FFF-Vacations
| August 5, 2011 | Posted by Jessie under Financial Freedom Fridays, Us |
As you already know, Mike and I had a wonderful vacation to the east coast last week. We did a lot of driving, saw some beautiful places, stayed in fantastic hotels/inns/bed and breakfast places, and did everything we wanted:) Vacations are typically a time to splurge (which we did our fare share of}, but it’s also nice to save some money where you can. Today I’m going to share some ways we saved moolah while on vacation.
- Priceline. We stayed at a super fancy {to us} hotel-the Intercontinental-in Boston on our anniversary and the only way the we could afford it was because we booked through Priceline. If you use their Name Your Price option, you can get hotels for up to 60% off, which we happily took advantage of. The room we stayed in typically runs near $300/night and we stayed there for $160! It was worth every penny.
This was the view out of our window:
- Bring food. I don’t know about all of you, but I don’t do well eating out all the time. I am always ready for a home cooked meal when I get home. So to save dinero and to feel a little more at home, we packed enough breakfast and lunch to last the week. We did have lunch out a few days and ate breakfast when we stayed at the bed and breakfast, but packing our cooler full of some turkey, tuna, chips, and snacks got us through a good part of the week. And it gave us a chance to have little romantic picnics.
- Instead of taking a tour, give a tour. Figure out the pretty sights to see {talk to a concierge, use Google, a GPS, grab brochures} and give yourself a tour. Mike and I saw some beautiful sights and didn’t pay a penny. We walked the Boston Freedom Trail using a brochure to tell us what to see; found some picturesque beaches by plugging “beach” into the GPS; Googled our way through Maine’s prettiest sights, and hiked our way to stunning scenes in Acadia National Park.
- Mike put it best when he said, “the memories are worth more than the stuff.” Don’t worry about forking over your hard-earned money for worthless souvenirs or eating at the fanciest restaurants {which usually give you tiny amounts of food for huge amounts of money anyway} or paying someone to drive you up a mountain to see the sunrise when you can do that yourself. Vacations should be about spending quality time with the people you love {and relaxing}:
What tips do you have for saving money on vacations? Any must-see trips we should take?
