Post: #1

I'm looking at hotels in most places and they seem to run about $200/night which is insane. Flight tickets are not a big deal as I can seem to get good prices by booking in advance. However, the price of hotels, ubers, and food makes it seem like you have to be pretty well off to afford traveling many times a year.

I wanted to go to NYC this month but the cost of hotels just discouraged me big time. A five day stay would've cost me close to $800 just in hotels.

How do you guys do it? I do have credit cards that have points on them, but those sign up bonuses are a one time thing..

Post: #2

(12-27-2018 06:18 PM)tugofpeace Wrote:  I'm looking at hotels in most places and they seem to run about $200/night which is insane. Flight tickets are not a big deal as I can seem to get good prices by booking in advance. However, the price of hotels, ubers, and food makes it seem like you have to be pretty well off to afford traveling many times a year.

I wanted to go to NYC this month but the cost of hotels just discouraged me big time. A five day stay would've cost me close to $800 just in hotels.

How do you guys do it? I do have credit cards that have points on them, but those sign up bonuses are a one time thing..

This comes with the territory in NYC, and other large areas. Oftentimes the airports are heavy on one airline, often being a hub city, thus having inflated prices. So you can try your luck with budget airlines or flying into alternative airports that are near. Booking in advance certainly helps you get lower prices.

Sub a hotel for an airbnb, couchsurfing, or staying with a friend or family member who you know there. Or maybe even a hostel, they can be really good deals, often under 50 bucks for a bed, even with a private room you will only pay fraction of hotel prices.

Instead of uber, take the city bus at the airport or the subway, often the ticket has a fixed cost, and seems to me like it is one third or less the cost of taxi/uber. There's also shuttles that offer a much more reasonable deal than the taxi as long as you can budget the time.

These are just a few ideas. I'd also look at cutting money on food/alcohol. That's as simple as loading up on stuff at the supermarket, using a kitchen if you have one, etc. Find restaurants that have deals at lunch and eat nice, or find some memorable street food. Predrink if you have to.

Post: #3

So do most people just end up paying those prices? Honestly I'm 30 now and couldn't afford to travel in my 20's, and often wondered how other people were doing it. I graduated with six figure student loan debt and made that my primary focus, and now that I'm saving money, I find it hard to just blow it on traveling.

Post: #4

*Make More Money
*Stay in further off locations (motels outside of the city)
*Travel out of the country where costs can be much lower for everything
*Stay in hostels (not my thing, personally)
*Travel off-peak
*Monitor hotel prices like a hawk (I stayed in Soho for about $140 a night over the summer at the Arlo, which is a fancy micro-hotel. As part of the promo, I also got a $25 food and beverage credit per day)
*Travel with someone and split the costs
*Plan way ahead, people with flexible schedules are more likely to be able to save. I basically saw the cheap hotel room, reserved it, then searched for cheap flights over a 1 or 2 week period, and they did drop down.

I made my vacation really cheap, used mileage for one way flight so that was free and the return flight I flew a late night flight, so that was like $130 back to LA.

Post: #5

(12-27-2018 06:31 PM)tugofpeace Wrote:  So do most people just end up paying those prices? Honestly I'm 30 now and couldn't afford to travel in my 20's, and often wondered how other people were doing it. I graduated with six figure student loan debt and made that my primary focus, and now that I'm saving money, I find it hard to just blow it on traveling.

People that are loaded end up paying those prices. But middle income people who maximize their travel find ways to save so they can travel more. Perhaps the most obvious cost saving measure is being flexible with your travel dates. That has a huge impact on flight costs. Although i'm not quite there yet, people who really save a lot are also flexible on their destination. For example they may get a last minute deal on travel to iceland, so they go to iceland. It can be quite spontaneous, and fun for that matter.

A lot of these people have parents helping them, trust funds, or have a lot of credit card debt. Appearances can be deceiving. Also you can usually take advantage of layovers, extending your time in the transit destination and even spending a day or two on what would otherwise be a normal international ticket at no extra cost to do it. Many airlines offer this option. Although in my case I just take the longest cheapest flight and leave the airport for 24 hours and do some exploring.

I'm assuming you're American, so I would say embrace travel like Australians, Europeans or backpackers do. Don't be afraid of public transit, couchsurfing, hostels, etc. These things will all save you a ton of money and allow you to travel more.

