Money Saving Tips for Travel

I love to travel. I hope I can travel to at least one new place I have never been to before each year. Not only I like to see many different places, I also love to save during my trip. Here are some money saving tips I would love to share with you:

1. Go traveling with a group of people. There are many costs you can share with others when you are traveling, such as gas, parking, hotel room and so on. I typically go on vacation with my roommates who are my friends as well in a group of three or four. Besides the savings, I also find that traveling in a group is more fun and less stressful sometimes since different people have different strength. For example, some people might be good at finding the direction while others are good at searching for deals. Having different people responsible for different parts of the trip makes things so much easier.

2. Take the trip during off season. You can find many awesome deals if you go during an off-season. For example, you can go to Disney World in Orlando in September which is hurricane season for Florida. Since Orlando is in-land, the most you will get is probably just rain. If you are going for a week or so, the possibility to have rain all week is pretty low. Also, you can try to go to Vegas during June or July. There are plenty deals to find for Vegas during that time as well, from Free hotel stays to Free gift cards, etc.

3. Find a place with lots of free activities. Vacation does not have to be expensive. Try to find some places with lots of free activities. Have fun and save money too. One of the great examples is Washington DC. Almost all of the attractions are free there. It is a great get away place for the whole family, from various museums to the lovely night life in Georgetown. You will just love it.

4. Plan ahead. Sure, you can find some last minute's deal. But it only works if you don't care where you want to go. If you would like to take a vacation in a specific place, planning ahead will save you a lot of money. When we go traveling, we usually plan the trip at least a month ahead. Search online for deals and ask people about the place we want to go. Two online forums I use a lot to search for the price of airline tickets and hotel rooms are www.betterbidding.com and www.biddingfortravel.com Pay attention to how much people are paying for their vacation in the place you want to go. You will score big rewards by planning ahead.

That is about what I can think of to save some money while traveling. Do you have any to share?

DC Trip Expenses

Finally, I have all the expenses for my DC trip calculated. We have spent $435 each person for a three days trip to Washington DC during May long weekend. The following is the break down(for each person):

1. Airline Ticket: $185.78. This includes all the tax and fees for a round trip flight to DC.

2. Hotel: $128 for three nights at a 4 star Hotel downtown DC.

3. Parking at the airport: $9

4. Gas: $28

5. Train to Baltimore: $6.1, our return flight was departed from Baltimore Airport. So we had to take the train to the airport.

6. Miscellaneous: $96.12, this will include food, metro pass, tips for the housekeeping in the hotel, etc.

Overall, I think we have spent wisely on our trip.

Sometimes, Less is More

My friends and I just returned from our 2 days trip from Washington DC. In just two days, we have visited the Washington Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Capitol Hill, White House, Library of Congress, Air and Space Museum, Spy Museum, the ZOO. We were exhausted!!

Two days are definitely not enough to explore DC. In the plan, the places we wanted to visit are far more than those just mentioned. But, in the end, we realized that we simply could not handle that many in just two days. So we decided to change the original plan and focus on the most important ones. We were glad that we have made that decision. Instead of running all over the places and not having seen anything in enough depth, changing the plan allowed us to taste Washington much more and actually enjoy it. Sometimes, less is just more.