When travelling, whether it’s individually or as a group, there will be times when unexpected costs or excursions will burn a hole in your budget, causing you to cut back more than you had expected.
Fortunately, there are some small changes you can make to help reduce your expenditure and ensure you’re able to travel more comfortably rather than having to scrape by.
Choose your destinations carefully
As with anywhere you go, you could be in the UK or Thailand, there will be some locations that are more expensive than others, especially if you go to the tourist spots.
One of the easiest ways to save some additional money is to choose the less popular areas. However, you don’t want to be stuck in the middle of nowhere when you’re travelling, so do some research before you go. You might be able to find a happy medium where things aren’t as expensive but there are other travellers about.
Keep track
If budgeting is required – which will be the case for most who are travelling – you need to ensure you stay on track. You will need to keep tabs on your spending so you don’t go over your budget on anything, be that food, travel or accommodation. One really simple way to do this is to get a budgeting app and set up categories for your spending so that you can track it and see where you’re going over budget. There are loads of budgeting apps available in the UK, including plenty of free ones.
Get the right cover
It will cost some additional money upfront, but travel insurance is an absolute must because it will protect you if anything goes wrong and you have to pay for something like medical treatment or to replace lost, stolen or damaged items.
Before you go, make sure you research the different types of travel insurance available and pick the one that is best for you. Don’t go cheap and cheerful as it usually means they cover a lot less and the excess is a lot more!
Work when available
What you can also do if you’re travelling on a budget is look at getting a job or working when you need to. If you don’t need to work all year round, try to pick the times that work best for you. There are plenty of jobs available once you get travelling, whether it’s working in a hostel, behind a bar or at a restaurant.
If you’d rather not work for someone else, you could look into ways to make some additional money via the internet.
Trading is becoming increasingly popular among travellers as some of the tools that make it easier to track and follow trades, such as MT4 web, have become much more accessible. If you’d rather not spend time learning something new, you could use the skills you already have and teach online, complete surveys or blog. There are plenty of ways to make money, so find what’s best for you!
Make sure you research and come up with a plan before travelling so your budget goes as far as possible and you get the most out of your experience.