Budgeting For Traveling Families
Travel has a tendency to be expensive, and it’s even more expensive when you’re trying to take your whole family on the journey with you. If your family are an adventurous band of explorers, you probably have to make some careful considerations about the way you finance your excursions. If you run a strict budget and make wise decisions about the way that you travel, you’d be surprised how soon you can tell everyone to start packing their bags.
Travel Differently
Load up the van and go for a road trip. Bring some canned food with you. Find a place that looks beautiful, pitch a few tents, and start a fire. Camping and other nature trips are some of the least expensive ways to travel with children. This is because you’re able to reuse your core supplies, the food is just as inexpensive as it is back home, and you won’t need to pay for airline tickets when you’re driving to your destination. Instead of flying out to see a national park, travel somewhere a little closer to home.
Economize in Clever Ways
Restaurant food is expensive. If you’re trying to feed a family of four on takeout food every night, you’re going to need a second job just to pay that bill. You can grocery shop, and actually buy healthy foods, for much less. Whole wheat toast, peanut butter, and fresh fruit don’t cost a fortune, and they make for great breakfasts and snacks. If you have access to a refrigerator in your accomodations, you can pick up some lunch meat for sandwiches.
If you’re going to be staying for a week or longer, a hotel is also a massive cost. You might need multiple rooms, and you’ll wind up spending in a week more than what you spend for your monthly mortgage. It’s cheaper and better on space to find a week long rental home or apartment in most places. You’ll even have space to cook!
Choose Budget Friendly Destinations
If you want to take your family to an entirely different country, this is always going to be a costly trip. Choose a country where the cost of living is low. A family can get by in Thailand for cheap – everything is inexpensive, there’s tons of history to learn about, and there’s plenty of things to do. Restaurants in tourist areas charge less than a quarter of what comparable restaurants in most countries charge, so even a luxury experience is a steal.
Make Your Purchases At The Right Time
If you need plane tickets, you’ll probably gasp when you see how much they cost. The trick is to book them as far ahead as possible. If you know you’ll want to take a vacation in two months, perhaps to correlate with your children’s school break, then the best time to buy the tickets in right away. The longer you wait, the more expensive they’ll be. This is especially true for international flights. Booking early can sometimes nearly equate to getting two tickets for the price of one.
If you know for sure that you’d like to see specific attractions once you reach your destination, you might be able to pre-purchase bundled admission online. Most locations that rely on tourism for income will offer similar options. Always check couponing and group sites – they serve many countries, and you might be able to purchase an experience or a service at a steep discount.
While traveling with your whole family is always going to be a little on the costly side, it doesn’t have to break the bank. The most important thing is that you all enjoy yourselves and spend as much time making memories as possible.
Lily Kaligian is an editor at Businesscheck.co.nz. She creates a variety of articles about careers, entrepreneurship, technology, business, education, as well as travel and personal development.
