Travelling cheap can be time consuming but in the long run its worthwhile with the amount of money you can save.
In this day and age we are lucky enough not to need a small fortune to travel whether your a solo traveler, a couple or a family you can travel on a shoestring budget and here are some tips of what we do to make our dreams a reality.
One of your biggest costs in travelling anywhere is usually your accommodation so depending on your budget here are some options:
Trustedhousitters.com – They have housesits all over the world and we swear by this website it has given us nothing but brilliant experiences, saved us a hell of a lot of money and given us some friends for life.
The way it works is you pay your initial fee of $129 which gets you membership for a year. You do your profile and a police check and you’re ready to go.
The website has information to help you at every step including how to do your profile and how to apply for a housesit. You then apply for the housesit you want to do in the area/country you want if your travelling with kids make sure your applying for a family friendly housesit. Read the owners ad completely so you fully understand what is expected of you and correspond with the owner and ask any unanswered questions you may have that were not covered in the ad. In general owners just need you to bring in mail, feed pets (walk pets in needed), water plants (if needed) and just return the house clean and in the condition it was when they left (though some housesits have cleaners)
Some owners will do the website welcome guide which tells you everything you need to know including local information.
Trusted housesitters website includes 24 hour on call vet support which touch wood we haven’t had to use yet but its piece of mind for both sides in case something unexpected cropped up.
At the end of your housesit both sides leave a review which in turn will help you get more housesits quicker once people can see that your are reliable and a good housesitter.
The pros to this are you get free accommodation, local information, a kitchen to cook in, usually wifi and some new fur friends/human friends. The cons are some animals may require a lot of care we haven’t had this issue but its always good to be mindful that some animals may get anxiety with their owners away but some extra love and attention can usually cure this quickly.
Here is the link to trusted housesitters if you want more information or to join. or apply this code at checkout “RAF128651” both of these will get you 20% off your 1st year
If housesitting isn’t for you another option is Airbnb, I wont go into this too much as most people are aware of it these days. You rent someones house, we have done this many times, in fact in both Japan, Kaua’i and New Zealand. We paid less to do this than it would cost to stay in a hostel so it can really help you save money in most instances.
Another option is free camping, we are currently doing this everyday in our vanlife and we love it.
Some places have free showers/bathrooms. Going around North America, we use Campendium and Freecampsites which tell you the ins and outs of different sites (if there is a maximum time limit you can stay for, available amenities e.t.c) we usually read other campers reviews as well for further insight as to where we are going to be staying the night.
It never hurts to plan ahead in case you need to get a permit either as no-one wants the dreaded knock in the middle of the night to be told to move on. A majority of our free camping has been done in Australia and America but depending on the country you are going to you just need to do a little research to ascertain if its going to be safe and find out your options. (Also it never hurts to take spare toilet paper with you even if the have porta-toilets just in case)
Another option is HelpX or WOOFA, in both cases you join their websites and swap accommodation (sometimes food is included, sometimes its not) for working for them for a few hours a day. It’s generally 20 hours per week, but each ad is different. This again is offered all over the world at farms, bed and breakfast, hostels, airbnb and many places that need an extra set of hands. Just remember is travelling overseas to check your visa requirements carefully so you know what you can and can’t do.
If you need a car during your travels, another option we have used other than rental car companies is Relyirdes or Turo, which is like Airbnb for cars. This worked out a lot cheaper for us in Hawai’i than going through a car rental, but the downside for us was when we were going to Oahu to meet my sister Jeff, the car we had booked through Turo got stolen the day before, they offered no other alternative and it took a while to get our refund. Luckly for us we had spare cash to rent through Enterprise car rentals, we were fabulous – sometimes you may just want to pay extra money for piece of mind.
The Public Transport System is always a good way to see things in different countries, we did both in Japan and loved it. Just make sure you have researched enough before hand, for instance we ran into issues using the Big Island of Hawai’i bus (refer to that post for more info)
Another option if you are travelling for awhile is buying a vehicle, which is what we did but to do this in another country you must have an address/homebase to register your Car/Van to. You’ll need to get insurance, we also got AAA roadside Assistance which we have used twice already, once for a tyre blow out (we didn’t have a car jack at this point) and another time for a flat battery (the alternator voltage regulator was broken).
Finding cheap flights in Australia we are blessed with Jetstar, Virgin Aust and Tiger Air. I’ve gotten $29 flights from Melbourne to Sydney, $300 flights from Melbourne to Honolulu. Always check sale fares generally getting tickets way in advance or 6-8 weeks before is your window to find your cheapest fare. Another tip is to book through the country you are going to. We flew from Melbourne to Toyko via Jetstar, then booked our flights from Tokyo to Sapporo through Jetstar Asia which saved us a few hundred dollars.
Coupons – I’m a massive fan of coupons, we have used these in all forms and all around the world. Again the key is research whats available before you go. In New Zealand I joined websites like grabone.com. In America we have used Groupon, just like in Australia, this is a great way to find activities or restaurants cheaper. At airports, welcome centres and information centres grab the coupon books or information books, it will usually have info on free activities or discounts for things you may want to do. Also as the same with all the others just research the country/place you are going to see what you can do for free or discounted. the internet is a wealth of knowledge, refer to people that have been there before you and what worked or didn’t work for them.
Things like finding a prepaid local mobile phone service can make your life so much easier once in a foreign country. You can also download apps to your phone, for instance Brendan has Coeliac’s Disease so in Japan we downloaded an app that we could scan an ingredients list and read it in English to determine if it was gluten free. Remember knowledge is the key the more you know the more things on your trip will go right or give you other options if things go wrong. What is acceptable to you in your home country could be completely unacceptable to other cultures and countries, for instance it’s illegal to have chewing gum in Singapore.
Always register your trip with your home country so they can contact you via phone or email if the country you are are in becomes unsafe for you to stay in i.e natural disasters, terrorist attack etc. Cover your bases and always get travel insurance because you don’t want to end up injured or worse with no coverage to help you out. Also check if your insurance/banks have any affiliates in the country you are going tom in Australia the bank we use is affiliates with Bank of America so we can withdraw cash with no fees. Our insurance is affiliates with AAA in America so we can show our membership card to receive free state road maps.
Another few examples of what worked for us, we knew we were going to go to a lot of national parks in U.S.A. So we purchased a national parks pass for $89 which allows us to visit as many national parks as we want in a year, after visiting 3 parks the pass had covered the total cost. And we can use it to gain access for 4 adults so our friends could get in for free. We were able to visit Canada’s national parks for free as it was the 100 year anniversary in 2017.
Another holiday hint, if you are like us and have Netflix you can download movies/tv shows to your device when you have wifi and watch them later on.