Ways To Save Money While Travelling

For this post, I'm going to list some of the easiest and most effective ways to save money on vacation. Basically, try to avoid tourist traps and instead get a glimpse of the local culture and lifestyle. Just remember that saving money doesn't have to ruin your vacation and make it miserable-- sometimes the best vacations are the spontaneous ones, planned with very little money. In general, you can save lots of money on food, accommodation, tourism, and transportation. Keep reading if you want to learn some ways to make your next vacation just as fun, but more cost-effective.

FOOD: 
Buy food at a market or grocery store, not a restaurant. Let's face it: restaurants are expensive. In Tripadvisor that you really want to go to and you know serve good food. You can still get lots of the local cuisine from markets, which are common in most of Europe. Another option is to buy food at a grocery store (for example, Monoprix in France has good prices and pretty nice food).

Markets are an inexpensive way to get a taste of the local
culture and cuisine. 

fact, they can eat up more than half your vacation budget if you're not careful. Instead of eating out whenever you see a restaurant, research two or three on sites like
Eat fancy lunches, not dinners. As you read from the previous tip, it's a good idea to minimize eating out because it saves a lot of money. However, there will be times during your vacation when you do eat out, and when you do I would highly recommend eating lunch at a restaurant instead of dinner. Most restaurants offer lunch specials much cheaper than those on the dinner menu, especially in Europe. For dinner, cook something with what you bought from this morning's market.
Don't eat near a major tourist attraction. This simple tip is easy to forget, but just know that the food will be half as good and twice the price. Walking for three blocks in any direction will get you much better, cheaper food. And as I mentioned in the first tip, remember to research restaurants beforehand; you'll get more good food.

TRAVEL EXTRAS:

Bring home memories, not souvenirs. Let's admit it: Souvenirs are fun. However, if you didn't buy that vintage dishwasher, maybe you would actually be able to afford another vacation. It's easy to go overboard when getting stuff to remember your trip, but photos are far less expensive (and take up a lot less space!). I don't need a ton of junk from the airport to prove that I had a great time on vacation, and neither do you. If you do buy a souvenir, get one thing that is useful and will serve a genuine purpose.

You don't need to get that. Or that. It's amazing how much money you can save just by not getting those extra things. You know, the travel pillow at the airport, or the hotel room with a slightly better view. Or the in-flight entertainment system, or the more expensive dessert, or the cool-looking rental car... the list goes on and on. But it's up to you to decide what to splurge on and what is basically a waste of money. Sure, these things will make your vacation a little better, but is the $12 gelato really worth it?

TRANSPORTATION:

Flight connections aren't that bad, and they can save a lot
of money. 

Take buses, not taxis. This is a pretty obvious tip, I don't think I have to elaborate on this much. Same goes for the Metro system-- It's a lot more cost-effective and also more efficient in busy cities where buses can get held up in traffic jams. If you're really in a rush, catch The Gopher (reference to my experience in Rennes le Chateau; don't ask).
Fly in economy or on connecting flights. Again, not exactly a very clever tip. The economy class thing goes without saying. Know that even on travel points, business/first class can be a lot more expensive as there are so many "airport fees" (baggage collecting fee, plane swagginess fee, etc). Travelling on points is a good idea, but be aware that it's NOT FREE. Also, check the airline websites very carefully when you're booking a flight, because you can get much cheaper flights if you're okay with flying overnight or with several connections.
Don't check your baggage. I was very surprised when I realized how much money it costs to check a bag, especially overseas. (Some airlines charge up to $100 for a checked bag from Victoria to Europe). A hundred dollars to lug my oversized bag over a lot of water? A hundred dollars could (theoretically) buy food for several days! All you have to do is read this guide to packing light and hopefully you'll be able to fit everything into a carry-on sized bag.

Major attractions-- like this esplanade in Paris-- are nice to visit,
but with a family, not a tour group. 

LOCATIONS:
Explore on your own, not on a tour. Besides tours being more expensive, you might find that you're "herded" around and not given enough time to look around. Or maybe the guides talk to much... It's usually hard to find a tour that's just right for you, and you'll probably enjoy yourself more exploring the city with friends or family. However, I'd highly recommend going to the town/city's visitor centre, or reading about some of its history and major attractions. This way, you'll be gently guided, but not herded.
Learn about the city and look for discounts at major attractions. As I mentioned in the previous tip, check out the local tourism centres and online if there are some touristy places you really want to go to. Pick a couple, but don't forget to enjoy just being in the city. Paris is no fun if all you're doing is running around between the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Notre Dame cathedral. You have to become a citizen, and embrace the life and culture of the place you're visiting. (Wow, that was cheesy.)

