How to Save for Your Dream Trip: Key Tips for Travelers

Traveling is always expensive. Many people think that only well-to-do people can afford an exciting trip. However, this isn’t true. The main thing is to correctly allocate the budget and to prepare in advance for a holiday. Let’s find out how to save money for a cherished trip.

Decide on the Dates of the Holiday

The first thing to do before planning a vacation budget is to understand where and when you will go. This will help plan your savings schedule so that you don’t take out loans, installments, and debts. Plan an expensive trip in advance to save money in a calm and measured manner.

By the way, if you are planning an inexpensive vacation, it’s better to plan the budget, buy a plane or train ticket in advance and generally understand the dates of your trip there. Purchasing a travel sim card from Simify and Sims Direct can also help you spend less in terms of using data when you are out of the country.

Find Out How Much the Trip Will Cost You

This point follows from the previous one: calculate how much money you would need for a flight or trip in general, how sharply and often the ticket price changes, when is the high season expected in the area, what other extra expenses you plan to make and so on.

When planning a budget for the entire vacation be sure to consider three scenarios: first – when you don’t deny yourself anything, go shopping in every mall and dine only in fine restaurants and cafes. The second – you spend your money in moderation, but don’t save every penny. Third – you save a lot of money, try to eat in inexpensive places and bet at the sports betting site instead of going outside. Ideally, you need to balance between the second and third scenario: not to eat a simit with water every day (this is in Istanbul) or croissants (this is in Paris).

When calculating your budget, consider all kinds of expenses. This includes round-trip airfare, lodging, meals, sightseeing tours, public transportation and cabs, and shopping and buying souvenirs. Be sure to save up enough money because the cost of each of the above items may vary. On average, you can save 20% more for your trip than you originally expected. Consider too the price for your smartphone and roaming charges.

Another thing to consider is the seasonality. Accommodation prices from May to September in Europe, for example, will be much higher than in winter. In Southeast Asia, the high season is in winter.

You can use services, like Budget your trip, to understand how much money you would need for a day, a week or even a month to vacation in different cities around the world. 

Start Keeping a Spreadsheet of Income and Expenses

Count how much money you spend each month. If you haven’t done this before, at first just write down each income and expense to see what you spend your money on, what you can eliminate, and how quickly your money is spent.

If you record your expenses in a Google chart, highlight mandatory expenses in one color, important purchases in another, impulse purchases in another, and so on. This will allow you to keep track of your budget and stop spending on cabs, groceries, and unnecessary purchases at sales.

Try replacing your compulsive desire to buy something with another activity. For example, shifting books from the shelf or cleaning. And the money is intact, and vacation as a goal is closer. Compulsive spending doesn’t help you reload, but going on a trip does.

How to Save Money for a Vacation

Now the big question and challenge is to set aside a designated amount each month. How do you do it? In brief, with discipline and without skipping. Here are some tips on how to set aside the cherished amount for travel.

Eliminate Unnecessary Expenses

Bad Habits

Try to eliminate one of your bad habits. For example, coffee, cigarettes, alcohol, or disposable vapes. Try replacing destructive habits with something useful and energizing. The savings per month will be substantial.

Entertainment

We aren’t suggesting that you take an ascesis and don’t spend at all, but some of the spending on entertainment can be reduced. For example, skip one of the trips to the restaurant and meet with friends in the park, watch a movie at home and just take a bath with sea salt instead of the spa. You can choose to walk around your city by downloading an audio guide, go to a free lecture or try dance or boxing lessons, for example.

Subscriptions

Eliminate any subscriptions you don’t use. That could be a subscription to Spotify, Netflix, and so on. If you don’t spend your evenings at home, you probably don’t need most of the streaming services you pay for.

Set Aside Any Extra Money You Don’t Have

If you want to save the right amount sooner or put away more money, put aside any unexpected receipts in the form of cashback, bonuses and debts, savings from purchases you didn’t make, and the balance of your paycheck on the day you get paid for the new month.

Trick Your Brain

Saving money if you haven’t had this habit before is creating new neural connections. The brain will resist until the last minute. Try to trick it. Let’s say you’ve been paying off a $500 loan each month and you’ve closed it. Set aside that cost for the following months as well: it will allow you to save extra and form a new habit.

Frequent Mistakes of Those Who Start Saving Money for a Vacation

• Unrealistic and exaggerated financial goals. The desire to relax in the Maldives, for which you need to save up for a couple of months, for example.
• Lack of systematicity in saving money: first you spend, then you save. The process should be different. First you transfer funds for the trip, and then you spend what’s left over.
• Keeping money in one account. Try different programs and interest rates to multiply your capital.

Summary

It’s realistic to save for a vacation without debt or loans. The main thing is to prepare for it in advance, and to develop a healthy habit of saving. In this case, you don’t need to shrink yourself and live on one bread and buckwheat, otherwise the process of preparing for the trip will turn into hard labor and you will burn out faster. Let it be a pleasure not only to travel but also to prepare for it.