How not to go broke on vacation: life hacks for budget travel

Research the attractions in advance

Before your trip, research the main attractions and make a list of must-see places. Calculate the cost of visiting them and allocate this amount in your travel budget. If it turns out to be too much, find out if there are tourist cards in the city where you will be vacationing.

Such cards give the right to visit certain museums and use public transport for free – this may help you save money. Here are some of them:

Think about how you will move around the city

When you don’t know how to get to the right place, you want to take a taxi: you don’t have to figure out where the stop is, and you will be quickly taken to the right address. But it will also cost an order of magnitude more. To avoid such a situation, before the trip, look at the schedule and features of local public transport: how to get from the airport to the city, which bus or train number suits you, how much the ride costs and what tariffs there are.

Set a daily budget

You probably have a travel budget — the amount you can spend on your trip. Subtract your cultural program expenses from it and calculate how much you can spend each day. And based on this amount, make all your purchases: food, souvenirs, shopping, transportation.

Keep track of your expenses, or better yet, write them down — this way you won’t exceed your daily limit and won’t go hungry the next day. In addition, knowing your exact budget will prevent you from making spontaneous purchases. Keep this amount in mind all the time, and it will be much easier to refuse a Thai massage or a second serving of ice cream.

Don’t use a credit card

The amount on a credit card is the bank’s money. You can’t spend it as easily as you would your own money, because you’ll have to pay it back, sometimes with interest.

Instead, use a multi-currency card when you travel. This is a regular debit card that allows you to open several accounts in different currencies. This is advantageous because you’ll pay in the local currency and the bank won’t charge a conversion fee.

Carry a bottle of water with you

When traveling, you want to drink more often than usual, especially if you are traveling in the summer. To quench your thirst, you have to order inexpensive tea in a cafe or buy drinks in a supermarket. This is not wasteful, but a significant amount of money is spent on water that you could not spend.

Saving is easy: carry a bottle of water with you and fill it up whenever possible. You can buy it upon arrival or take it from home: tourist shops sell collapsible containers that will not take up much space in your luggage.

Choose cafes away from the sights

Cafes and restaurants in tourist areas – near the sights and on pedestrian streets – overcharge and do not care much about the quality of the food. They earn money at the expense of tourists, and locals do not go there. If you really want to enjoy the beautiful view that opens up from the cafe, order a coffee or a glass of wine.

And to eat really tasty and inexpensively, look for restaurants away from the tourist routes. They may look unattractive, and the staff does not always speak English, but in any case, you will understand each other: sign language and a translator on your phone have not yet been canceled.