Many folks assume that in order to have an epic vacation getaway, they will need to throw down the monetary equivalent of a college education. While it certainly can cost a pretty penny, there are in fact many ways to find flexibility with your financial bottom line. This in turn allows for things like a much longer trip, more money for dining out, a higher level of luxury for certain portions of your journey or perhaps even being able to treat a friend to a free trip. Following are a few areas that are typically expensive, but have a fair amount of monetary wiggle room.
Pets: While it can be difficult to find someone to travel to your home and stay for free if you are only heading out of town for a few days, taking a longer vacation can nearly eliminate this expense altogether. Sites such as Housecarers or Trusted Housesitters allow homeowners to select from a pool of traveling pet care providers who offer their services for free in exchange for a place to stay while exploring your area of the world. My husband and I have been on both sides of this situation and had good experiences each time. Having your pets cared for in their own home is not only less disruptive for them, it can also cost significantly less than bringing them along for the adventure.
We traveled with our dog for a year around the United States, and took her on many cross-country adventures before she finally crossed over the rainbow bridge. Extra hotel fees, doggy day care for times when her participation in our chosen travel activity wouldn't be appropriate and extra shipping costs for pet medications were all part of the equation. While we don't regret any of the memories we built with her, it was certainly much more expensive than finding a free house sitter and picking up the tab for basic utilities while we were away.
Accommodations: The same websites that provide access to pet-sitting opportunities can also be used for basic house-care services. This means that not only can you get someone to stay in your place to bring in the mail and water the plants while you travel, you can also search for assignments to provide the same services at another person's home. The free place to stay comes with responsibilities, however, so you need to be prepared to deal with things such as dishes, house laundry and light dusting in a way that doesn't leave the owners with a pile of jobs to do immediately upon their return.
While we have cared for people's homes before, my husband and I have been more interested in having an open itinerary for our first several months of full-time travel. It took so long to get all of our belongings liquidated and logistics handled, we felt it was important to just do what we wanted for a time and celebrate the accomplishment of finally starting this new life we had been carving out for so many years. However, we are nearing the point where we feel we can commit portions of our long-term itinerary to others. This will also begin to build more time into our schedules for lengthier project development, which is a win-win for pet parents whose fur babies need permanent company in order to feel safe and secure.
Bottom line? We are in the process of setting up a couple of online house-sitting profiles and searching for locations that might be a good fit. This should not only reduce our monthly overhead even more than we already have by traveling outside of our home country, but also provide us with a chance to interact with animals again on a daily basis.
Transportation: This is one of those fluid travel expenses you can literally plug and play with until you come up with a solution that works for your specific itinerary. If your entire trip revolves around an extremely walkable destination with abundant public transportation and cheap local cab fares, skipping the rental car is the simplest and most affordable solution. However, what if your travel plan requires a more blended transportation solution? If you are planning more than two- or three-day trips to attractions that are out of town, you may spend less for a family of four on a rental car than on package-tour prices that come with any number of costs built into the ticket price.
Then again, what about parking? Some hotels offer a cheap rate, but then milk you for a daily parking fee. We have found filtering our searches on private vacation rental sites to help significantly with this problem. Airbnb.com for example, lets you search for free parking as an amenity when you are looking for a cottage or apartment to book. This strategy, combined with only booking a rental car on months where we actually need one, allows us to make the best budget choices for our particular transportation needs.
Another hidden perk of traveling with a rental car is the ability to pack up extra bags of consumables and transport them between short-term rentals in different locations. This can be problematic when hopping trains and buses, but a breeze when you have a bit of extra trunk room. While the costs of leaving behind that new bottle of lotion or only being able to purchase travel-sized toiletries might not equate to the full monthly cost of a rental, I have found these expenses to easily add up to the amount of adding on a second driver for a monthlong vehicle booking. If you are going to pay for the rental car anyway, it's a nice added perk and provides the peace of mind that comes with having a second available driver if the primary one is injured or becomes ill. Bonus? Packing family picnics is just easier with a rental car.
