Heading off on holiday is a fantastic experience, which is as obvious a statement as the next one – it can be highly expensive, too. Many people obviously want to head out to have a great time, but it’s difficult to manage the needs of this alongside keeping costs down.
In this day and age, there are plenty of options available to ensure you can do this, with none of them involving hitchhiking (a modern day blessing). With a bit of expert advice, it’s possible for any family, couple, group of friends, or lone traveller to keep prices down to a minimum.
- Shop around for the best deal
In the internet era, it goes without saying the best thing you can do is shop around for the best possible deal you can find. There are comparison sites available, for instance, along with apps which provide last minute deals at greatly discounted prices.
You can also use a budget planner to plan beforehand what holiday is within your budget. Then you can use an array of other cost-effective options to help lower costs further still. Don’t miss out on these incredible options available to you!
- Get the best travel money deal
Making sure you get the best exchange rates is a must for any traveller. It’s arguable the best option is to have a specialist overseas credit card. These provide excellent rates across the world and are available from banks such as Halifax, Capital One, Saga, and also the post office, if you’re in the UK.
This does mean you should be avoiding the nightmare that can come with debit cards. In other words, your average bank card is a disaster to use abroad. Avoid it and load up on spare cash elsewhere whilst you can.
- Be aware of your options when travelling abroad
If you’re heading overseas, make sure you’re fully aware of all the options which are available to you. There are dozens of tricks you can use here, such as getting an overseas spending card, free apps, cheap flight tools, and language translating tools.
This 50+ overseas travel tips guide will help you unearth all the tricks of the trade in no time, which you can pocket as essential advice you can use time and time again in the future.
- Road trip tips
If you’re heading off on a road trip, or your holiday will involve lots of driving to get to a destination, then the best thing you can do is make sure your vehicle is fitted out with brand new car tyres. This ensures your car, SUV, or 4×4 has the best grip available to it, which will keep fuel efficiency high as well as offering you plenty of additional safety.
For road trips, it’s always a good idea to plan ahead thoroughly so you know exactly where you’ll be staying and what you’ll be doing. With this tactic, you won’t be turning up at random locations and forking out for 5 star hotel rooms unexpectedly as there’s nowhere else to stay.
Set yourself a budget, too, so you don’t get carried away whilst out and about. It can be tempting to buy everything in sight upon reaching exciting new destinations, but the best option is to be realistic and only pick up mementos which you truly need.
- Embrace free activities
As the BBC details in how to keep summer holidays cheap, indulging in free activities when on holiday can help keep costs down enormously. For instance, instead of eating out for every meal you could have a picnic.
Other options include heading to free museums or landmarks you can head to in a the area you’re visiting, which will certainly keep off the pennies when compared to often expensive paid exhibits and venues.
- Turn off mobile roaming
Finally, we have this! One of the common smartphone related disasters is leaving roaming charges switched on, which can lead to astronomical charges for the privilege of using your phone as normal abroad. You can head into your settings to turn this off or, better yet, switch your phone off entirely. You’re on holiday – get away from it all!
Of course, such advice is only scraping over the surface of many of the savings you can make. Hopefully it will provide you with the impetus to get out there and find more opportunities. For further advice on saving money on all things holiday related, you can check out that guide or you can search online for plenty of other ideas.