Saving money on vacations

[Caleb]

How do you save money when you go on family vacations? Vacations are expensive enough (hotel, airfare, etc.) How do you save money on the activities or the food?

 

[jason]

Try to go to less visited places. Visit a small town on the coast instead of a big destination like Daytona.

Stay outside the town. If you go to Orlando and get a hotel close to Disney, it will cost you. You go slightly outside, and you can save a bit more.

You can get a hotel room that is a suite which will have a stove, sink, fridge. Bring your own food and cook in.

I have been thinking about hotel deal websites.

 

[BigJohn]

We actually drove to Florida from Chicago to save money. There was 4 of us, and we all had more vacation time than money. So, we saved on not needing airfare and not needing a rental car.

Look out for deals where you can buy combo tickets for attractions. Sometimes this will save you a bit and you'll get to see several different types of entertainment.

 

[Caleb]

Thanks for the great tips so far. Keep them coming everyone. I love the suite idea and cooking in. Although not sure if my wife would love it, she is on vacation too.

 

[jason]

Yeah, that is the hard part about cooking in. A lot of times we made simple meals or frozen foods. I did a lot of frozen pizza's with friends, and then just simple eggs & sausage in the morning. It was nice too because we could always just relax at the suite. They one we stayed at a lot had a huge couch, TV with the ability to hook up a playstation (the original, not sure if they do HDMI now), a nice balcony, and the pool/jacuzzi was always nice to relax by. A lot cheaper then having to spend the day at local attractions.

 

[Samuel]

What we usually do as a family is we make sure that wherever we go that we can afford at least to enjoy ourselves a little bit and make sure that we can frequently eat out as well. I think this is an important calculation/addition to your vacation expenses.

 

[Sampson]

We also look to rent a room with a kitchen or kitchenette. Just doing breakfast in the room, (frozen waffles, toast, cereal, oatmeal, and so on), We save quite a bit. Then we always carry a bag with snacks so that the kids have something to munch on and don't ask for every treat we pass by.

 

[Cruise]

Instead of going on the holidays, Try to go on the "off season" when the tourism attractions are less visited. You would usually get great deals for hotels, rented cars, entrance tickets, etc.

 

[MilwaukeeJoe]

We schedule our flights on Tuesdays verses the weekend or on Monday. Tuesdays always seem to have cheaper airfare than the other days. We also sign up for email from airlines, hotels and rental cars as they will send out notices for special deals.