Tips to save money while travelling

We all know travelling can be expensive, but there are so many worthwhile places in the world to explore.  With inflation and rising travel costs but a desire to travel still, you need to find ways to save money wherever possible.  Here are some tips to save money while traveling:

Travel Cards and points

My go to is the Aventura credit card, but the Avion is good and Aeroplan has gotten better too.  If you have a partner combine your points or mix and match.  For our upcoming trip to the Bahamas, my fiancé used her companion voucher coupled with her West Jet Dollars to fly to Miami since it’s hard to fly directly to Bahamas from Winnipeg.  We will have a couple nights of bonus vacation in Miami and I used my Aventura points to book our flight to Nassau.  I used my left over Aeroplan points from a long time ago to book 2 nights in a hotel in Miami.

Book flights with “bad” layovers

If you are going somewhere far or hard to get to, it is sometimes impossible to go direct and it is always expensive, so you’ll likely have a layover.  Instead of waiting around for a few hours in the airport, book a flight with a really long layover, 12-24 hours, book a cheap hotel and get the opportunity to see another place on your vacation.  These long layovers usually bring down the cost of your flight and instead of waiting for a few hours in the airport and spending money on airport food you can visit somewhere cool and rest for the night.  I did this on the way to Colombia and stayed the night in Panama.  We also did this when flying to Puerto Rico and stayed for 24 hours in Dallas, Texas.

Stay in Micro Hotels or private rooms in hostels

Micro Hotels are usually modern, nice and in good locations.  The rooms are small, but you can save a lot of money in these hotels.  Also, many modern and trendy hostels offer private rooms; it’ll be cheaper than a hotel and you get the lively experience of a hostel and the privacy of your own room.

Become a member on a hotel booking site

I often use hotels.com and my fiancé uses booking.com.  We are both members and often get member deals (the deals are exaggerated but you can save a few bucks).  Whichever website has the better deal for a good hotel we will use.  I have also stayed several free nights using hotels.com because every 10 nights you get one night free.

Book on Wednesday’s

Have you ever noticed that the prices of flights vary when you are tracking the prices?  Everyone is off work and looks to book their vacation on the weekend and the price goes up drastically.  Wait until Wednesday and you will often notice a much cheaper price.  I don’t mean travel on a Wednesday, although usually you can save money that way, but do the actually booking on a Wednesday.

Street food

I’m not suggesting to eat street food every day or for dinner.  But save on lunch and eat street food, it is usually extremely tasty anyways, and you’ll have money for a nicer dinner.  And even one night you can save on dinner by hopping from vendor to vendor and trying different street foods.  Plus, if you travel to places like Japan, you can save a lot of money from eating breakfast from 711 or other convenience stores, the food is actually good and very cheap. 

Book hotels with free breakfast

This shouldn’t be a deciding factor, but if you are travelling to a location where food is generally expensive, do some price comparisons and if you can, book a hotel that offers free breakfast.  If the hotel with free breakfast is a lot more expensive don’t book it, but if it’s a good price and you’re going to spend $20-$25 a day on breakfast per person, you  can save a lot of money by eating free hotel breakfast. 

Play around with travel dates

If you have the flexibility, alter your travel dates if necessary.  Booking on, for instance the first day of spring break will cost more, so book a day early, a day or two later or in other cases in the middle of the week.  This works for both flights and hotels.  When planning our upcoming road trip to Chicago, we will be spending a night on the way out in Minneapolis and a night on the way back there too.  Staying in downtown Minneapolis is more expensive, so on the way there (which is a weekend) we will book a hotel near the mall, and when we are driving back, it will be on a weekday, so we can get a better hotel in the downtown area for a fraction of the cost of booking a downtown hotel on the weekend out to Chicago.

Enough with the souvenirs

You don’t need to buy tacky and lame souvenirs at every place you visit.  Save souvenir money for unique and really cool souvenirs.  Also, every single friend or family member doesn’t need a souvenir, and your coworkers at work definitely don’t need one.  If you are going to buy for people, buy from places they haven’t visited or probably won’t visit.  And unless it’s a shopping trip, skip spending so much time and money in the mall or shops.  Enjoy your vacation, spend money on an excursion or a good meal instead.

Bring snacks and a refillable water bottle to the airport

You’re going to need to dump the water at security so bring a refillable bottle and save money on overpriced water at the airport. Bring some snacks for the airport and plane too.

Bonus tip - Use a VPN

If you use a VPN you can access country specific deals.  You can also play around with your location and see if the flight cost changes. Generally when booking a flight ticket from an IP address in a country with a strong economy will cost more than booking the ticket from countries with a weaker dollar or economy.

Bonus tip 2 – Save your income tax return for travel

If you know you’re going to get a big income tax return or some kind of big cheque don’t waste it on a TV or PS5 use it to make memories on a vacation instead.  And if there’s a good deal prior to your income tax return use your travel credit card, earn the points and pay it off when the cheque comes later on.

Photos followed are all  from hostels and micro hotels, cool places i've travelled with long layovers , street food and free breakfast.