Stop Overpaying for Travel: Our Ultimate Guide to Budget Travel

Being a person who absolutely loves to travel but doesn’t have a ton of money to spend on luxurious vacations has taught me a lot about how to be a frugal traveler. I have been blessed with the ability to travel to a lot of countries around the world. Now that I’m married we have taken traveling to the next level. For the last 3+ months my husband and I have been traveling through Europe. I have had this dream for years and now finally I get to do it with the love of my life! But we are not rich yet so we definitely have had to adjust ourselves to a budget to make it possible. Traveling for this long has taught us a thing or two on how to save money while traveling. In this article I will share with you some of the things we have done, or things not to do, to stay on budget while traveling for a prolonged period of time. I have divided these tips into the four main categories that involve traveling and added a couple of things at the end. 

Transportation

Save on flight tickets.

Probably the biggest one-time expense that you will have on a trip like this is the plane ticket itself. Especially if you are traveling to a different continent. So, saving money on this one item will cut down your expenses significantly. I will tell you what we did to cut down on this expense, and then I will give you an important caveat. PLEASE do not skip through the caveat because it is important. We got a travel credit card a few months prior to purchasing our flight tickets. This did not mean that we got our tickets for free but because of a large sign-on bonus it did mean that we only paid half price for them and that now after putting all of our travel expenses onto that card we are accumulating enough miles for another flight in the future.

Now for the caveat.

This is not me telling you to go ahead and sign up for a credit card. I am not of the belief that credit cards are wrong and you should never ever use them, because obviously we do use them. BUT, I do believe that you should NOT use them if you don’t know how to use them. The majority of people have a self-control problem when it comes to credit cards and that is why we have people like Dave Ramsey advising people to not use them at all. And I agree to an extent. But in my personal experience, and my husband’s, we have used them for our benefit and not harm. We have been using them for years and have never had to pay a late fee.

I’ve been using a credit card for years now but I don’t use them as most people do. I basically use it as a debit card, meaning, I only use it WHEN and IF I already have the money in my bank account to pay right away. Not if I WILL get the money at the end of the month in my paycheck, but if I ALREADY have the money in my account. And most of the time I go ahead and pay it either right away or several weeks before the payment deadline. In this way, I’m only taking advantage of the benefits and I have never had to pay late fees or interest. So, I’m not your mother, but I will tell you to not get a credit card if you have not educated yourself on it. Never treat it like a short-term loan! This is why we have such a monstrous amount of consumer debt in the world today. 

Book the flight months in advance and travel during off season.

Especially if you are doing a long trip, planning for it months in advance will save you a lot of money. We started looking into flights and monitoring the prices about 8 months before traveling. Then we booked them about three months in advance when we had saved the money for it. This is almost common knowledge, but the closer you are to the time of your flight, the pricier they will be. So, do your best to book months in advance. Also, if at all possible, travel during off season. I know that this is not always possible because of work and what-not, but if you can, avoid traveling during peak seasons like the summer. This not only will make your tickets cheaper but it will also make everything else less expensive as prices rise when demand is high. Not to mention that you will avoid the big crowds. 

Be flexible and open to using all kinds of transportation.

I know this one will not be for everyone, but explore all the options and be ok with trying new things in terms of transportation. In countries like the U.S. driving is basically the only option, but in other places, including most of Europe, you can get pretty much anywhere with public transport. If you don’t have a strict schedule, public transport will be considerably cheaper than renting a car. Not only that, but driving a car can sometimes be more of a hassle in some places because of how challenging finding parking spots can be, and not to mention how crazy driving in a foreign place is. So far we have traveled by trains, buses, ferries, trams,  bikes, and cars (I’m sure I’m probably forgetting something lol, I feel like we’ve done it all!). Some have definitely been better than others, some I’m not sure if I’d do again, but it’s all part of the experience. We saved a ton of money and we have some crazy stories to tell. I should say that even though some of these were not the fanciest or nicest options I never felt unsafe in any of them. 

Don’t buy the tourist cards, they are usually more expensive.

A lot of big cities in Europe have these tourist passes that include public transport in the city and ticket discounts to some of the attractions. My recommendation is not to get those and just buy the regular passes that locals get because it’s usually cheaper. Also, believe it or not, some cities even have free or very cheap transport. We were so pleasantly surprised whenever we found out that Belgrade, Serbia had free transport (I know it’s pretty wild!) and Romania had extremely cheap transport (we’re talking about 0.25 cents per ride, and some days were free). 