ACCOMMODATION:

You don't have to stay in the city centre;  a short commute is
definitely more cost-effective.

Check websites for last-minute hotel deals. This is risky, but if you look carefully on sites like Priceline and Hotwire, you might be able to get some really good deals on hotels that would usually be a lot more expensive. Don't do this if you're travelling in a group because a) the group will become annoyed due to your lack of planning and b) it's hard to find multiple rooms reliably on these sites.
When travelling with more people, get a suite. Especially when travelling with families. Getting a two or three bedroom suite --while it sounds expensive-- is probably going to be cheaper than getting separate rooms. And remember, the view your accommodation has will affect its price a lot. 
Stay in a nearby town or suburb instead of in city centre. This travel tip isn't always applicable, because sometimes being in the city centre is part of the atmosphere and awesomeness of going to that place. For instance, in Paris you'll have a lot more fun staying in the city centre than in the industrial suburbs. Use your judgement, but when visiting certain cities it's a really good idea to book a hotel in a nearby town and drive the ten or twenty minutes to the more expensive city with all the major attractions you want to visit. (For example, when visiting the Pont du Gard in Southern France, stay in Uzès, not Nimes.)

Other ways to save money: 

• Get free WiFi from cafes instead of paying extra at your hotel. 
• If options are available, take the slower method of transportation (bus > airplane). 
• Vacation homes and condos are cheaper than hotels. 
• If you're staying in a hotel, skip the breakfast and try a local café instead.
• Fill up your rental car before you return it instead of paying for someone else to do it.
• Travel off-season (not during the peak times for that destination). 

Conclusion: When you go on vacation, you want to splurge-- and you deserve to splurge. But by being smarter about how and where you spend your money, you'll have more of it to spend on the things that matter, like extra activities or shopping opportunities you wouldn't have back home. Plus, forcing yourself to save on vacation will often get you out of the tourist traps and land you where the locals hangout. A good vacation doesn't get better than that. 

Well, thanks for reading! If you have any feedback or other travel tips, leave them in the comments section. 

Travel Products: Worth It?

Let's face it: There are so many travel accessories out there, and all of them are tempting. A neck pillow with a hood? Packing cubes? A suitcase that zips into three pieces? Laser-beam umbrellas that microwave your toast? Well, maybe not. But there's so much stuff that's been invented to help you with your travels. This post will answer which of these things are actually useful, and which you can do without. Or if you can use them, but only in a certain situation.

#1) Packing Cubes
Description: Packing cubes are lightweight zippered mesh or fabric bags that can be used to help you organize your clothes. They can help to separate your suitcase into manageable sections and come in various sizes and colours.

Things you should know about packing cubes: 

Packing cubes come in a variety of sizes and colours,
but you might find that they're not as useful as you think.

• If you really want to be organized on your trip, the packing cubes will help you. Because of their versatility and different sizes, it's easy to put your toiletries in one, shoes in another, and have one for dirty laundry. 
• You'll find yourself having to pack around the cubes since they'll never quite fit the dimensions of your suitcase.
• If you're travelling with someone else, I'd recommend colour-coding your stuff with different packing cubes so it's easier to know whose clothes are whose.
• If you're moving a lot from one hotel to another, you'll only have to pull out one cube instead of having to take apart your whole suitcase.
• Frankly, I don't need to pay $10 for a laundry bag. A pillowcase or a plastic bag can be folded up when not in use and is certainly less expensive. 

Conclusion: Although packing cubes are useful in some certain situations, you'll find that they're not worth the money. 

Buy Packing Cubes: http://www.ebags.com/category/travel-accessories/packing-aids/packing-cubes/dept/accessories

Final Verdict: 4/10. Not worth it. 

#2: Cocoon Grid- It Organizer 
Description: A flat surface with interwoven elastics that hold all your cords, cables, and gadgets in place. This "ultimate organizer" is supposed to keep these items from strangling each other, and comes in a variety of sizes.

Things you should know about the Cocoon Grid-It:

The Cocoon Grid-It offers endless configurations for
organizing gadgets and travel items.

