Planning Affordable Frugal Vacations

The World is your oyster just waiting for you to enjoy!!

Over the years I have acquired many travel secrets and tips. In this article I have compiled a list of my secret tools that assist me in planning affordable frugal vacations these tools are absolutely free to use. They will work no matter what part of the World that you live and no matter where you would like to travel. Whether you want to travel close to home or to some exotic land. Below I have listed the formula that I have consistently used to keep my travel inexpensive as possible. I will share it with you please read on...

The World on a Shoestring

If you are a student or a family that wants to travel the World. Doing it inexpensively is not impossible. I travel cheap and inexpensive and I will tell you that you can too. In this article I will Show you how to see the World on a shoestring budget. I will share with you the many different tools that I have used and still use to plan my trips as cheaply and economicly as possible. I take at least 2 personal trips a year on a very low frugal budget.

Google Search

One of the first things you need to do when planning affordable frugal vacations is to do a google search. Along with your destination you need to include in quotes the word frugal, affordable, budget, cheap and the word travel or vacation.

Example Google search: "cheap Hawaii vacation"

Next you can use Google maps to familiarize yourself with the region the city's layout and neighborhoods that you are visiting. You can also search for user created maps that highlight local landmarks worthwhile visiting. You can also set up Google News alerts to get information on your destination when the latest articles are published online. Next with Google blog search you can search for blogs pertaining to your destination whether it be Spain, Germany, Thailand, Vietnam, Shanghai etc.

Finding the right airfare

The Next thing you need to do in planning affordable frugal vacations is to research what are the cheapest airfares to and from your planned destination. You can do this by using what is called an airfare search engine you can use one or all of the very good following sites. Take your pick.

Popular airfare search engines:

Kayak.com used to find the lowest fares on cars, hotels, cruises, vacation packages.

Sidestep airfare search engine is awesome it will find the lowest fare on all airlines.

Vayama.com has negotiated deals for international flights

dohop.com searches for airfares around the world

mobissimo.com air fare search engine just as good as kayak.

cfares.com

ITA Software Is a QPX system, which was developed for the airline industry. It’s not exactly user-friendly, but it finds some surprising routes that don’t always show up on Kayak or sidestep.

Buy directly from the Airlines website whenever you can

Planning affordable frugal vacations are not easy but once you have assured by one of the following websites that you have found the lowest fare you are ready to make a purchase. To avoid third party booking fees you go to the airline's own website. Next for seating comfort and to find the most comfortable seat spot available you can go to one of the seat locator's. They have seat maps for most of the major airlines

Two popular seat locator's:

Seat Guru if you are concerned about a seat has seat maps of the most major carriers

Seatexpert.com lets you find the best and worst spots on a plane list seat maps of most major carriers

Popular Hotel search engines:

tripadvisor.com is a great resource. It’s centered on user reviews, which are based on specific personal experiences.One of it's downfalls are that a lot of the places are already discovered. It is a very good resource never the less.

TripKick.com does for hotels what seat guru does for seats.

vener.com focuses on hotels throughout Europe

it is best to book your hotel directly through their own websites to avoid extra charges and to create a relationship with the hotel and yourself always check Kayak, Deal Base and Hotels.com to make sure you are getting a good rate.

Hostel International Lodging

If you are staying somewhere for a long period of time let's say over a month it would be cheaper for you to rent an apartment I check out Craiglist first.The listings there offer a good overall picture of what’s available, but can also provide clues to finding less-touristic apartment-rental sites

if you are really on a shoestring try couchsurfing.org is very famous for helping travelers score free, comfortable places to sleep.

Local Japan volunteer guides

going to Japan aitaijapan.com is a guide/interpreter service connects travelers with listings of enthusiastic volunteer guides who are locals and want to show them around which creates a lot of fun they can offer free tourist assistance for independent travelers on their visit to Japan.

wherescool.com is a site for travelers who are young, traveling on a shoestring and looking for recommendations they can actually use. Some of its picks are off-the-wall and very appealing.

World Travel is very exciting!!

Local travel is fun. However World travel is unbelievably exciting. I have seen people sell roasted crickets, scorpions, grasshoppers as snacks. Eat a fillipino delicacy called balut. saute pigeons, Horse meat salami, a barrel of sauerkraut just bring your container and fill it up. You also meet very interesting people that are just like yourself traveling throughout the World to see what else is out there. Meeting the locals of these places with the many different cultures that you visit will be very enlightening and rewarding to add to your life's experiences. If you have any travel experiences that you would like to share please leave a comment and share..

Good Luck and happy frugal travels...

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