Let’s assume you have plenty of vacation time, or are retired with lots of time — and desire to travel extensively. Here are suggestions for cheap travel allowing maximization of your travel explorations.
First suggestion: Focus first upon your region, state, the U.S. and Canada. I’ve always been somewhat aghast at friends who notch their belts counting foreign countries visited, yet have only toured a handful of states in the wonderful U.S., and often skip both Canada and Mexico. Hence, visit your current region and country first — there is so much to see in the West and throughout the United States.
If you adopt that goal, you can see most of the West, or all of our country, via private auto. We’re into travel with smaller autos (ours, a Ford Focus and Ford Escape, 40 and 30 MPG, respectively), and lightweight and/or classic travel trailers (up to 27 MPG towing our teardrop trailer). Use the same approach for rental cars; smaller cars use less gas and cost less to rent. If you find you’ve chosen a rental car too small, you can always upgrade on the spot (and frequently, rental agencies will upgrade the size you have asked for).
On longer trips, don’t hesitate to ask friends or family along the way to spend the night. Most of us maintain an extra bedroom/guestroom just for that purpose. If you’re booking a motel, we’ve found websites like Priceline.com or Booking.com allow us to reserve a night’s lodging from the road (often for that same night), saving 40 to 50 percent over a reservation made days earlier.
If you like to meet people and learn about local lore, consider joining a club like the Affordable Travel Club (affordabletravelclub.net). We have been members of ATC for three years; our yearly $65 membership allows us to email or phone one of the ATC’s 3,000 members nation or worldwide, get a night’s lodging and a sumptuous breakfast, tipping the host just $20 on departure. In addition to overnight accommodations with a lovely host — saving big bucks over staying at a chain motel — you learn so much about the community with hosts proud to share details.
The ATC also offers a bulletin board offering house-sitting assignments. In the past two years, we have spent two weeks house sitting a beautiful condo on Seattle’s Queen Anne Hill, a month house sitting in Edmonds, Washington, near Puget Sound and affording us travel to many parts of the Pacific Northwest. This past spring, three weeks house sitting a beautiful home in Tucson, Arizona, allowed side trips to many Arizona highlights. Sometimes these assignments come with plants to water or pets to feed, but zero cost for beautiful lodging is hard to beat.
We have three weeks of house sitting coming up in Taos, New Mexico, in April, and 2½ weeks in June in St. George, Utah, a stone’s throw from Zion and Bryce Canyon national parks. With most of these, we take along our tiny travel trailer to camp along the way and on the way home. Traveling with small, classic travel trailers is another story in its own right; I will save that for another day.
For meals, we take advantage of continental breakfasts offered by motel chains (and pack an apple or banana for a midday snack), and travel with granola and a cooler full of milk and drinks for breakfast, drinks and snacks en route. If we’re dining out at nice restaurants, we often split a salad and main course — with America’s often huge portions — we’ve never left hungry and cut our bill by almost half. For a quick lunch stop on the road, two McDonald’s McDoubles and two senior coffees have never left us hungry — less than $5.
If you are traveling by air, consult Conde Nast Traveler (cntraveler.com) or other online travel resources for best day/time of week and how far in advance to purchase airline tickets and save considerably over last-minute airline purchases. Conde Nast recently reported the best day to purchase airline tickets is Sunday, especially if booking more than 21 days in advance; the cheapest days to fly are Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
When flying, pack light, with a carry-on roller-bag and a backpack — avoiding paying for checked bags, the long line to retrieve baggage off the carousel or, worse, lost luggage. Take snacks or lunch for your time in the terminal or on the flight; better food and cheaper than you’ll buy at the airport.
If you’re into luxury cruises (we’ve done several European small ship cruises with Grand Circle Cruise Lines), we go to Grand Circle’s website, gct.com, search for Ways to Save, then Last Minute Travel Deals (“last minute” generally means you’ll depart in 6-8 weeks; we retirees have that luxury). In December, a 15-day adventure “Christmas Markets on the Rhine,” with airfare and three additional days in Basel, Switzerland, cost the two of us $7,078 total — well less than the $10,000-plus regular pricing. Other cruise lines also offer “last minute departures” with significant savings
