How to Travel on a Budget
By: Kanupriyaa Choudhary-Legha
Tags: Travel, Budget, Travel Tips, Budgeting, Traveling

Plan very carefully

You want to plan your entire trip and have a very precise estimate of what it is going to cost. The most expensive part of you trip is probably going to be the flights so budget these first.

Since I assume you already are set on the dates of travel the flights aren’t going to offer much leeway on how much you can save which is why these are the first things I finalize.

Next you have to include hotel, flight, food and drink per day and cost of admission to sites you are going to visit. https://www.budgetyourtrip.com/ has a calculator for each city which is a good estimate for how much you will spend per day. Once you have this down you will have extra money left over that you can plan to spend any way you want during the trip and treat yourself.

Stay in a hostel

I stayed at a hostel every single time I have travelled in a college. The reason is very simple, hostels are incredibly cheap and if traveling solo you find friends very quickly.

I usually find my hostels on https://www.booking.com/ because they have a much larger selection of hostels then Airbnb. Some hostels even offer free breakfast which is a great to save on at least one meal. These usually end up being local cuisine and allows you to immerse yourself into the culture further.

Book flights in advance and use miles

Try to book flights anywhere between 3 months to 7 weeks before the start of the trip. The cheapest flights are usually midweek or Tuesdays so plan to start and end your vacation middle of the week to save on flights.

Another important thing to remember is to keep collecting your miles from all flights diligently and use these to book flights. I have an account with the carriers I travel on most often and have gather up enough miles to fly to India without cost!

Nomadic Matt has an amazing article on how to choose credit cards to get the most out of flights and miles https://www.nomadicmatt.com/travel-tips/picking-a-travel-credit-card/.

Cook your own food

If you are going to an expensive city then it is better to get some groceries for the week and cook your own food in the kitchen. I carry with me the list of ingredients and recipes I usually cook at home in a small notebook. All I need to do next is choose a few recipes and buy the things I need to create those in the kitchen.

Some places like Mexico are very cheap so I did not have to worry about this here but Puerto Rico had expensive food and I cooked in the community kitchen much of the time.

Figure out public transportation

Most bloggers skip on how much transportation can drive up your cost. Taking private transportation can cost around 5x time the amount spend on public transportation. For example in Los Angeles the cost of Ubering on a 2.5 mile trip is $9 if I am lucky while the bus costs just $1.25.

Public transport is almost always cheaper than taxis and a convenient way to get around. If you talk to the locals at the hostel or even search online it is easy to figure out how it works and in my opinion it is always worth it to learn what the most efficient routes in the city are.

Get Tourist Cards

The https://gocity.com/en-us website has tourist cards for multiple cities all over the world that you can use to access many attractions around the city and save big.

You only pay a certain amount for 2 or 3 or 5 days and within those days you can visit all the attractions that are included in the pass free of cost. If the pass has a lot of attractions you are planning on seeing then invest in them saves a lot of money.

The attractions that are included are usually those that are famous in the city and popular with the tourists so places which don’t get a lot of traffic won’t be included.

Use travel insurance

Incase of an accident you don’t want to spend your money trying to get out of a nasty situation. Anything from a cancelled flight to a stolen camera or lost passport is covered under travel insurance.

I did not think I needed one either until I fell off a horse in Africa and had to undergo expensive treatment and boy was I glad I had travel insurance.

For this reason make sure to get travel insurance by https://www.worldnomads.com/ which I regularly use on all my international trips. I get their cheaper option which is enough to cover all my needs.