even more so by taxi. It’s hard to believe, but even the Moscow metro is incredibly cheap compared to the London or Tokyo, when you may need to buy several tickets in one trip. In fairness, in some cities, such as in Seoul, a taxi costs a penny, so read in advance what the situation is with transport (and, of course, download maps in advance), and buy travel cards for a week if they are more profitable than one-time tickets .
Secondly, the "street" is also street food. In the same Seoul, you can never go to a real restaurant, eating plenty of street kiosks, which are literally everywhere. Street food is a priori cheaper, and helping the city feel better than a famous restaurant. Millions of examples of how to eat cheap and tasty: anyone who has been to Berlin will tell you about don and currywurst, in London about city food markets, and in Asia about local markets where you can buy seafood and cook it on the spot.
Photo: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 via Flickr