I use typically Matrix flight search (super powerful) and Skyscanner and google flights for quicker searches to get ideas on pricing. If you can research a bit you will save money. Also keep in mind if you can travel on days like tuesday you'll get cheaper costs. You can also try flying into one airport and leaving from another, for example flying into NYC but leaving from Philly (in this case it would just be something like a cheap 2 hr train ride, if you can spare the time). Most people aren't doing this, but you can have really fun itineraries and see more all while saving money. In Europe, it's super easy to do stuff like this, given all the public transit, airports, buses, trains, etc.

Also take a look at hotel deal websites. You'll obviously pay more to stay in the center (like Drazen said).

Post: #6

The biggest thing I'm doing is playing the points game. My last trip to Ukraine was on points instead of over $1400 in cash. I have enough points for another trip and once I hit minimum spend on a United card, one more trip (maybe 2).

Some hotel cards give you a free night after you have had the card for over a year. Typically up to $350 room while paying $95/year. Plus some status for upgrades.

Post: #7

Eh I've met a lot of people in hostels over the years who admitted their trip was only days long and/or it was years since the last oversea trip. You're just getting the wrong idea by reading this forum (and maybe reading posts from people like me) that it seems like a lot of people are in constant travel mode. Well I am in constant travel mode but I've yet to meet a copy of me outside of South East Asia.

Post: #8

Good thread. OP I'm in my mid 20s so I tend to go for budget travel myself while avoiding the low point aka hostels. A lot of good advice above, I'll see what I can add.

1. Book a bang for buck destination. Basically anywhere that can offer you a similar experience as a more well known and more expensive place. Using America as an example, everybody goes to Vegas to party, but New Orleans is a lot cheaper. Cancun is a spring break spot, but Boracay doesn't have resort prices for it. Amsterdam is considered an anything goes city, but Bangkok you can do almost everything for half. Basically find more affordable destinations.

2. Travel with friends. This can cut costs in half, mainly on accomodation.

3. Network with travel and hobby groups. I've taken a lot of US road trips and on those, I've stayed with friends on the road who I met through common interest forums like this. Also a great way to have friends in every city that can save you time and cost in their areas. Rvf got me to save time and money getting my way around Manila.

4. Travel off peak. This does save money. I never travel on holidays, avoid flying from the US in the summer, and usually get less crowds exploring places in shoulder seasons.

5. Eating and drinking out. This is one big way to cut costs. If you're willing to eat less meals in sit down restaurants or having all nighters drinking in clubs, this saves HUNDREDS of dollars in as small of time as a week.

6. For NYC specifically, fly into Newark and take a train to Penn station. Hotels cost a lot, tough to get around that unless you're willing to stay somewhere with less friendly logistics. However, it is possible to eat cheap and do free activities in the city.

I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting but those are the big things I can think of.

Post: #9

Have you checked airbnb? Tends to be cheaper than hotel.

If you can't afford a city, just switch destinations IMO.

Post: #10

General Guidelines for the Cash-Strapped Vagabond

1. Minimalism. Reduce the amount of stuff you have to what can be carried in 2 carry-on bags so you do not have to pay baggage fees and/or overweight fees at the airport. Don't travel with suitcases which are too big to be carry-on or that you might overpack so that they become overweight. Before packing something, ask yourself honestly if you really need it and cannot buy it in your destination.

2. Use Airbnb, Booking.com, and HostelWorld to find cheaper accommodation. In very expensive cities like NYC, try to use Couchsurfing if private accommodation is not worth the cost.

3. Take to the habit of only eating once or twice per day. This will cut out the cost of 1-2 meals, save you the time that you would have spent cooking/eating, and allow you to splurge on the 1-2 meals you do eat per day. For example, instead of having 3 $5 meals per day, you can have 1 $15 meal. If you do this, you will of course eat much more in your 1-2 meals so you will still be just as nourished. Some call this "intermittent fasting."

4. If you are in a very expensive city like NYC, use public transport when you can instead of Uber. Cities like NYC, Chicago, London, etc. have comprehensive public transport systems that can get you everywhere that you would go with an Uber but for far cheaper.

