Rest is always costly. While on a tourist trip, you will always spend significantly more than at home. In addition, in places popular with tourists, even those considered inexpensive, prices are often somewhat overpriced.
Nevertheless, there are several ways that you can save a lot when organizing your own vacation.
Necessary
- - Internet connection;
- - plastic card for booking tickets and accommodation;
- - knowledge of English, at least basic.
Instructions
Step 1
Significant savings on accommodation and meals will allow preference for an inexpensive destination. In the Tuapse district of the Krasnodar Territory, housing, food and entertainment will cost less than in Sochi. And in the Kherson and Nikolaev regions - than in the Crimea or Odessa, on the Azov Sea - than on the Black Sea, in Bulgaria - than in France.
Of course, you will have to give up the developed infrastructure, and sometimes the general standard of service, but the options are different. Someone will prefer a quiet seaside or mountain village to a trendy, well-known resort with crowds of tourists.
Step 2
When traveling abroad, you can significantly save on housing. If you look for an accommodation option on your own and do not limit your search to sites with a Russian version, you can find options that are quite acceptable in terms of price and quality. You will need knowledge of English at least at the level of reading with a dictionary.
But there will be no unnecessary caution: read reviews of the chosen option on various travel sites. Often they can be in the booking system itself. Evaluate how comfortable, safe, and convenient transport links are there.
The level of prices in the country also matters. A bed in a twenty-bed hostel in London can cost more than a single room in a three-star hotel in Sofia.
Step 3
An equally tangible expense item is transport. It is important to compare as many options as possible: fares for trains, planes, buses, comfort level, transfer options. In a compartment in Russia, you can drive on the top bunk at the price of a reserved seat. And airlines can offer flights on promotions at a significant discount. And the usual fare may turn out to be more profitable than a low-cost flight.
You are more likely to get cheap plane tickets months in advance. So it is better to plan your vacation in advance.
Step 4
When traveling abroad by land transport, consider the options for transfers. A ticket for a direct train from Moscow to Berlin will cost significantly more than the alternative. Its meaning is that you get to Brest and cross the border by train. In Terespol, Poland, you take a ticket to the last Polish station before the German border, and after crossing it you buy a ticket from a German conductor. Longer, but the costs are incomparable.
Europeans themselves do not buy a ticket from Bratislava to Budapest. They go to the border Komarno, cross the Danube on foot and get on the train again in the Hungarian Komarum. And there are a lot of similar options.
Step 5
If you are traveling to a visa country, a way to optimize costs may be to apply for a visa yourself. But, if in your city there is no consulate of the required country, the cost of the road to Moscow or other nearest consulate and back may turn out to be a commission of a travel agency. Although many embassies cooperate with courier services.
So we monitor, compare, think.
It is not so difficult to collect a set of necessary documents for a visa.
Step 6
If you do not want to use the services of a cafe, try to choose accommodation with the ability to cook your own food. Least of all problems when renting a private apartment, the kitchen can be in the guest house or hostel. But here you need to find out everything: maybe there is one burner and a refrigerator for a hundred guests, or there is no stove at all.
It is better to visit cafes and restaurants away from popular tourist spots - those where mostly locals go. In them, prices are an order of magnitude lower.
With a reasonable approach, an inexpensive vacation does not necessarily turn into spoiled.