Get used to walking a lot.

I’m telling you that after we are back to the States from Europe you’ll probably see me walking to Walmart if it’s under an hour 😂. We have walked so much here that now I don’t know what it’s like to get in a car and drive somewhere. But in all seriousness, you will save a lot of money by walking. For the most part you can get places using public transport in the cities but sometimes walking will be faster (and free of course). But also, if you just want to take taxis everywhere it will start to add up. Not to mention that most times they will take advantage of you and charge you way more than the fair price. I come from a country where taxi drivers like to get their way and upcharge people so I’m already hyper-aware of this, so for the most part I don’t like to take taxis and have them choose a price. If you need to take a taxi though, I recommend going for a service that will give you the price upfront like uber or bolt (bolt is the main one used in Europe and it’s surprisingly cheap depending on the country). 

Lodging

Lodging is probably the biggest expense overall when traveling long-term so cutting down in this area will make a huge difference. 

Have flexible dates.

Often you will find the same place for a much cheaper price just by changing the day of the week, the days in the month or the months overall. One of the benefits of traveling for an extended period of time, and on your own schedule, is the flexibility you get. We do have a rough timeline and schedule, for instance we try to stay about a week in each place we go. But we are pretty flexible on specific dates and where to go next. This allows us to stay longer in cheaper places and book ahead in nicer places for a lower price.

For instance, when trying to find a place to stay in Budapest  it was very hard to find a place within our budget that didn’t require sharing a kitchen and bathroom with other guests. Everything nice was super overpriced. Our solution? We found a cheaper place a little farther from the city center and not as nice (it was decent but it was one of those with shared bathrooms and kitchen). We stayed there for a couple of nights and then we were able to move to a nicer place closer to all the attractions in the city. It required a little more effort but it allowed us to stay on budget. Having a flexible schedule allows you to get creative. 

Longer stays are cheaper.

For the most part, longer stays give you cheaper nightly rates. So, if you are doing an extended trip try to stay in one place for longer. Like I said, since we are traveling for a few months we try to stay in each place for about a week (AirBnB offers significant weekly and monthly discounts on most listings). Staying longer in one place is better for many reasons though. Not only will it make your lodging cheaper overall, but it will allow you to enjoy the place more and really take it in. At the beginning of our travels we were moving so much quicker and spending less time in each place. Mainly because we were going through western Europe and these are much more expensive countries so we didn’t want to spend too long in them. This resulted in us feeling so tired and burned out. Now that we’ve slowed down we are enjoying it so much more! 

Not everything is about aesthetics, sometimes functionality is superior.

I know that you want your Instagram-worthy apartments that you can take the most beautiful pictures in, and I’m not going to lie, I like nice things too! But when you are traveling for a longer time,  and on a budget, staying in super luxurious places every time is just not sustainable. Sometimes we have had to sacrifice staying in that super cute Airbnb and go for a decent place that has what we needed to stay on budget. Like a very rough room that looked like it was still in the communist era in Belgrade, Serbia. But don’t get discouraged! If you stick around I will tell you how we were able to find nice places to stay within our budget. 

Stay outside of the main tourist hubs.

Don’t underestimate small towns just outside of the big cities. When you stay in the main tourist areas within a city (especially a popular city like Paris or Rome), you are not necessarily paying for a nice place to stay, but for the location. I recommend you expand your search radius and look for places that are farther from the city center but within a reasonable distance by public transport to go see everything. We loved staying in MittenValde next to Berlin, Germany; Lille near Paris, France, and the outskirts of Budapest, Hungary.  This will add some commute to your daily activities depending on what you are doing, but it will make the prices so much lower and it will give you more for what you pay. 

Food

Cook your own meals as much as you can.

One of the main things that we look for when searching for a place to stay is that it has a working kitchen. This is one of the main reasons we usually stay in Airbnb’s. Just like at home (and even more) eating out all the time will add up pretty quickly, not to mention that it’s not good for your health. We try to cook most of our meals and we might go out once or twice in every place we visit. When we do go out it’s mainly to try the local cuisine or on traveling dates. 

Avoid eating at the tourist centers, find local food where locals usually eat.

