How to Budget Travel
Our style of travel changed a lot through the years. At the beginning we would simply organise everything in advance by ourselves. The more we travelled, the longer our trips became and the more last minute it became.
Now, we do not plan anything anymore and see day by day. Also, we are now trying to decrease the cost of our travel.
With are now well-aware that one trip could cost you a couple of bucks as well as it could cost you thousands of bucks. It all depends on the way you decided to travel.
Generally, we found that for the same experience, the cost can change a lot.
Let’s see how we can do to decrease this cost and be able to travel more. While conserving still some comfort.
We spent 24 days in Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and it costed us 7 320€ for two. We then spent 3 Months (91 days) in Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, and it costed us 9 000€.
It means a cost of 305€/day against 98€/day for both of us. And it was easy to get to that level and budget travel it.
Table of Contents
6 Proven Ways to Budget Travel & Save Money while Traveling
Transportation
Transportation is most probably the place where you can save lots of money quickly. The most common way to move are:
- Plane
- Train
- Bus/Coach
- Van
In lots of countries, Plane and Train are expensive to take. And taking buses would be the best choice. For a same travel, a bus can be up to 10x cheaper than a train or a plane.
But taking a bus will also take much more time. And from a certain distance, taking a plane could be cheaper and save you lots of time. There is not a real magical formula.
The best way to budget travel is to check all possibilities and bee flexible with time.
Taking night buses was probably what saved us the most money in South America and allowed us to budget travel. And travelling in Europe by buses (Flixbus, blabla bus…) is a great way to go everywhere for real cheap compare to a plane or train.
For example in south America, we took mostly only buses in Argentina except from Bariloche to El Chalten as it was super far and by waiting a couple more days, we found a plane ticket at almost the same price as the bus. But here we are taking about a 24h buses trip and 1400km.
Another example where it is tricky. In France, Strasbourg to Paris by train cost around 75€ (TGV) one way but you could also find a ticket for around 19€ (OuiGo), while the bus cost 19€.
We spent 3720€ in 24 days (155€/day) vs 4040€ for 91 days (44€/day) (And we got to have back 1200€ from Air France due to one day delay in our departure) Discover this adventure here.
Accommodation
The second main cost of travelling is accommodation. In our previous trip, we often strayed at hotels and this quickly come at a higher price.
Now, we mostly stay at Airbnb’s and Guesthouses. Not only it cost less but it is also a great way to meet local people and families.
You can find all type of accommodations on Airbnb, such as guesthouse, family house or even apartments. They are often cheaper than the hotel. But we also always check booking.com as sometimes you can get great deals on it, especially if Airbnb option are limited.
A cheap way to get a hotel, can also found one on booking.com or google. Map and then contact the hotel directly. They often have cheaper prices, but you will need to get in touch with them and give them CB information through phone or email.
We spent 1525€ in 24 days (63€/day) vs. 3261€ for 91 days (36€/day) (which included 595€ are for 4 nights Torres Del Paine, a hike we wanted to do and had no choice for cheap stay. If not for that it would be 31€/day)
Tip to reduce it even more and budget travel: You could even go lower than that if you are willing to go camping 
Food
Food is the next big one on the list on how to Budget Travel & Save Money while Traveling. In our previous trip, we would mostly eat out and in restaurants. Which also made us fight a lot. We kinda have a hard time picking a place to eat and ended fighting a lot. To save money, we are now cooking our meals and that another reason why we are using Airbnb, most of the accommodation there have a kitchen.
Yes, we do not get to try as much local dish as before but still we manage to get a nice touch of it. And in the end, as we are now plant-based diet, we enjoy more people’s culture and environment than the food itself.
Within those cost there are of course alcohol. In the 91 days cost, I believe, we spent around 300€ on alcohol only! That’s another way to lower the food cost. Sacrifice of the beer after the long hike 😊
We spent 613€ in 24 days (25€/day) vs. 1200€ for 91 days (13€/day)
Activities
A massive way to save money and budget travel is to avoid all tour and big activities as much as possible. Nowadays, most of attraction can be done self-guided. So, you can simply check in advance and read guide about it and then do it by yourselves.
We spent 714€ in 24 days (30/day) vs. 700€ for 91 days (8€/day)
Souvenir
Another way to budget travel is to avoid buying to expensive souvenir. You can often find unique souvenir for a fair price if you look deeper. Also, we are now buying less souvenir but picking up unique one that we will remind us of our trip.
We spent 632€ in 24 days (26€/day) vs 356€ for 91 days (4€/day)
Exchange fees
Exchange fees while traveling represented 2% of 9000€ for 91 days. We managed well and found some good deals there. In Argentina, we would have raised that number to 5% but we tried AZIMO and that saved us lots of cost. The downside is that we were then carrying lots of cast with us but well that’s better than end us with nothing which we almost did.
Azimo is great way to send yourself money. You simply make a credit card payment and then withdraw in cash.
For a multi currency account with 200€ fee-free withdraw, TransferWise is one of the best online banking system
You Don’t Have To Be Rich To Travel Well. – Eugene Fodor