5. Make local friends as quickly as possible because they may know where the cheap places and things are.

Post: #11

Travel inside US is very expensive if you do it for longer than a week. Even in the shittiest backwater towns in midwest and mountain states motels are usually $50-80 a night. Some places you would just sleep with your clothes on until checkout. Travel during my 20s was best planned by saving for a bargain ticket overseas and then staying in hostels. When I traveled on my road trips inside US I always stayed with friends, split motel costs with travel buddy or gf, and sometimes slept in the car in WalMart or mall parking lots.

Post: #12

No getting around the high prices of short-term accomodation in Manhattan unless you can crash at a friends place. I’ve tried the $80-$100 rooms and they are terrible.

However ... for people with a super flexible schedule (like myself) who want to visit NYC for a few weeks - months, just hop on craigslist and find a sublet to finish someones lease. You won’t have control of the dates but you can get great deals (paying same or less as the original lease holder). For example I paid $2200 ($1000 + $1200) for a 3-week sublet in Murray Hill and a 5-week sublet in Chinatown this past year. That comes out to $39 per night to live in Manhattan in my own apartment. Can’t beat that!

The hassle is negotiating the first sublet remotely and avoiding being scammed. I suggest video call w/ the person and to view the apartment and paying max 10% down via Venmo. Use your judgement to gauge if the person is normal. In my case I put $100 at risk (10% of the first sublet), but of course it worked out. So far I’ve never been scammed on Craigslist but be careful nonetheless.

Post: #13

Get credit cards with sign up bonuses for hotel points (examples: IHG, Marriott, Hyatt) and airlines (AA, United, Delta, etc). I don't like the term "travel hacking", but that's basically what it is. You can search on Facebook, Reddit and many other websites including RVF and learn how to do it. I literally saved thousands of dollars on travel using credit cards with signup bonuses.

Don't travel to expensive cities, especially for longer trips. For example, instead of NYC go to Moscow where you can get an AirBnB apartment in a central location for $50 per night or less. Or Bangkok, Jakarta, Manila, Warsaw, Prague, the list goes on. Flights to those cities from the US may be more expensive vs NYC for example, but if you get airmiles from credit cards it's not an issue.

AirBnB is generally cheaper than hotels. You can also try to negotiate with AirBnB hosts for lower prices if you have good reviews (or even if you don't). Hostels are also cheap and can be fun, especially if you're younger. Sharing rooms with friends is an option too.

If you can, avoid traveling during peak times (Xmas/NYE, Spring Break, Summer, public holidays).

Post: #14

Hotels in major cities are just there for the wealthy and to leech of corporate accounts. Due to Airbnb and other shirt stay devices hotels now just cater to the a select group and have raised prices across the board to compensate.

If you want NYc staying in Manhattan is out of the question if you're trying to not blow the bank. Even my old favorite hood of Colombia Heights is out of reach these days. You'll have do Brooklyn as that is where young people are staying these days in airbnbs as they are priced out of Manhattan.

Post: #15

The best way to travel, especially in big cities, is to grab a few friends and get a 3 or 4 bedroom airbnb. You'll get a big living space for having pre/afterparties, a room to yourself, and it'll usually only work out to roughly about the same price as a hotel room per person. Plus you can usually get a place right by the nightlife, depending on the city. Its by far the best combination of comfort/price/sociability/location.

Also bear in mind NYC is one of the most expensive places in the world to get a hotel room, so don't let prices there put you off travel too much. Hotels anywhere else, especially outside of major cities, will be much cheaper. Its worth spending the extra money on flights to travel somewhere a bit further afield. Both because the extra money spent on the flight will be cancelled out by cost of living savings, and because you'll get to experience some much more different culture.

Post: #16

(12-27-2018 06:18 PM)tugofpeace Wrote:  I'm looking at hotels in most places and they seem to run about $200/night which is insane. Flight tickets are not a big deal as I can seem to get good prices by booking in advance. However, the price of hotels, ubers, and food makes it seem like you have to be pretty well off to afford traveling many times a year.

I wanted to go to NYC this month but the cost of hotels just discouraged me big time. A five day stay would've cost me close to $800 just in hotels.

How do you guys do it? I do have credit cards that have points on them, but those sign up bonuses are a one time thing..

Big cities like NYC are heavily seasonal in terms of pricing and it all comes down to supply & demand. For example, I noticed that the quoted prices in mid-January are much much lower than early October when I was most recently in the city. Even with these so-called lower prices in mid-January, the average price of lodging in Manhattan will typically surpass the cost of most other cities in America.