It is amazing how much prices sky-rocket just because of the area the restaurant is in. Funny story, at this point we have visited most of the countries in Europe and we have yet to eat at one of those restaurants in the main squares of the old towns where all the tourists go. They look super cute and nice, but I also know that they are pretty much charging you for the “privilege” of eating at the main square. Here in Budapest you could go to New York Cafe and grab a small meal for around $30 USD, or you could go to a small local coffee shop just a couple of kilometers away for around $7-10 USD. Sometimes you will find the same kind of food and maybe even better and bigger rations in restaurants just a little farther from the main hubs. When we were staying with my friend in Warsaw, Poland he took us to a Milk bar (bary mleczne), which is a popular cafeteria-style restaurant for locals that had traditional food at such a cheap price. We loved it!

Pack your lunch when going touring for a whole day.

Even worse than the old-town centers are the restaurants or food stands in any of the main tourist attractions. I’m talking about museums, castles, exhibitions, etc. Think of it like buying food in an airport, super overpriced but you buy it because you are hungry and have nowhere else to go. To this day, we have not had to do this because we usually eat before we leave the place we are staying and then don’t eat again until we come back for dinner, or we grab something super simple and cheap at a supermarket or a cheap fast food place if we get super hungry. So, check first if it’s ok to take food with you, some places don’t allow it. 

Eat Kebabs!

This is a bonus, we found out about Kebabs for the first time in Czechia when our friends we were staying with took us to try it. They were AMAZING! The best part though, it is super cheap and filling, the best of both worlds! 

Experiences and entertainment

Take advantage of all the free experiences that a city has to offer.

Almost every city you visit will have free attractions or just free things to see and do. One of our favorite museums that we visited in Czechia was a free museum. It was a military museum in Prague and they have the nicest coffee shop on the top with a very nice view of the city. In Serbia we visited Belgrade’s Fort and it was a super nice and impressive Fort that even had an outdoor military museum you could walk through for free. Some of our favorite free things to do in every city are visiting ancient churches, walking through their parks, river walks (when a city has a river going through they almost always have a nice side walk going along it), walking through their streets, finding their historic buildings and learning their history, visiting malls, finding the best spots to watch the sunset, walk through royal parks, and local markets. 

Choose one paid-experience that you want to do and do everything else for free.

I think one of the best things we’ve done to get the most out of a place while staying on budget is choosing one paid-attraction and doing that, and then doing all the other things that are free. For instance, in Paris, we paid to visit the Versailles Palace. This was so worth it! It was such a beautiful and huge palace to explore. After we did that, we felt everything else we saw was a bonus. Of course, we also saw the Eiffel Tower and took tons of pictures in front of it, but we didn’t pay to go to the top. Pro tip: Go  early in the morning (around sunrise). Not only will you get the best pictures, but you will avoid the crowds and the HEAT during the summer. We were in Paris during the heat wave and I was feeling pretty sad (and miserable) that I was not enjoying things due to the heat. But going to see the Eiffel Tower early at sunrise made it so much more enjoyable and it totally changed my mood from then on. If you are not a morning person, and are already thinking this would be so hard, let me tell you I’m not a morning person either and as much as I hate to admit it, it was TOTALLY worth it!

Take advantage of free experiences from services like Airbnb.

Sometimes Airbnb will offer free experiences when you book with them so much. We got to go on a boat tour through Paris with complimentary snacks and drinks. All of it for free!

Book yourself and don’t fall for scams, find the official website for all the attractions.

When you are looking for things to do or the main attractions in a place, you will find so many tour guides trying to sell you their package. A lot of the time they are selling you the same ticket that the official website has, but for a lot more. Always make sure that you are booking with the official website. We found this out while trying to book tickets to enter the Roman Colosseum, there were so many other websites offering the same thing for more money, just for their profit. Don’t fall for this. 

Take advantage of free hours or days of the week in museums and lower fares in attractions.

A lot of the museums will have either free hours or free admission days of the week. Take advantage of these. We got to get into the Museo del Prado in Madrid for free. They have free hours Monday to Saturday from 6pm to 8pm. We had to stand in a long line but it went pretty fast once they opened the free admission and it was worth it. We also got cheaper tickets to the Versailles Palace for booking after 4pm. My friend also told me about the Coliseum being free on Sundays, he said you do have to be willing to go super early and stand in line, but if you want to save money and see it this could be worth it. 

