How To Save Money on Summer Vacation
Summer is here and many of us have plans to take some time away to relax by ourselves or with our family. If you have not taken a vacation yet this year, check out these great tips I put together for ideas on how to save money on Summer Vacation.
How to Save Money on Summer Vacation – Staycation
The first and probably the best way to save a ton of money on summer vacation is to take a staycation. Staycations are time off from work where you take day trips and make it back home before bedtime. They can be a great way to save on travel and lodging and work well for folks that can require a little more flexibility with their vacation plans.
How to Save Money on Summer Vacation – Travel
When making vacation plans, it pays to give considerable thought to the best method of travel to get from point-a to point-b. I have found that if we are traveling somewhere that is within 10 hours of driving distance, it pays to just drive vs. trying to fly and then rent a car. This works out this way because we are a family of four. The more people you can cram into a car, the better of you will be by driving vs. flying and purchasing all those plane tickets separately.
If you are going overseas, or driving is not practical/feasible, make sure you are getting your plane tickets for the best possible price. Purchase your plane tickets as far ahead of time as possible and use discount travel websites such as kayak.com to find the lowest possible airfare.
How to Save Money on Summer Vacation – Shelter
If you decide to leave the area vs. taking a staycation – you will need to decide where to stay over-night. While the hotel/motel is convenient, you can very often find lodging for quite a bit cheaper if you rent a home. I have found that renting homes from online vacation rental sites can sometimes offer you a 50%+ discount vs. hotels in the same area.
If you are looking to save even more, try your hand at AirBnB.com for even larger deals. I have not tried it yet, but I hear it really is awesome.
How to Save Money on Summer Vacation – Food
Another great way to save money on vacation is to find ways to eat for less. One great way to save hundreds over the course of your vacation is to cook your own food vs. eating out at restaurants. Cooking for yourself probably won’t be quite as relaxing for most of us, but if you plan ahead (or make a trip to the grocery store once you reach your destination) you can fix some great meals at a large discount.
This money saving tip goes hand-in-hand with renting a home vs. staying in a hotel. Bundle both of these ideas together to save even more!
Another great tip for saving money while on vacation is to pack your own picnic lunch vs. eating out at restaurants. Our family loves to pack picnic lunches because it saves money, allows for greater flexibility, and lets us spend more time enjoying the activities out that we love!
How to Save Money on Summer Vacation – Entertainment
Summer vacations are a great time to head out to theme parks for some high thrills fun. When making plans to head out to a theme park, check out these money saving tips for theme parks.
For that inevitable rainy day that will pop-up during your vacation, resist the temptation to head out to the movie theater. For a family of four, a trip to the movies could run more than $50!!! Instead, if you followed the tip above and rented a house, you could just stop by a Redbox and pickup a DVD for less than $2 and pop it into the home DVD player 🙂
How to Save Money on Summer Vacation – Final Thoughts
As you can see, there are a ton of ways that you can save money while on your summer vacation. I am just scratching the surface here with some of these tips, but these are the best ones to help you save a bundle. What are your tips for how to save money on summer vacation?
During our summer vacation, we visited some of our relatives, went to the beach and during at night we had movie marathons with popcorn on the side. 🙂
Clarisse @ Make Money Your Way recently posted…An Introduction to Contrarian Investing
Clarisse,
That sounds like a great way to save some $$$ if you had fun and took time to relax 🙂
These are great tips. We started using some of them, for example cooking our own meals. Traveling is a good tip, but I didn’t like the trade off that time spent on the road we could use for our vacation.
I am now working on financing our vacations. I save as much as I can into dividend growth stocks and trading options in a sub-account so I always know how much money I have for vacations and spend only dividends and premiums for traveling. The point is I should always have money every year without saving for it.
Martin,
For us, if the destination is within 10 hours drive, it usually takes just about as long to fly as it would just to drive there. Anything over that, and you come out ahead with flights if you can bear the extra expense.
That’s a neat idea about tailoring your vacation to the amount you make from dividends. A great way to keep your spending in check!
I am already in fall and football mode 🙂 I wish I had a summer vacay left though. Seems like it went too fast!
Natalie @ Financegirl recently posted…Positive Money Affirmations
Natalie,
Yeah, I was a little late with that post, lol. I actually typed it out while on summer vacation at the beach during a rain storm 🙂
We tend to rent places that have a kitchen so we can make breakfast in our room and buy lunch meat and bread for lunch. We’ll even buy food for dinner one or two nights to help keep the food budget in check.
Jon @ Money Smart Guides recently posted…Mutual Fund Basics
We usually just went to the parks and had my daughter and her cousins enjoyed riding a bike. And during at night, we played a lot of board games and the kids really loved it!
Kate @ Money Propeller recently posted…Friday Jet Fuel #7
Kate,
Nothing wrong with that 🙂 Many times I think my kids would be happy with something just as simple as this vs. a huge trip to Disney World or something like that.
I’m always telling everyone to look on Groupon and Living Social when they are traveling. I use it all the time!
Alexis,
That’s a good tip. Normally I try to shy aware from groupon and living social because they tend to condition buying stuff that you don’t need. But for traveling, it does seem like they have some great deals.
This summer we have mostly had staycations and been local tourists 🙂 The savings are significant when you don’t have to jump on a plane for every trip, plus, you get to see more on the road for less!
Simon @ Modest Money recently posted…Wyndham Rewards Visa Signature Card Review
Simon,
Some of my most memorable vacations have been staycations. I love the idea of having many shorter vacations vs. one long one half way across the country/world. As you said, you really do get more for your money.
I’ve found a stay cation is a great way to save money. It’s funny how much more time you can have during a vacation when you don’t have to worry about flight delays, leaving early for the airport, traffic, parking, renting a car, etc. during our latest starvation we stayed at a resort near the city and saved by using coupons, carpooling with friends and taking advantage of the free stuff in the area (hiking, biking etc)
Dan @ Our Big Fat Wallet recently posted…Installing a Central Vacuum System
Dan,
Sounds awesome – we definitely stress about plane flights on the way to where we’re headed when we fly. I’m hoping we can load up on staycations for 2015 vs. going anywhere far 🙂