5 Secrets of a Stress-Free, Low-Cost Family Vacation
By: Easy Simple More
Tags: Budget, Family, Vacation, Stress, Travel

5 Secrets of a Stress-Free, Low-Cost Family Vacation

Vacationing with kids, not an oxymoron after all.

For too many parents, the stresses of traveling with kids offset the benefits of getting away. Use these 5 tips to have a better experience start to finish, return home rested and happy, and keep a little more money in the bank as well.

1. Take Off More Up Front

Flights and hotels make up the largest chunk of any vacation budget. Use Piggy, a free browser extension that automatically finds and applies coupons codes at checkout to spend less on your bookings. You already know about sites like Travelocity, Orbitz, and Kayak, but you may not know that Piggy finds coupon codes on hundreds of travel sites to take even more money off your getaway. Piggy also works on Groupon, which is great for booking activities at your destination, as well as thousands of other sites. Before you book anything: Get Piggy

2. Stay Where You Land

Some of the biggest unnecessary expenses on vacation are side trips and tourist traps. Next time, find a great hotel that is a destination in itself. For example, the Lake Buena Vista Resort in Orlando, Florida has a life-size pirate ship in the pool. This can be an awesome experience (distraction) for the kids. Every moment they are having fun on the pirate ship, you’re not wasting money at an overpriced tourist trap or stressing about them. This resort also lets you book a condo with a full kitchen so you can avoid the cost of eating out at restaurants every night.

3. Connect with Locals

What are you going to do on your first night in Paris? Don’t ask a local, be a local. Before you go, go on Viator.com to arrange things like dinner at the home of your new Parisian friends. This site introduces you to locals who can make your entire vacation more welcoming, exciting and personal. Vacationing like a local means your family will learn about things that tourists never see and avoid expensive tourist traps. Instead of having a generic brochure experience, you can come away with a genuine connection to new friends around the globe. This is what travel was meant to be.

4. Call Your Mother Nature

Guided tours are expensive and exhausting. Get on the bus, get off the bus, buy knick-knacks at the shop where your guide gets kickbacks. Don’t waste your time and money. For example, consider city of Oban, Scotland. While other families are spending money at the chocolate factory or touring the whiskey distillery, you can take your family to the island of Iona, one of the wildest, most walkable places on the planet. Aside from the ferry to get there, the total cost is $0. No matter where you go, nature is nearby. Find it and go wild.

5. Share the Fun

People are spending less on vacations, but that doesn’t mean they’re vacationing less. They’re sharing the costs cooperatively. Consider these creative and thrifty alternatives to traditional services:

Rent an RV at Outdoorsy.co

Earn extra money for your trip by driving for Uber or Lyft, or pet-, home- or garden-sitting at Nomador.com

Get paid for your amazing travel photography with SuperStar Blogging

There are many other new services in the sharing economy that will lower the cost of just about anything you want to do on vacation. If you can imagine it, someone is sharing it.

Take more family vacations, and get more value out of each one. These five secrets are discounts on transportation, spending more time at your hotel/condo, getting to know the locals, exploring nature and new cost-sharing services. Avoid the stress of overspending, and try your best to tolerate your kids.