My husband and I went to Europe just after we had bought our first home and spent all our savings filling with furniture. We were shocked by our credit card statements when we came back to our normal life. We had a fantastic experience: fancy restaurants, comfy hotels, and famous museums over 7 cities. I didn’t realize how much we spent on food until I saw the bills.
After that I figured if we want to explore the big world with our small pockets, we need to solve the problem of how to plan a fancy trip and stick to a budget.
Step-By-Step Tips
First off, you will be a lot of happier if you figure out how much you have to spend on a vacation instead of thinking how much you need to spend.
What Is Your Budget?
There are a few tricks to help you figure out how much you can spend.
If you are an average American, chances are you will spend 90% of your paycheck on food, house, car, and some unexpected expenses (we always have unexpected expenses), leaving the remaining 10% available to save for vacation. You could dive into the details and calculate exact numbers, but a ballpark estimate will get you to vacation with a lot less thinking.
An even easier way to do it is to set up a separate account under your primary bank and put 10% of each paycheck into this account, and never withdraw until you head out.
After you have an idea of how much you can spend, comes the exciting part: finding your destination and burning each penny for maximum fun.
Finding A Place To Go
If you are like me sometimes, you just need a vacation but have no idea where to go. General searches on websites can get you a lot of ideas.
Open Google and type in something simple and general, such as “best places to go in April,” or “where can I travel solo.” Searches like that will inspire you with a lot of ideas. You can also look into travel blogs on Pinterest. They will tell you where the fun places are and will also guide you on what you can do and see there. Some of them even give you a grab-and-go itinerary.
Another unusual way to search is an app called “Skyscanner,” available in the Apple App Store and Google Play. Skyscanner has a feature called “Explore Everywhere,” that allows you to explore flights from your home to anywhere at any time to see what cheapest choices excite you – what a cool feature!
When you have the idea of where you want to go, check out what you can do there before you book your reservations. Let’s just make sure it is everything you want for a vacation.
Finding Fun Things To Do
To find things you can do at your destination, you can go back to Google again, but be more specific, such as, “fun things to do in Miami.” You may also browse travel blogs on Pinterest for more details. TripAdvisor is another source to explore “Things To Do” at your destination. TripAdvisor also provides lots of Tours.
Planning The Logistics
If you found where you want to go and have an idea of what you want to do, Score! Now we can move on to the next step: planning the logistics.
You’ll probably fly to your destination. (Road trips are another story – one I’ll devote an entire post to later.) First things first, you need to book the flight, the earlier the better. I usually book my travel flights 4-6 months early – that far out, most of time I can get a good deal.
If the airfare is within 15% of your total budget, it’s probably a good price.
When looking for cheap airfares, if you can be a little be flexible with your vacation dates then click “show flexible dates” on sites like Expedia.com and it will show you the prices within a week around your initial departure date.
“Skyscanner,” which I mentioned before, allows you to choose a destination and find the cheapest price at any time.
And I know what you struggle about, what if I can’t go at that time, am I throwing all my money away? A simple solution is to purchase travel insurance which can fully refund your airfare if you have to cancel, compensate you for lost luggage, and cover some medical emergencies. It won’t cost you much but will give you some worry-free sleep.
Finding Accommodations
If you don’t plan to rent a car at your destination, then choose a hotel located in the city center or within a 10-minute walk of public transportation. Go to a booking app (Booking.com, Expedia, Hotels.com), and look at the reviews to see if people visited here said it is convenient location. Double-check on Google Maps, by getting directions from the hotel to sites you want to visit.
If you plan to rent a car to explore your destination, then you can stay a little further which will save you a lot of money. Be sure to check the hotel policy to see if they charge extra for parking which can add a very unexpected expense to your budget.
Finding What To Eat
Search on travel blogs for your favorite type of food in that destination. Check recommendation apps like Yelp and OpenTable or look in Google Maps for “Restaurants near me” in that location. Be sure to ask the locals – this is the best and easiest way to find amazing food.
Hang On, You Are Almost There
Write down your itinerary like this (you can do this on your phone):
Day 1: home to airport, airport to hotel
Day 2: visiting XXXX stay at XX hotel
Last Step, Before You Head Out
Since you already paid your airfare, booked your hotel(s), and planned your itinerary, put one number to keep in your mind, now: an estimate of how much money you can spend each day. As you travel, try to stick to that number and you’ll come back home pretty close to the budget you planned.
Hope you have a wonderful trip. I’ll see you in my next post.
