5 Great Ways to Save on Vacation

For a week or so in January we left the cold winter weather of Ohio and drove to the Florida Keys. So today I want to share with you a few ways to save on vacation.

5 Great Ways to Save on Vacation:

1. Determine your priorities. Is it really important to stay in a 4 star hotel with all the amenities, or can you be happy in a smaller, slightly outdated but clean room?  We found a 2 star hotel that was rated excellent for it’s cleanliness and and the friendliness of the staff. Our room was small, but the bed was comfortable and housekeeping kept our room so nice and clean. This gave us a larger budget for activities.

2. Talk to the locals. The desk guy at our motel recommended the neatest state park to visit and it had a lovely beach. A crew member on a sailing ship we went on recommended the greatest restaurant where we stuffed ourselves with the best food ever, and didn’t pay any more than we would’ve normally.

3. Pack food. We took milk and cereal for breakfast and sandwich makings, chips, yogurt and fruits for lunches. We also took down our electric skillet and made supper once or twice. We ran out of food once and visited the grocery store. So if you are flying and cannot bring your own food, you could buy it later at a grocery store. By eating breakfast at the hotel and packing our lunches, we saved at least $30 a day. Giving us a larger budget to try new restaurants and new foods when we did eat out.

4. Coupons. Motels, travel centers and other places often have all sorts of flyers for different attractions. Many of these flyers have coupons. Better yet, we found two different booklets filled with coupons. So, we went through, pulled out everything that looked interesting and then did some online research, and compared different places and prices. We saved about $50 with those coupons.

5. Set a daily budget. Decide how much you have to spend throughout the course of your vacation on food and attractions. Then decide what your daily budget is, based on that.  It meant we didn’t get to do several things we wanted to, but we were also able to spend way less on some days and so for our last day we were able to go on a 6 hour cruise and do some really fun things.

Fun doesn’t have to cost a lot. Sometimes, just being together in a beautiful place is enough. 🙂 Do you have any ways to save on vacation?