A Few Travel Tips

Here are some of the best travel tips I have run across. They are in no particular order, and cover a few areas, although most are about cheaper travel.

Cheaper Eating

There are number of ways to save money on what you eat when you travel. Some of you will want to try all of these, while others find food such an important part of the experience that you'll want to ignore a few of these suggestions.

Eat big lunches. - You can often have the exact same menu dish for half price at lunch. Take advantage of this cultural phenomena, especially in the United States. If your like me, one good sit-down meal each day is enough, so why not make it lunch. What to do for the other meals? Read on...

Free breakfast. - If it costs the same, try to get a hotel that offers free breakfast. this not only saves you some money, but saves you time in the morning as well.

Eat grocery store meals. - You can buy turkey and other meats a quarter-pound at a time in the deli department of most grocery stores. Buy a tomato, a small jar of mustard, and a small loaf of bread an you have the makings for sandwiches - for a lot less than a restaurant meal. In fact the second time around you'll only need the meat and tomato. There are other things that can be bought from grocery stores cheaply and easily made into meals, such as cheese and crackers or microwaveable soups.

Eat snacks. - Instant snack save time and money. It can be a real pleasure to stay at the beach or in whatever park you are in without having to look for a place to eat. Just pull those pretzels or peanuts out of your pocket and enjoy.

Other Travel Tips

Use disposable clothes. - Okay, I got your attention with that one, but I'm not suggesting throwing away perfectly good clothing and there are no commercially marketed "disposable clothes" (yet). However, we all have shirts, underwear and socks that reach the "point of no return." Set them aside for trips. That first long day of plane travel can be in these disposables, which you can then throw away - even in the airport bathroom - when you are ready to freshen up. Less wash to do, and less to carry once they are gone.

Negotiate room charges. - My wife and I have often had the price of a hotel room reduced just by asking. It helps if you hint that you'll be leaving to look at other hotels if you don't get your price. In fact, why not follow through on that inherent threat - it's another way to save money when traveling.

Do the free stuff first. - There will probably be many things to do wherever your final travel destination is. If you do the free and cheap things on your list first you'll probably have just as much fun. After all, they wouldn't be on your list if they didn't look interesting, right? of course, the secret here is that you'll probably never get to most things on that list, so this strategy saves you a lot of money.

Note: For more travel tips, be sure to check the "new pages" listings on the home page regularly.