One of the best challenges in travel is traveling on a budget. It’s proof that you don’t need unlimited funds to have remarkable experiences, and that resourcefulness often leads to adventures that expensive itineraries cannot. But there are other kinds of mistakes that come with budget travel, different from the mistakes of the careless spender, that can take a carefully planned affordable trip and turn it into something much more expensive than you expected. These are not obscure pitfalls that require specialist knowledge to avoid. They’re frequent. They’re repeated. And they’re completely avoidable, with a little forethought.
How to Book the Cheapest Flight Without Reading the Small Print
The headline price on a budget airline is seldom the price you pay. The business model of low-cost carriers is to attract customers with low base fares and recover their margin through fees for luggage, seat selection, check-in and payment processing. A flight that looks like it costs half as much as a full-service option can easily end up costing more once you add up every optional charge. Do read the baggage policy carefully before booking any budget flight, determine the total cost with the particular bag size and weight you plan to carry and compare that figure – not the headline fare – with the alternatives. If you book the wrong fare class, miss the check-in window or show up at the airport with an overweight bag, the fees could be way more than what you saved.
Underestimating the Actual Cost of Accommodation
Cheap accommodation in inconvenient locations is rarely the bargain it appears to be. A hostel or hotel that is significantly cheaper than similar establishments in a city center might save you money on the room rate, but may cost more to get to the places you actually want to be on a daily basis. Before booking accommodation on price alone, work out the realistic daily cost of commuting from that location to the city’s main attractions, factor in the value of the time spent traveling and consider whether the saving really outweighs both. Likewise, accommodation without any reviews or implausibly low ratings in a well-reviewed category is worthy of skepticism – the money saved on the room is never recouped by the cost of an unsafe, unclean or fundamentally misrepresented booking.
Not Setting and Tracking Daily Budget
Many budget travelers arrive in a destination with a vague idea of what they want to spend but no specific daily figure or way of verifying that they are on track. Without a firm daily budget accommodation, food, transport, activities and a contingency can all tend to drift upwards through small individually justifiable decisions that invisibly add up to a significant overspend. Setting a realistic daily budget before you leave and reviewing it each nite takes less than five minutes and is one of the best financial habits a budget traveler can develop.
How to Save Money by Skipping Travel Insurance
None of the budget travel mistakes may result in more serious financial consequences than travel insurance. The logic of going without insurance to save money is fine until it isn’t – and when it isn’t, the costs involved are often catastrophic. A medical emergency in a country with no reciprocal healthcare agreements, a canceled flight setting off a domino effect of lost bookings, or a stolen bag with a passport and electronics can all result in thousands of pounds or dollars in financial damage. For a cheap trip, travel insurance will normally cost a small percentage of the overall cost of the trip, and will provide an exposure that no budget traveler can reasonably afford to carry unprotected.
Budget travel rewards preparation and punishes sloppiness. The most expensive mistakes are almost always the ones that are entirely predictable — and with a little care, entirely avoidable.
