Spending your hard earned cash on something as basic as getting somewhere can be quite stressful and can easily become quite expensive in no time at all. Some travel is essential and some travel is just for fun, either way there’s no reason why you can’t use this opportunity to save and maybe even earn a little extra on the side whilst you’re at it. Today we’re talking about saving money and ways in which you can do this when it comes to travel.
Finding the best route
This can be an arduous job, there are so many ways in which to get around these days. The first step with any travel plan is to figure out the easiest, cheapest, quickest or most interesting route. Yes, the go to might be Google Maps, but with suggestions including swimming the Channel coming up on many routes involving leaving the UK, there must be a better way! That’s where Rome2Rio comes in handy, a super slick website that allows you to plan multi-stop journeys, as complicated as you need in one place. So, whether you’re just trying to get to the next county or trying to plan an around the world trip, you’ll dig this site. It’s clever search engine gathers all possible route options for you alongside an estimation on journey length, modes of transport and a predicted cost. It even figures in petrol cost if you’re driving! This website will save you a lot of stress and with all routes plotted on a map, it’s an ideal tool for planning complex trips or tours and allows you go direct to booking once you’ve figured it out.
Earn cashback on your bookings
No one likes paying for basic stuff, but did you know that it’s possible to earn cashback on certain purchases? Using a service like Quidco is an awesome way to make quick and easy money back whether you’re booking a package holiday, train tickets or just flights. You can also use Quidco on a lot of other day-to-day online purchases too, so give it a good research! It’s really easy to start using Quidco, just create an account and whenever you want to make a purchase, head to the website via the Quidco offer page and it’ll log cashback earnt until you’ve got enough to withdraw. The platform currently features the likes of Thomson, Trainline and Expedia and regularly updates with new special offers and retailers. You amount you make it cashback naturally depends how much you’re spending, but it quickly adds up over a year.
Hire a car easily
Tired of all the length paperwork and high prices when it comes to booking a car hire? There is another way! Keep car hire simple, by opting to hire by the hour or minute instead using a clever service like Zipcar (Avancar in Europe) ideal for city hopping, nipping to the shops and for weekends away this service asks you to create an account and pay a small monthly fee to have access to a variety of vehicles in cities around the world. Bookings are made by an extremely user friendly mobile app (or online) which also doubles as a key to unlock the car when you arrive. This is a super convenient service, which we’ve used for years and the vehicle options range from dinky Fiat 500s ideal for parking in a city to the perfect vans for moving kit from one place to another.
Comparing flight prices and options
Comparing flight options becomes dull extremely quickly, it’s really quite remarkable how much flight availability and prices fluctuate, particularly in recent years, thanks Brexit! To save yourself some stress, we recommend heading to a flight comparison site such as Skyscanner. Skyscanner is particularly awesome as it’s search functions offer a high level of flexibility allowing you to search by specific dates and locations, as well as offering you the chance to just look at where’s cheapest at a glance by allowing you to keep your date and/or your destination search field blank. Once you’ve completed your search, you can see all the possible options broken down with prices, travel duration, airline provider and any relevant changes needed. There’s a variety of other useful features on the homepage which are great for inspiration.
Saving on accommodation
Accommodation options are endless with ideas for every budget, it’s often an overwhelming task to know where to start and in no time you’ve spent all day looking and haven’t booked anything. Before you travel, it’s always a good idea to check if there are any big events, conferences or local holidays happening in your destination town or city before you book, as these kinds of things have a massive impact on the price you’ll pay to visit. Even something as niche as a Heart Surgeon’s Conference can see local accommodation prices double! Naturally, the type of place you stay depends very much on the individual and why you’re travelling. We’ve found the most cost effective option is usually Airbnb, although there are certain places in the World where this is less viable. If you don’t know it already, Airbnb is a platform where you can rent rooms or entire accommodation, direct from the property owners, giving greater flexibility & choice. There’s also a number of flat/house swap sites and competitors of Airbnb to check out too, such as HouseSwapper, which we want to check out next.
Once you’ve nailed your money saving travel methods, it’ll make it so much easier to be ready to go whenever the next job opportunity, festival or adventure pops up. We like to travel for KITSCH.inc and both use travel to develop our personal projects too. We’ll be continuing our Passive Income and Saving Money blog series, so be sure to follow @KitschInc on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to stay updated.
Co-Creator @wearefoodscouts & @KitschInc. Digital Marketing & Creative Direction. Illustration, writing, creativity & style. Fan of films, TV, cartoons, colourful hair & clean beauty. Blogger since 2009.
