6 Travel Tips to Save You Time and Money

(Castle Menzies, outside Aberfeldy, Scotland.) The more I travel, the more I learn about how to make things easier and work better. So, as I continue my journey, thought I’d share some travel tips for those of you that might want to take your own adventures!

• Saving Money on Hotel Rooms – apps like Booking.com, Hotels.com etc are great for finding rooms. However, they will always be slightly more expensive than booking directly with a property. If you can, once you find a property on a booking app, look them up on the web and book directly.

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  A seagull in Portree on the Isle of Skye

  Trouble Finding a Room – the other thing about the booking apps is they don’t list every property. There are often hotel chains (e.g. Ibis, Travelodge, etc) you won’t find there, and small, local B&Bs are not always listed either. See if the places you travel have a local travel website. For example, when I went to Isle of Skye in Scotland, I found https://www.road-to-the-isles.org.uk/ and https://www.isleofskye.com/ which listed multiple places I hadn’t seen on the apps and provided direct links to their properties.

• No Room Availability – despite what any of the apps tell you about no availability, try calling properties as a final resort, you will find something!
• Cutting Costs – I usually travel solo without a car. A couple of times I found the city I wanted to stay in was too expensive/outside my budget. So, I researched the local train and bus stations to find the closest city to the one I wanted to visit. For a small train fare and slight inconvenience, I was able to save hundreds of dollars. I also got to stay in the most wonderful small towns I would have completely missed! Remember to consider places you might want to visit from the town you stay in and see if the bus and trains both permit you to get there and run at intervals that make sense for you.

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  Hiking in the Cairngorms in Scotland

  Logical Costs – Cutting costs by staying in another town can often make sense. However, staying on the outskirts instead of the city center of a place you’re visiting does not always save you money. For example, when I went to Bordeaux I saved about 50 euros a night by staying in a cheap hotel that appeared to be about 2 kilometers outside the city center. I figured it would be an easy walk to the center. Well, it turned out to be about 20 kilometers from the center which meant the taxi ride to get there ate up almost all my savings, and since the local train didn’t start running till about 7am, I couldn’t use it to make my early morning train the next day. Lesson – carefully research true distances of a hotel or hostel from town center, and taxi rates and local transportation schedules before you book.

• Hostels are ok! I never thought I’d enjoy staying in hostels but it turns out they can be pretty great. Many of them now have single rooms – though sometimes they are more expensive than a local B&B or AirBnB so do your research! When they are cheaper, it’s a fantastic deal and you’ll meet great people, too! So, if you aren’t a Millennial, don’t be afraid to check out hostels.