With school ending soon for summer break, you might be looking for ideas for an inexpensive vacation. Here are a few top tips:
Close to Home
With an eight-month old and down to one income, we’re certainly planning a cheap vacation. We’ve decided to simply have a couple trips where we drive out to visit relatives. An even cheaper option is a “staycation,” where you simply tour your own town. I’ve lived in Edmonton for over 17 years and have yet to visit the local attractions that I would have already been to if I had come here on vacation.
Hotel Wonders
Whenever we’ve gone to a vacation destination like California or Cuba, we research everything ahead of time online. Expedia not only has some great deals, but also lots of information on hotels and attractions. Trip Advisor has also been a huge help. When we are checking out the reviews, we look for hotels with consistently good ratings, which helps us avoid those that may have deteriorated recently. Once we find a place we like, we give them a call; sometimes they have some room to give us a better rate than what’s posted online.
Out and About
When it comes to attractions and restaurants in the area, almost everything can be had for less than retail price when we plan ahead. We look for their websites and often find buy one/get one coupons or at least the opportunity to buy tickets online at a reduce rate compared to the gate. If we’re heading out to an attraction, we might bring some healthy snacks with us to avoid the overpriced junk food offered on site. Our CAA card gives us some savings as well. With participating companies, we mention it when booking hotels, rental cars and airport parking and get approximately 10-20% off.
Pack these Tips
And finally, if you’re flying, don’t over-pack for your vacation. Not only do some airlines charge extra for an additional bag, but we found out the hard way that an overweight bag can be costly and you don’t want to have to leave behind that gift you picked up for grandma.
Tom Drake is the owner and head writer behind Canadian Finance Blog and also works as a financial analyst for a major retailer. Tom and his wife Amanda welcomed their beautiful baby boy Christian in October of 2009. To read more of Tom’s posts, subscribe to Canadian Finance Blog’s RSS feed and follow @CanadianFinance on Twitter.