4 Ways Canadians Like to Travel on a Budget

Traveling is something millions of us enjoy doing. The prospect of going to a place we have never been to and being exposed to new things serves to expand our worldview and can give us a whole new take on life. Many have come back from traveling refreshed and reenergized for life.

Unfortunately, traveling can be a pricey affair, so much so that many of us would like to travel more often but for budget constraints. With that in mind, here are a few ways to save when traveling so that you can go more often.

Hotel Credit Cards

Having a credit cards that gives you free nights can be a great way to reduce your travel expenses. Now, many people have not even heard of hotel credit cards before because it is a relatively new phenomenon. These specialty cards are rewards cards specifically geared towards reducing hotel expenses.

You can use this card for all sorts of everyday expenses and accumulate points along the way. When your points have accumulated to a certain level, you will be able to use them on hotel stays in a whole host of hotels around the world that have partnered with the card company you have signed up with.

One important thing to remember when using any credit card is to settle your card balance as soon as possible. The last thing you want when planning a nice vacation is another debt to have to deal with and incorporate in your budget. Ideally, you should try to pay the balance off in full as soon as the bill comes in. It's ideal to pay off your entire credit card balance every billing cycle, but if you can't, keep the balance as low as possible in order that it won't negatively affect your credit score.

Reshuffling Your Budget

If you are setting a little too much aside for non-essentials in your budget, it might be time to reshuffle some items in order to focus on funding a vacation. Simply take a look at the line items on your budget list and identify the items you can either live without or have it greatly reduced. Once you have done this, it will then be a matter of taking steps in the real world to reduce these line items.

If the amount you have saved is not sufficient to fund your travel plans in the time frame you want, you will need to go back to the budget list and find more things to live without. Another thing to consider would be to generate a small secondary stream of income by doing odd jobs on a temporary basis.

Now, all of this will require a good deal of self-discipline. There cannot be any sacred cows in most cases. You will need to make some tough decisions and be able to stick with them. When making difficult budgetary decisions, it is very helpful for people to keep the end goal in mind as it can provide a great deal of motivation to stick to the plan until you can afford to take that trip.

Timing Your Flights

A lot of people are not aware of this, but you can save a tremendous amount of money if you are simply able to adjust your travel plans by a few days. Many airlines have clear demand cycles for many of their flight routes so much so that they change their ticket prices greatly from season to season. Not only that, because of the mini cycles that exist throughout, airlines also offer significantly different prices depending the day.

How this will be carried out is that you will be booking a flight for a certain day and if you book during a mini peak day, the website will instantly show you offers for the exact same route on a different day that is a lot cheaper than the one you were planning on booking. Some airlines will even offer overnight hotel stays in the case of impromptu adjustments.

For example, if you are at a connecting airport, the airline might inform the passengers of an offer to refund part of the ticket price if you are willing to stay the night at a nearby hotel that they will pay for. Now, this is something that requires a very flexible schedule, so if you are one of those lucky enough to have one, this is an option definitely worth exploring.

Staying for Almost Free

This is a very unusual way to save that is nonetheless extremely helpful in saving on vacation expenses. With the rise of sites like Airbnb, others have sprung up that are simply looking for house sitters. Instead of renting their house out to a guest, some people simply want someone to come in for a few days to look after the place and take the pets out for walks.

Most of these offers usually entail free lodging at said house as long as everything is able to be kept in pristine order. For those of you who can be comfortable with such a novel arrangement, this is an opportunity not to be passed up.