Free walking tours.

One of the coolest “free” things we have found are free walking tours. Almost every major city in Europe (and I’m sure around the world) has free walking tours. Just Google it. We did one in Berlin and one in Budapest and we really liked it. The guides seemed to be very knowledgeable and we got to see all the major historic landmarks in the city. There are also different themes they have on their platforms if you want something more niche. The only caveat with this is that they do expect to receive a tip, which I think is fair, but we did feel like the range the guide suggested was pricey considering it was marketed as a free tour. We gave what we felt was fair and within our budget but I just wanted to warn you because you might feel peer-pressured when you see other people give 20-50 euros per person (which we did see people do). We used Guruwalk to book our free tour and it worked very well. It only takes like a minute to book and it’s super easy to use. 

Destinations

Choose cheaper destinations, sometimes the big-name places are overrated.

I know I’ve been mentioning very popular cities like Paris and Rome. And those are amazing places to visit at least once in a life-time. But my honest opinion is that I feel these places can be so overrated (except for Budapest, I loved Budapest!😍). There are so many other places that offer you just as astonishing views and even more authentic experiences than these “big-name” destinations. So, don’t underestimate the places no one talks about.

Some of my favorite places we visited were places I would dare to say you have never heard about. We went to this small coastal town in Poland named Podczele that honestly had a ghost-town vibe to it, but I loved it so much! It was just tranquil and slow-paced, we didn’t have to fight any crowds, and had some really nice weather when we were trying to escape the heat wave. We found an Airbnb under our budget that was super nice, was about an 8 minute walk to the beach and had a jacuzzi and sauna included in the price. We rented bikes and drove around the island. There were locals there but It felt like we had the town to ourselves. Can you tell I loved staying in this place? (Just a quick tip in case you are thinking of going there or looking into it, there is a musical festival that happens every year in this town around late July or early August. I’d say, don’t go there during this time because it’s huge and my guess is that you’d have a much different experience during this time than the one we had!).

As a general recommendation, if you are planning a trip to Europe, the Balkans and eastern Europe will be much cheaper than western Europe. You will also find less tourists in these countries as they are not as popular. I personally enjoyed these countries much more because in the more popular cities everything seemed like it was just tailored to tourists and it was hard to experience the culture for itself and to differentiate what was authentic and what was just made to look a certain way to attract more tourists. 

Souvenirs

We all love taking something from every place we visit to remind us of the great time we had there (except for my husband lol, he is such a minimalist and “things” give him anxiety). But my opinion, as unpopular as it may be, is that souvenirs are often overrated. Think about it, when was the last time you wore that t-shirt you got at Disney? Or the Minnie ears? Sometimes we get things that look beautiful in the moment but just end up in a “memory box” collecting dust. I’m not trying to point fingers here, I’ve done this plenty of times so I’m mainly talking to myself. I’m going to give you some ideas for things to grab or do that are free or considerably cheaper than all the souvenirs you might want to get everywhere.

Instead of buying expensive souvenirs, take a lot of pictures and videos.

Pictures and videos are your best souvenir to take from each place you go to. We take a lot of pictures and videos of the places we visit and they only cost us the space they take in our phones and camara. You will be able to look back on these pictures and reminisce on the great time you had. Also, you will be able to show it to your family and friends back home. 

If you really want to buy something, get something S-P-C.

I understand sometimes pictures won’t do it. You still want something physical to see and touch. So, I recommend you get something small, practical, and cheap. I have been collecting post cards from the places we go. My vision is to make a gallery wall out of them. Another thing I’ve gotten is coasters because I know we use them at home and they won’t just sit and collect dust. I have a couple at home from places I’ve gone to and everytime I sit and drink something it brings back good memories. So, my recommendation is that you find one little thing that you can get from everyplace or get things that you know you will use at home that are not super expensive. 

Collect currency

Another thing we’ve been collecting is currency. You’re probably already going to need to exchange some currency, so it will be easy to just save some of that. At the end of your travels it will be so fun to see the currencies from all the places you went to. 

Make a scrap book with little things you get or find.

I’ll be honest, this is one that I’ve been wanting to do for years and have not gotten around to, so take it with a grain of salt. But you can collect the little things you get along the way like attraction tickets, transport cards, leaves, etc and make a scrap book out of it. You can get as creative as you want with this!