• Because of all the different elastic widths, it's easy to put the Grid-It to good use. It's very versatile and can hold items as big as a camera and as small as earbuds. 
• Everything is visible at the same time, and accessing different items is simple instead of insanely difficult because they're stuck way at the bottom of your bag. 
• The thick, stretchy elastics can easily secure items and actually keep them secure. You won't have to worry about them falling out. Unfortunately, we all know what happens to elastics over time, so don't try to force items that are too big for the elastics or they will stretch out. 
• Carefully organized, the Grid-It could fit many items, conceivably more than the average person could carry around. This is great, but for travel I wouldn't buy any size larger than small because how much stuff am I actually going to bring with me? (See my packing list.)
• Weight can also be a problem. Carrying around a pair of earphones in my pocket, I'd barely notice. The Grid-It is certainly heavier (0.24kg), so only buy one of these if you know you can actually fill it with stuff.  

Conclusion: This awesome organizer can be adapted for use when travelling, but you need to get a smaller size (7"x 5" or 10.3" x 5") or it will become a burden. 

Buy the Grid-It: http://www.cocooninnovations.com/cat_info.php?cat_id=61

Final Verdict: 7/10. Worth it!

#3: Travel Pillows

Description: Travel pillows are soft, colourful, and come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Some are inflatable, and others are made from memory foam. They can help you to sleep and be comfortable when travelling. (Read: a pillow.)

Things you should know about travel pillows:

Although travel pillows are okay for short trips,
they're a waste of space when travelling internationally.

• One of the most popular types of travel pillows are the inflatable ones. These are easy to pack; after all inflatable travel pillows are basically like plastic bags! They're about as comfortable as resting your head on a plastic bag, too. Let's not mind the fact that you paid $20 for it and it still takes three hours to inflate. 
• Some are made from memory foam (it remembers the shape of your head? This thing is a genius!). This type of travel pillow is more comfortable than the inflatable ones but can still be stored without taking up too much space. More or less.
• Sleep collars: More like "neck brace". Do not buy. (If you want, just google it. I'm not putting a picture of it on my blog, it's too embarrassing.)
• Hoodie pillow: Just no. (Google again.)
• Of course, you could always just roll up your hoodie and make it into a pillow. But I guess that's out of the question. More important to waste even more space by getting a travel pillow. 

Conclusion: These are a waste of space and money unless you're bringing the dishwasher with you. In that case, a travel pillow is a GREAT idea! Just remember to get one of the 25kg-life-raft-sized-memory-foam ones that will have to go in the cargo hold because you can't get them through the door of the plane. 

Buy a travel pillow (if you feel you have to get one of these, get this one):  http://www.luglife.com/Nap-Sac-Travel-BlanketPillow-Set?sc=2&category=28416

Final Verdict: 2/10. Not worth it.

Thanks for reading! If you agree or disagree with my product advice, leave a comment below. And if you enjoyed this post or want to request an item for me to review next, let me know :)

Happy travelling (and shopping!) 

My Tour de France Experience

I know, I know. Why do I always have to post travel stories? Sorry. If you don't want to read about the Tour de France, then you'll just have to wait a few weeks until I make another travel advice post. But if you need something to do or will be visiting France next summer, read "Information". If you want to read a story, scroll down to where it says "Story." There's also a cool video from the Tour de France at the end. Happy reading!

Information: 
First of all, the Tour de France is an annual bicycle race that is based primarily in France (duh) but it also occasionally passes through surrounding countries. Over 23 days, the competitors from various countries complete 21 stages (étapes), over 3000km. The final stage always ends on the Champs-Elysees, and leader at the end of the race gets a highly coveted yellow jersey. (The cyclists can't just all go to Walmart and pick up yellow shirts after the race; I guess there's some symbolism involved here.) There are also more coloured shirts for best climber, best youth cyclist, and best sprinter. Every summer, people come from all over the country (and other parts of Europe!) to watch different stages of the race.

If you want to see the Tour de France, you have two options.
#1) Watch the sweaty cyclists race past you in a blur as you stand on the roadside along the racecourse.  No matter how much you de-blur your photos, they will not even be worthy of Instagram.  OR:
#2) Go to the city/town a stage of the Tour is starting in, and take part in the hours of festivities before and after the cyclists leave to begin their next stage. This includes floats, prizes, food, and even a few Instagram-worthy photos.

A map of the 2012 Tour de France course.

Well, there's certainly an obvious choice here (and it's not #1). So in 2012, my family went to Limoux to see the start of a stage of the 99th Tour de France.
Even if you don't like biking, it's a pretty awesome event to get to watch the start of a stage. If you're in the right area of France at the right time, I would definitely recommend going. An added bonus is the fact that there's always lots of food.

