Hellobee

While I’ve posted before about the great benefit of using points and miles to travel on the cheap, sometimes cash is preferred for a variety of reasons. There may be a great cash fare and it would be a waste of miles (depending on how you value those particular points and miles). Also, with a cash fare, you earn miles while flying to add to your mile bank. I have friends who don’t want to use credit cards and therefore aren’t able to rack up as many miles that can be used for free flights. We may want to go somewhere on a particular airline where we don’t have points or miles. This post focuses on tips on traveling frugally using cash, with respect to the biggest ticket items: traveling to the destination and finding lodging. In Part 2, I’ll give some tips on frugal travel beyond major transportation or lodging costs.

Panda playing near some Mayan ruins on our most recent vacation.

Picking Your Destination

I discuss this a bit more on finding cheap flights as flexibility in the destination can help find some great fares. However, keeping in mind the actual costs once you’re on the ground of various destinations is something that should be factored in. While a flight to Southeast Asia might be a bit pricey, hotel costs, transportation within the country or region and food costs are much lower. You can get a really nice hotel for less than $50 a night in a country like Vietnam and some great street food for less than $2 a meal. Likewise, you can find low in-country costs in Latin America. Often times, flights to Asia or Latin America from the United States aren’t much more than flights to Europe (and sometimes they’re even a bit cheaper) and the lower on-the-ground costs can help reduce the total cost of the trip.

Finding Cheap Flights

Secret Flying – The folks over at Secret Flying manage to find absolutely amazing deals, almost all of which are cash based and, for the most part, economy fares. I have seen fares from Washington, DC to South Africa or Cameroon for $400 or fares to a wide range of cities in Europe for $480-$600. There was recently a fare from Los Angeles or San Francisco to Thailand for $300. There are a few caveats to note when looking at deals posted to Secret Flying. First, you should definitely read the full blog post on a particular fare because Secret Flying will note when you should be cautious about booking the rest of your trip (for example, hotels and tours, especially if non-refundable) because some of their fares are “error fares” or “fuel dumps” and the airline might revoke the booking before it is ticketed. They generally say that for an error fare, once the booking is ticketed you’re pretty safe, but I would still wait at least a week or so. Additionally, there are often very specific instructions on how to book a particular deal; sometimes you have to use the non-US version of a booking site (like the New Zealand domain of Expedia, for example) to find the deal. It’s probably best to follow Secret Flying on Twitter since many of these deals are gone quickly, but I’ve had some success sticking to their blog or Facebook page. They have deals originating from all over the world, so those outside the United States can make use of this site, too.

The Flight Deal – I’m a big fan of The Flight Deal for finding great fares. The fares advertised on The Flight Deal usually stick around a bit longer than Secret Flying as it doesn’t rely as much on error fares, but rather just on really great deals and sales on various airlines. Again, Twitter will get you the most up-to-the-minute fares, but I generally just use the blog or Facebook as my personal preferences.

Get the Flight Out – If you’re in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco or Seattle, you might have some luck with Get the Flight Out. If you’re flexible about where you want to go and want to take an immediate trip, you select one of those six cities of origin and can find out where you can fly in the next day at what are often incredible prices. Not in one of those six cities? You can try the Get the Flight Out app instead (though the fares I’ve seen there for my city aren’t as good as the six listed above).

Flight search engines – I used to rely on Kayak or Expedia to find flights, but they have limitations and don’t search some of the budget airlines or regional airlines. Instead, I now use Google Flights or Momondo. I’ve also heard great things about Skyscanner. Using multiple search engines can ensure that you’re capturing all the airlines. What I like about using Google Flights or Momondo is that I don’t have to put in a particular destination and can just put in my originating airport and the dates I want to fly and either select a region or search everywhere (and can use a map option) to figure out what the cheapest flights are for those dates. If you’re not set on a particular destination, this is a great way to find inexpensive flights for specific dates.

