Today we bring you 8 simple rules for how to budget for your travels!
This is a part of our exhaustive Ultimate Guide to Travel Planning.
Just a few months ago I read an ad in the newspaper from a renowned travel company stating EMI available on the foreign tours! I really started wondering that how far the travel industry has progressed! We have EMIs for essential commodities and traveling being considered one of them is indeed an achievement for travelers like us. Do you give it an equal priority and budget for your travels?
Budget for travels is always an important concern. Traveling is not a part of basic necessity hence other things take priority over it. Last year I remember I had an option to choose – a new bike or a trip. And I chose the latter. The reason being my old bike was still in working condition just not cosmetically beautiful as it was earlier. So it was not necessary to buy a new one. On the other hand going on a trip was a much needed break after a year long work. We all being travelers at heart, make such sacrifices in our zest to travel!
It is easy to loose perspective when doing things for passion. However, travel budgeting also gives a much needed financial reality check. Do you agree? That is why we bring you 8 simple rules for how to budget for your travels based on our own learnings and experience.
How to Budget for your travels
These are important elements, you need to consider while budgeting for your travels –
- Flights and visas
- Stay arrangements
- Local travel and sightseeing
- Local food
- Shopping
Here we would like to share 8 simple rules for how to budget for your travels:
1. Save for Travel:
Keep some money aside every month for travel budget. As we do for other expenses, prepare a kitty for travel as well.
2. Decide your budget:
Prepare a budget and stick to it. Search for the locations within your travel budget. For e.g. if you just have bought a new house and are short of a trip budget then you can consider going to the places which would cost you less. You don’t want to stress yourself out during your vacation by having no money for when you return.
3. Avoid the “peak period”:
If you are a solo traveler or a couple traveler and your vacations do not depend on your child’s holiday schedule then try to avoid the peak period for travel. Peak periods usually have inflated rates both for hotels as well as flights/buses. Hence try and avoid them.
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4. Save on transport:
Buy a day pass to use local transport. Also if you are willing you can find fellow travelers to share a cab so that expenses get divided. Also a tip here is if you are renting a car don’t rent it for the entire trip. Instead rent it day-wise. This would save you the extra stay charges that the drivers take. At some places like in Goa, you can rent a bike too and drive it yourself. We did the same at Langkawi in Malaysia and saved a lot on traveling.
5. Passes save money:
Sightseeing can also cost you a bit with the entry charges to the places that you are visiting. I have seen that in foreign countries there are passes available for a day, 2 days or 3 days where they have a combined cost for a bunch of locations. You can get to see all the locations mentioned in the pass at a much cheaper rate than what they would cost you otherwise. The catch here is that you must be covering those locations in that time else it won’t be of any use.
6. Shop and don’t drop:
Decide on the money for shopping as well and stick to the budget. There can be a situation where you will have to choose between sightseeing or shopping and I would like to choose the former as unless there is something really unique, shopping can be done anywhere
7. Keep some extra:
Also always create your travel budget so that there is a little money is left over. You’re likely to find some sort of cost that you hadn’t considered beforehand.
8. Divide and Rule:
I usually use this trick of splitting the trip expenses in a couple of months. I would book tickets and hotels in a month and travel in the next month so that my credit card bill gets split in two months and I have money at hand when I am travelling.
I am no expert in the budgeting part. This is what I have learnt over a period of time and I have had my shares of mistakes too! But I learnt the bottom line, if you budget for your travel in advance, you get to enjoy your trip a lot!
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