During these lower demand times (ie. January), I'd suggest looking at sites such as Hotwire or Priceline Name Your Own Price (utilizes a bidding system). At these sites you can capture deep discounts (sometimes 50% or more!) since it is often comprised of hotels selling off their unused inventory. A huge drawback, however, is that you typically cannot get a refund, you must prepay the cost of the room at the point of sale (when you are booking online) & you may not even know which property you are getting until the transaction is completed. There is a forum out there called betterbidding that might help you utilize clues (ie. star level, amenities, location) to predict which hotel you might be potentially landing.

I'm sure on the flipside cities such as Miami are probably experiencing a surge in demand (and pricing) during the winter months.

Post: #17

Some tips...

1. Pick cheaper locations. New York is notoriously expensive for everything, for example.

2. Travel offseason. I went to Budapest, for example, in January and in July last year, it's just as beautiful, possibly more beautiful, in January and it cost about a quarter as much, I got a much nicer place for about $30 a night than I paid $80 for in Summer. Added bonus that it's a lot less crowded so you get more time and space to appreciate things. This pretty much applies to everything except event travel where obviously you have to book when the event is and usually that's the peak season.

3. Alternative accommodation is a big thing. Hostels are cheaper and more fun than hotels (they have their negatives that are well covered here), AirBnB is generally cheaper and can often be better locations. Sometimes hotels will win but in most cities these days an AirBnB will cost less and be nicer. I got a 2 bedroom apartment in Salvador during Carnival for a week for what crappy hotels were asking a night. Couchsurfing is even cheaper but it's not for everyone.

4. Location - Find accommodation in the right part of town so that you can use public transport or, even better, walk everywhere. In cities that are bike friendly, do that instead. Picking a well located place to stay can save you hundreds in taxi/uber fares.

5. Travel cards - Look around, there are a few threads on this but if you're going to travel a bit these can add up pretty quickly with all the reward points/frequent flyer miles.

6. Travel with a friend - Can split everything 50/50, makes a big difference, even 3 or 4 friends can really bring things down, each taxi costs a quarter, a 2b apartment might cost a third more and sleep 4, that's a big saving.

7. Work out travel insurance - If you're going to travel a lot, generally an annual coverage will work out cheaper. My annual coverage doesn't cost significantly more than a month in most places would anyway. Know what cover you do and don't need as well, they'll slide all kinds of crap in there.

8. Pack light - If you can fit everything in a carry on, you can save a decent chunk by not having checked luggage. I'm personally horrific at this but there are people who can do it, especially if you're only going on short trips, get's harder going on extended trips to varied climates.

9. Make more money - This one is obvious but is worth mentioning as it obviously helps and is something you can generally control in some way.

10. Travel for extended periods of time - Can certainly help as well, if you want to do 5 countries in Europe, taking 10 weeks and doing them in one trip is almost certainly better than doing 5 2 week trips. Most places you stay will also offer weekly or monthly discounts on accommodation. Flights are one of those things that seem cheap and then you do the math and they're a much bigger part of your budget than you thought they were.

11. Get a good travel card - One with zero or very low ATM fees, they can really stack up fast if traveling overseas.

12. Intermittent Fasting - This one has been huge for me personally, cutting out an entire meal each day saves a good amount of money, I've also ended up eating less as a result so the other meals are smaller. Diet in general has helped, cutting out soft drinks has also made a big difference.

Post: #18

Others already mentioned some good tips. Start out by going to places other than NYC.

I wouldn't recommend this for everyone, but if you have lots of time (which is unlikely if you're working a 9-5 job), then visit places during the off season. Earlier this year I was living in Bangkok and several times I travelled to Krabi during the rainy season. I found domestic flights for $13 USD one way from Bangkok to Krabi. I stayed in a sick resort on Railay Beach for $30/night. Just now I checked booking.com, and that same resort will cost over $130/night in January which is high season. The weather wasn't ideal, but I had plenty of time to have enough good days and have a great trip.

Post: #19

1.Stay in a hostel or Airbnb

2.Travel during off-season January/February or September/October

3.Make more money


Edit: Actually staying in a hostel can be annoying if there are not any young, hot women to game. I've met really weird people as well in hostels & Airbnb. I'm mid-30's and beginning to be too old to stay in a hostel