Direct search of budget airlines – When we lived in Europe, we routinely checked Easyjet and Ryanair directly to see what cheap flights we could find. We ended up going to Denmark and Sweden in a weekend because of an incredible deal. I remember purchasing a flight to Spain then to Morocco with a return to London, with one leg of that trip costing a mere $12. Air Asia has some great fares for travel within Asia. Figure out what the budget airline is in the region you’re flying and check directly. We booked some of these trips well in advance, while others we reserved with less than two weeks notice. Of course, keep in mind that many of these budget airlines charge for everything and you’ll likely be required to pay for checked luggage because they will weigh your carry-on and severely restrict how much you can bring in your carry-on.

Booking on foreign websites – If you use the United States version of various airline websites, sometimes those prices will be higher than if you go directly to the foreign airline’s website (the non-US version) and try to book in their currency. You do have to be careful when doing this because sometimes that foreign website won’t accept United States credit cards for booking, but if you’re successful, you can save $100 or more on a ticket.

Flying off-peak – One other piece of advice that I have is well-known but worth repeating. Think about where you’re traveling and whether it is high season. Flights to Europe are generally at their highest during the summer. Travel to Australia is incredibly expensive over Christmas. Shoulder season, in early spring or late fall are great times to travel (if you’re able to) because tourist season is over, kids are back in school, and the weather is changing. When we went to Iceland a few years ago, we noticed that prices dropped dramatically after September 1, as much as 50% for lodging and car rentals, but we didn’t miss much by traveling during this shoulder season. Additionally, while travel is incredibly expensive within the United States over Thanksgiving, it is often quite inexpensive to fly internationally at that time because there is low demand for international flights. Interestingly, two years ago I was able to find cheaper flights from Washington, DC to Vietnam than I was from DC to Seattle for dates around Thanksgiving, even though those flights to Vietnam had connections through Seattle! We also try to fly on off-peak dates, like departing on a Wednesday or Thursday and returning on a Saturday, instead of trying to book Friday through Sunday.

Other Forms of Transportation

While I have a lot of tips above on flights, don’t forget about road trips which can be a great way to travel for a nice weekend (or longer) getaway. Living in DC, there are numerous great destinations just a car ride away.

Don’t discount buses, either. I used to travel with some frequency to New York when I worked at a very small, not very well-funded NGO and generally traveled via bus because a bus ticket was $20 as compared with train tickets which were $80-$140 one way. Bolt Bus and Megabus are a couple of big ones to check out both in the United States and abroad. When we lived in London, it was not uncommon to find one pound tickets from London to Scotland. Talk about a great deal!

Lodging

Airbnb – I’m a big fan of Airbnb and it’s easy to filter for the results you want. If you want an entire home to yourself, you can search for it, see reviews and look at pictures of the property. With kids, in particular, there are advantages to renting out a home instead of staying in a hotel room; often the prices I’ve found at Airbnb to be around the same as what we would pay for a hotel or less. VRBO is another helpful site.

Priceline – I’ve actually not had particularly good luck the one time we tried Priceline for lodging. We ended up staying much farther away than I wanted in a pretty bad hotel, but I’m listing it here because I know of several people who swear by Priceline’s name your price hotel.

Home Exchange – We’ve never done this, but I am intrigued by the idea. You can home swap with someone for a set period of time and I love the idea of just swapping houses rather than paying for lodging.

Hostels – Don’t discount hostels just because you have a family! While we have yet to stay in a hostel with our kids, I have stayed in some hostels that have private rooms large enough to accommodate our family. They are quite inexpensive and some were more like bed and breakfasts operated out of someone’s home, which provides a great cultural experience.

Camping – One of the biggest draws to Iceland for me is the huge number of campsites. I can’t wait to take our kids camping and it is a very inexpensive alternative to hotels once you have the equipment (which, if you don’t own, you can often borrow from friends or purchase used for a good price). Plus, it’s a lot of fun and a great experience in itself.

Stay tuned for more tips on traveling on a budget!