TRICKS FOR A BUDGET-FRIENDLY TRIP

If like me, you are a student who has a temporary job and or are financially limited, then this article will help you. I will give you a few tricks and tips of how to save up on a trip for you to be ready for your next one... :)

1. Don't hesitate to have 10 pages opened

Shopping for the perfect deal is not easy, it requires a lot of patience and planning. Ideally, to find a great deal, you can't allow yourself to shop last minute otherwise the prices will probably end up being overpriced. Depending on where you are planning to go, you can ask around an estimated cost that would be a reasonable price to pay, per example, going to Europe, depending on which country, more precisely which city you are going to land, prices will vary. When I had planned to go to Europe in September 2018 I had at least 20 pages opened of different flight sites, with different offers and different options of cities to land in. I had laid out the closest cities from my granny's hometown and compared the prices. Searching for a good deal for my trip in Spain and France I knew paying over 850$ wouldn't be a good barging me because I tend to be a little bit maniac which pages opened on my computer, I won't lie, it annoyed me to have so many internet pages opened all at once I hate having more than 2-3 browser pages opened and more than 4 pages to slide through. So if I am strongly suggesting you not to hesitate to have a thousand pages opened in order to find the best deal than you should. 

2. Read about the key things to visit

When you plan to visit a new destination that you aren't very familiar with and you are traveling either alone or with people who have never been there, I strongly suggest to read and watch documentaries or videos about where you are going. Learn more about the culture in itself, the history, the background of the country, fun facts regarding the destination, typical food depending on regions you'll be visiting, what that specific country or city is known for, monuments that you must visit, and so on. Everything and anything new you can learn about where you are travelling to will be very useful. Knowing what you will do will allow you to plan how much money you will spend since you can look up if there are visiting fees or certain places are free. What I did when I went to Barcelona and Paris, I searched everything about those cities: monuments, museums, neighbourhoods, typical meals, classic deserts, anything regarding where I was going. Then I looked up how much that would cost to have an estimation of how much I would spend for activities and when I was there that's when I planned out my days depending on the weather and my mood. I would try to form a path so that I wouldn't be all over the place and run around town to go from activity A to activity B. This allowed me to plan how many public transportation tickets I would be using. While I am talking about that, it is important to get informed about how you will travel around the cities, if you will be walking most of the time or if you will take a pass or tickets in order to take the bus and metro. It allows you to somehow plan out  your day and how much travel you'll be doing. Doing so avoids you to spend unnecessarily on transports tickets because you wrongly planned your stuff.  

3. Remember that this is YOUR trip

If you are looking at all the possible places you could visit, just because the city is known for all, it doesn't mean you have to do it. Some things might not be worth it just because that country or that city is known for it. However, there are things that you MUST do, per example going to Paris but not seeing the Eiffel tower is unthinkable. That doesn't mean you have to go up the tower if you don't want to, a simple picture from afar might even be way better, however the view you get from climbing up is amazing. You get to see a lot of Paris all around. Taking a picture in front of the tower is free, climbing up is either 5€ or 9€, (for a student under a certain age). At the end of the day, it's your trip and you are make the final decisions of what to invest your money in, you don't have to visit everything and spend on whatever. People who have visited the places you plan on going to might suggest you things to do and spots to go to, but you are the one making the decisions at the end. Depending on how long you'll be staying for, it will somehow give you an idea of how much you can do and how much you an logically see. You choose what to invest in and what you think is worth paying for. Don't travel having in mind to fill up your social media, but rather to make new amazing memories and discoveries. Taking pictures is a great way to immortalize your souvenirs but it shouldn't become the sole goal of your trip, experiencing something as amazing as traveling should be. Enjoy it as much as you can while it lasts.

A tourist offered to take a picture of me after I took one of him.

4. Compare prices to find the best alternatives for your budget

When shopping for everything regarding your trip you shouldn't hesitate to lay down all the possibilities for your trip, for example you can stay in a hotel, stay in an Airbnb, stay in a hostel or stay in someone's house; traveling from a city to another, you can either take the plane, take the train, rent a car, carpool or take the bus. However, at first the cheapest solution might not really seem the cheapest. When I was traveling from Toulouse (a city in south of France) to Paris I had looked at all the alternatives possible: a 1h flight, a 6h bus ride or a 4h30 train ride. The bus ride was the cheapest at approximately 30€ but wasted me two days of travel. The train came second as the cheapest but had odd hours which ended up wasting me more or less a day/ a day and a half just for the travel AND it was cheaper than the flight by maybe 15€ so for 7h of additional travel and the money I had to put in food since I would be hungry at some point ended up being as expensive or even more expensive than the flight. So I ended up choosing the plane which was still cheap, the roundtrip costed me 78€.  

To sum it up, I suggest you to put in thought and planing if you want to save as much as you can on your next trip or if you want to spend the least possible. That doesn't mean you should deprive yourself because after all you're on vacation and should enjoy your travel.