3 Tips for Bargain Travel

Yes, you can travel even if your budget is limited. But you have to be smart about it and invest some time to make the most of every vacation dollar.

Because most hotel rooms are priced for business travelers, it is so satisfying to find ways to book nice but astonishingly cheap rooms to stay in–even in high priced cities like San Francisco and London. You can check the Lonely Planet website for bargains, but many are targeted toward young people and may not be suitable for retirees. Their general information about activities at various locations, however, is terrific!

Now for some other ways to cut costs and travel well.

Travel off-season for fewer crowds

Visiting Venice in August is a nightmare. Tens of thousands of tourists swarm this small, beautiful city. Americans, Germans, Brits, and Japanese take over and many Venetians leave. It had become so bad that Venice now limits the number of visitors each day. You have to make reservations in advance and pay a fee. On the other hand, visiting Paris in August is like stopping by a ghost town. Parisians are on vacation in the south of France and many places in the city are closed. But visit Venice or Paris in October or April and you will have a much better, friendlier, and far less expensive experience.

While some travel advisors suggest traveling completely off-season–Europe in winter, Mexico in summer–believe me, it is much better to travel in the Spring and Fall.  In most locations the weather is still pleasant and prices are lower than peak season.

I recommend that you go to a weather website and check out the average temperature and daily rainfall for any place you plan to visit–before you make your reservations.

 Live like the locals do 

You will have a much richer travel experience if you do things that locals do. You won’t just be seeing the sights, you will be experiencing the life of people in your vacation destination city.

Buy groceries in a neighborhood market and fix lunch for yourself to eat in a nearby park or while seeing the sights.

Ask local people if they have recommendations for restaurants or entertainment. You might be pleasantly surprised at how helpful they will be.

The chances are that you will learn more about the destination and the people living there than you would as a conventional tourist. The big bonus: you will have far more interesting stories to tell when you return home.

Search for free events and attractions 

Almost every city on the planet now has a website or online newsletter with suggestions for what to do for free. They are often designed for locals and include the best free events. So go to your favorite search engine and search for “free events in _  _ _ _ _ “.   Then mix up your vacation activities with both free and paid events.  And be sure to look for special fairs or festivals in the region. You can always get there by ground transportation and get to talk with locals while you are at it!

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A Real Life Retirement

Some time ago Marilyn spent 3 months living in Budapest in the spare bedrooms of widows in the old part of the city. The architecture of old Buda was amazing, even though the walls of the buildings were pock-marked with bullet holes, left over from a conflict with the Soviet army decades earlier. The cost for her room was unbelievably low–and probably still is.  

As for food — even under communism, the Hungarians loved to eat well. Marilyn’s breakfast was coffee and a roll supplied by her hostess. Lunch was often a sandwich at a stand-up counter in a local cafe frequented by workers. She said they ate hearty lunches. Dinner was the one splurge meal of the day and even it was not expensive.  

Because she was in the old city, a central location, she walked to museums and concert halls. Entry was either free or close to it. In the 3 months she learned a lot about how Hungarians live and look at the world around them as well as seeing the sights including the first visit to Budapest by the Pope on the same day that the Russian President was put under house arrest. Her hostess that first night in Budapest was terrified by the actions in Moscow and pulled Marilyn into the living room to watch the Hungarian Prime Minister on TV. Marilyn couldn’t understand a word, but realized what was happening. She also knew she could leave if trouble broke out in Budapest. It didn’t and so she stayed.

If she had booked a room in one of the big Western-style hotels along the Danube her vacation money would have been gone in less than 2 weeks. Budapest today is still relatively inexpensive, but not the super-cheap vacation spot it was then.