5 Money Saving Tips for Travelling

If you’re like us, the return of warmer weather has got you positively itching to travel. Tourism is returning to normal pre-Covid levels, which means prices are back up. With inflation still factoring into things, we thought now is a great time to go over some tips & tricks to save money while travelling this summer.
‍

‍Plan your packing

The most obvious reason to pack well is to save on those increasingly absurd airline baggage check fees. Efficient packing can reduce the amount of luggage you’re bringing. Think of it like a riff on Marie Kondo, but instead of joy you’re asking: Do I really need this for my trip? Beyond that, packing lightly and well means you can move around a lot easier when you’re not dragging a bunch of suitcases behind you, allowing you to take local public transportation instead of having to shell out for a cab, or a ride app. Also packing light means less room for souvenirs to tempt you and drain your travel funds.

Use travel sites

We’ve all seen the ads for Priceline, Expedia, and others, and boy are they ever useful. The premise of these sites is easy – put in where you want to go, and the site will put together travel packages you can compare that will be cheaper than booking flights and hotels yourself. A great feature of most travel is the ability to filter results to show (for example) hotels that take pets, or amenities like free Wi-Fi. That said, beware of “last room available at this price” tactics – there may be bigger/better rooms available cheaper. If you’re dead-set on a particular hotel, it’s always worth calling them directly.

Travel local

We’ve all heard the old cliché about people who live in New York City that have never been up the Empire State Building.  Cliché or not it’s a good reminder that there are certainly plenty of interesting places close to you. Investigate your city, county or state to see what fun getaway adventures you could have, all while saving a pile of money on travel costs. Because why would you ever willingly choose to go to an airport unless you need to?

‍

Travel during the offseason

Another basic money saving tip: look for destinations that are in their off-season. You can save a bundle of money on flights, hotels, pretty much everything. How much money? Well, a recent analysis by the financial tech company NerdWallet found airfares for flight routes during the holiday season average 41% more expensive than other flights booked roughly six months out during non-holiday seasons. Knocking off more than a third of the price of a flight makes the prospect of travel much easier to justify.

‍

‍Use TextNow

Really, you should be using TextNow all the time, but especially if you’re travelling within North America. Our TextNow SIM card gives you calling and texting without the need for Wi-Fi from anywhere in the US, plus our data plans include free roaming in both Canada & Mexico. So, if your destination is located somewhere between Juno, Alaska and the Yucatan Peninsula, a TextNow SIM card is a no brainer to save big on roaming, calling and texting fees. And in addition, outside North America you can still use our mobile app on Wi-Fi for free calling and texting to US and Canadian numbers too!

‍