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Before You Go,  Blog,  Tips to Know

3 Ways to Save Money on Accommodations

April 27, 2018 /

Accommodations can be the largest expense when traveling. Even something small like a weekend trip can start to rack up the bill.

Sean and I have grown accustomed to scouting out the best deals and pushing ourselves to save money wherever we can. As two people who still work full time, we’re limited on how often we can travel, but not on how much we can get out of our trips. By saving on where we stay, we allow ourselves to enjoy more EXPERIENCES. 

We utilize at least one of the tips shared below every time we travel. Have you used any? What ways do you choose to save when you travel?

 

1. Airbnb

For any trip we take that is far from home, we choose Airbnb. Not only do we love that we can feel at home and often make friends with the hosts, the places we stay are typically much cheaper than any hotel we could book. Plus, because we love to travel so much, our families pretty much know that the best gift to give us is an Airbnb gift card, which gives us even more room to save money.

If you would like to try Airbnb and save $40 off of your first booking, click here

 

2. Book Consistently Through a Site You Trust

Sean and I do a lot of our actual hotel bookings through Booking.com. We chose this site because we were able to find pretty comparable rates when we were staying somewhere not as populated with Airbnb options. By choosing to stick with this one site every time we book a hotel, we get closer and closer to a free stay.  This is a great way to save some money even if you’re not a frequent traveler or frequent user of hotels. We might not get our free stay for a few months or even a year if we’re not booking hotels every time we travel, but when we  DO get to redeem that reward, it will totally have been worth it to be loyal to the site.

I recommend shopping around for which site you feel brings you the most rewards and sticking with them. If you’d like to take advantage of booking.com you can click here to save on your first booking. 🙂

 

3. Camp Out

This one is actually my favorite. Sean and I have this huge goal one day of quitting our 9-5 jobs, packing up our car and traveling the world full time. Our plan is to live out of our car while we travel North and South America. I guess you could call it practicing, but lately, any time we’ve taken a weekend trip, we’ve chosen to just camp in the car. Of course, camping out could literally mean pitching a tent, too. It’s totally up to you. The main point: skip booking a place to stay all together and sleep in what you’ve got. Some places charge you for tent-camping over night, so that’s something to be aware of before you decide to go. For us, it’s been easier to just find a rest stop and put the seats down in the car. You might feel like it could be a bit sketchy to sleep somewhere like a rest stop all night, but so far we have yet to be bothered by anyone and we’ve saved a TON of money.

I get this option is probably not for every one. But if you’re willing to ‘rough’ it a little, I definitely recommend giving it a go.

 

What did we miss? How else can you save money on your accommodations? Let me know in the comments below!

 

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