Getting the best travel deald, and traveling more for less, is a game we love to play. If you look around, and are careful, and use a few good tips, you can take three or four vacations for the price of one. If we could travel full time, we would, but until that time, we do as much traveling is we can so we need to budget it the best way we can. We need to get the most out of the least. So, here are a few or tricks that we do to make sure we can travel and enjoy the life we would like to be able to afford.

Flash sales

Flash sales are a great way to save money on travel. Checking google flights and putting in your home destination and seeing what cheap flights are out there is a great way to find some place to visit. Scott’s Cheap Flights is a great website as well to go visit that will send you an email of any flash deals that appear. We have picked up a lot of great deals on Travelzoo as well. Once you start getting the hang of looking where flash sales are coming from, you will enjoy checking them every once in awhile just to see what the possibilities are. Just remember that if you see something that you want, you need to grab it then and there, as very often the flash sales do not last more than a day, sometimes not even more than an hour.

One bag

One bag, basically means taking one bag, as simple as that may seem. Do not take a lot of clothing with you and keep the bag weight under about 7 kilos. This will cover you for most flights as a carry-on, without any extra fee. Most airlines these days will charge you to check bags, or they will charge you if your carry-on weighs more than a certain amount. So, to save the most money, keep your carry on light and under 7 kilos and you’ll be ready to go.

Credit cards

There are a ton of credit cards that will give you a large amount of mileage if you sign up for them, assuming your credit is good and you can get the card. There are also some amazing mileage cards that as you use your credit card it will accrue sometimes two or even three miles per dollar spent. If you can get one of those, you’re in good shape, and you can start to think about paying every bill you have with your credit card instead of a check. We know somebody that uses their credit card in their business of buying and selling products, and they have enough points to travel almost every month somewhere.

Hotels

We have found one of the bigger expenses for traveling is the hotel. It’s all very good if you get a discount flight to somewhere, but if a night in the hotel is costing you more than the whole flight, it’s not going to be very good. Although you can use mileage to book a hotel, we don’t suggest this as the exchange is really not very good. You are better keeping your mileage for plane flights. There are many sites that you can check for hotels online, and look for deals. Hotwire.com used to be a great site for this, though you didn’t know what the name of the hotel was, you know what the area was and what star rating it was. We have picked up 4 and 5-star hotels for $50 in the past. We stayed in a private, corporate,4 star hotel just off Times Square in New York for $40 a night, it was really the most amazing deal. There aren’t as many deals there these days, but we still find the occasional one. There are also flash deals for hotels as well. Some sites like agoda.com often have a daily deal that is pretty decent. The best way is to look often and get a feel for what prices are in the area. One of our favorite tricks is taking an inexpensive hotel, but taking their best rooms, even a suite. We had some quite amazing surprises that way. Sort of the big fish in eh small pond theory.

Local discount services

Another great trick is to check the local discount services for the area that you will be visiting. There are services like this in almost every city in the world. Where merchants or restaurants are trying to bring in more customers so they offer some discount specials, very often it’s 2 for 1 in restaurants. Local attractions can be up to 75% off as well. You just need to know where to look. For example, in the Philippines, there is a site called metrodeal.com, so if you’re visiting the Philippines you can check all the attractions there and see what kind of discounts you can get. Why pay tourist prices when you can pay less than the local prices.

Research and spend the time

As much as we might like to just be able to click a button and get the best deal, unfortunately, it does not work that way. You have to spend the time doing the research. The internet is a wonderful place and you can find almost anything you need to find if you just spend the time reading and looking. If you check reviews for a place, you can learn a lot that you might never know otherwise, as well as get suggestions from the people that were there as to other places you can go to.

Know why you are going

Although it may seem silly to say, know why you’re going someplace. This will make a difference as to how much money you spend when you get there. If you’re going shopping in some exotic location, pick an exotic location with inexpensive shopping. If you are going to museums, it’s not much good to go to a city that does not have museums. So, know why you are going on your trip.

City or travel pass

You can also check to see if there is such a thing as a city pass in that location, same as a travel pass. For instance, you can get a travel pass for traveling on trains in England or Europe at a highly discounted rate if you buy it from outside of the country before you go there. A city pass will get you into most attractions in the city at a deeply discounted rate, very often without having to wait in line. So, look at what deals are there from the country you want to go to. Again, it takes a little bit of time and research for where you want to go, to find what you need, but it is well worth it.

Traveling can be expensive, but with a little bit of planning and a little bit of research you can find a much cheaper way to go. You can sometimes travel cheaper than you can stay at home. Just a silly example of this are cruises. You will often find a lot of the older generation that are on cruise ships pretty much all the time. You can ask yourself why, but if you’re looking at a cruise for a thousand dollars or so for a month, which includes food and entertainment, then it is often cheaper than living in an apartment. So just do some research and think outside of the box, use a few of the tricks that we have said, and you will be surprised at the jetset lifestyle you can lead.