More information: http://www.letour.com/de/

Story: (My Tour de France experience)

It's six in the morning when I'm woken up. I sit up and look out the window at our garden and open up the windows, feeling the fresh air of Southern France on my face. I'm trying to savour the moment when I hear a strange noise downstairs. *splurch slurp chomp splorch* Oh, it's the pet cat eating breakfast. So much for savouring the moment. Now I remember that today we're going to watch the Tour de France! Yay! I'm so excited! But I still want to go back to bed.

Before...

After breakfast, we drive through the morning light for an hour and a half. Why is everything so dark? Oh yeah, it's because I woke up at SIX IN THE MORNING to get dumped into a car where the door handle gets in the way of my jacket/pillow so I can't sleep. Trust me, there are serious considerations when choosing a car to rent. You have to find one where the inside of the car doesn't have the window button in the wrong place because it wedges into your ear when you're trying to relax... got a little off topic.
We get to the outskirts of the town of Limoux, and I'm awake thanks to the guys with little plastic glow sticks directing us around.
The good news: We got here early so we should get a great parking space close to city centre, where the Tour de France starts.
The bad news: "Good parking space" constitutes as "only a 2km walk!"
*sigh*

...After!

The walk was actually pretty interesting. We got to see the local wildlife (pigeons of Limoux), I almost tripped over a Tour de France banner, and I saw a squad of these tiny cars herding people around. They were actually part of the Tour de France organization, but I didn't know that until later. (I was a gullible kid back then... thought that it was okay to use a group of cars to herd a bunch of people.)
After about half an hour, we got to the main street of Limoux, where the organizers were just setting up. There were still two and a half hours until the actual festivities began. Almost as if I didn't have to get up at six in the morning. We were able to pass the time by eating croissants, getting Tour de France t-shirts, and taking pictures of the aforementioned local wildlife.
Soon after, they started playing music and everyone crowded around a big stage in the centre of a nearby square. The mayor of Limoux and some important-looking people wearing suits welcomed us to the Tour de France, etc etc. Then, the crowd of people rushed back to the start line, and we got to see a giant parade of the Tour's sponsors.
Each company was represented by an elaborately decorated float with lots of cars around it. Besides looking fabulous, lots of the floats threw free samples into the crowd as a promotion. I got a bag, a hat, a keychain, a (non metal) water bottle, a pen, and my favourite-- a blow-up plastic pillow from the Ibis hotel chain.

"The guy with the yellow jersey"

The crowd was at least ten rows deep, but I was lucky-- right in the front, mashed into the metal gate that ensures nobody falls out onto the road and gets run over by a float. (That would be a pretty embarrassing way to die; getting mowed down by a truck that throws blow-up pillows as free samples to everyone.)
I have to say, I was pretty impressed with the experience so far-- and I hadn't even seen the cyclists yet! The stunning ambiance is like a spectrum of colours... (insert fancy vocabulary here)... it was good.

And they're off!

Finally, the floats were replaced with cyclists, all grouped in teams, with very expensive-looking bike-racing suit things. According to my travel diary, "the guy with the yellow jersey was in the front" (excellent observations by my 10-year old self). The herding cars moved out of the way, and the music was replaced by a stunning silence. Two massive clocks on either side of the start banner showed the seconds before the cyclists could leave. I don't think it was really necessary to vocally count down from 50... but never mind. I'm ruining the Tour de France Vibe here.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1... GO! My thoughts, in order, after the cyclists started down the road:
1) MY CAMERA! This is definitely gonna make it onto Instagram! *fails to take decent video because of all the people screaming around me*
2) What am I doing? Savour the moment, you idiot! *puts camera in bag* *watches for one second*
3) Okay, let's get that video! *pulls out camera*
4) Darn it they're around the bend.
5) Okay lets go home. I'm hungry.
6) Ooooo airplanes flying overhead! They have contrails the colour of the French flag! *gets decent photo of airplanes*
7) That was pure genius... I missed the cyclists but I got the airplanes.

A great way to end my experience with the Tour de France 2012.

It really was an amazing experience. Luckily I did get some decent photos, some of which were of the natural wildlife (they are not included in this post.) I also gained about 30 pounds in croissants-- my family basically rolled me back to the town we were staying in. To conclude I'm definitely going to remember the 99th Tour de France for a long time, and I hope one day I can watch the beginning of another stage... even if it means waking up at six in the morning :)

And to conclude, here's a video of the Tour de France. If you find yourself in France at the right time, in the right place... you just might be able to watch one of the world's greatest bike races.