Pack light

Something that has helped us to not even be tempted to grab expensive souvenirs everywhere is that we are traveling very light (we each only have a backpack and a carry-on bag), so we literally don’t have enough space for more things, so I can only collect very little things from each place if anything. 

Collect mental pictures

The most important thing you will get from your trip are the memories that cannot be saved in photos, but they are the moments that you FEEL the strongest.

Check your motives

it’s all about the experiences you are having, not how luxurious and instagram-worthy the places are.

In this social media era we live in, we pay so much more attention to how we or a place will look in a picture than on the experience itself. This is not to hate on anyone, I love cute pictures and I found myself doing this. But I think sometimes we have to stop and think why are we doing what we are doing? Why do we want to travel and visit these nice places? Is it to explore the world and broaden our  understanding of the world, or is it so that it will look good on Instagram? 

I only opened an Instagram account recently on my 30th birthday. Before,  I didn’t see the appeal to it, it just seemed like an endless scroll of who has the best picture. This trip seemed like the best time to get it because I knew I wanted to document our travels and also, it was the easiest way to connect with the people we met along the way. But soon after getting it I noticed that I was getting too invested in it. How many people saw my story? How many likes did I get? I’ve been wanting to take this trip for years for so many reasons, yet I was letting this little app dictate the experience I was having. So, I cut down and went back to living in the moment without thinking about “posting about it”. I still have it and post occasionally but I have not shared even half of the pictures I’ve taken during this trip. I will get around to it later, maybe. 

I say all this to remind you that even though experiencing nice things is great, we need to check our motives. You might be wanting to take that luxurious all-inclusive trip only to have something that will look good on pictures yet has no depth to it. I know we’re all different and value different things, but the best memories we have are often the ones we made while not spending a single penny. Like visiting churches and getting to know our Christian brothers and sisters around Europe, riding bikes around Podczele in Poland, Swimming in a pond in a small town in Germany called Mittenvalde, or hiking up to a town in a castle in Berat, Albania.

Bonus: Alternative ways to save money.

There are a couple of things that we have heard about and tried to do but it just didn’t work for us for one reason or another. I still wanted to include it here because it might be something that you want to look into and it might work for you. 

House-sitting

There are some platforms where you can sign up to house sit all around the world. The most popular I know of is Trusted House Sitters. We were not able to do this because our schedule was so fluid and changing that we could not align it with the dates that people had. People on the website have specific dates where they need you to house-sit for. Something to point out with this service is that they usually have pets they want you to look after, so if you are allergic to pets or something like that this might not work for you.

Drive campers

This is a very cool option that we looked into. There are camper rental companies that need people to drive the campers back to their locations. You get the camper for free or extremely cheap, and you only need to pay for gas. So you get both a vehicle to drive around and a place to stay, which would save you so much money! This works best if you have a flexible itinerary because they need you to drop them at specific locations, but if it works for you it can be so worth it. 

General advice

Travel with people who have similar spending habits. 

This advice is mainly if you are planning a trip with other people. Try your best to travel with people with similar spending habits, or at least be clear on what your budgets are. For instance, it will be very hard or at least awkward if you’re trying to cook your meals and eat cheap food but your friends are always wanting to eat out in the most expensive restaurants.

During our first couple of weeks of travel we joined a group of friends doing mission work. We had completely different budgets as we were at the beginning of a long journey, but they were only staying there for a couple of weeks. So, for the first week we joined them we stayed in a different place. We chose a pretty cheap hostel. We stayed in the same hotel for the last few days they were in the country. This was over what we had decided to spend on our lodging but we made sure it worked with our overall budget. We made sure to always eat breakfast at the hotel, since it was included in the price,  and then eat cheap food for the rest of the day. Then the rest of the week we were in the country we stayed with our friends that live there and this evened out our budget. So, just make sure that you don’t compromise your budget just to go along with what everyone else is doing. 

Don’t compare your experience with others. 

I want to leave you with this. I keep coming back to social media, but I think this can heavily influence both your expectations and how you experience traveling. Remember that this is your story that you are writing. Don’t try to compare it with whatever you see influencers or people on social media posts. Take it all in and enjoy even the little things. Make this a time you will look back on with joy and thankfulness, not with regret because you were so focused on how others would see it and not so much on how you would experience it. 

Thank you so much for reading!

Until next time, stay rooted and keep wandering.

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