Personal Finance - Planning Tips before Traveling

December 29, 2005 · Filed Under How to Manage Money

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More and more people like to travel. Since we will spend thousands over dollar to travel, why don’t we sit down and spend some time to do some planning. By planning, we will know how much we will spend and how to save some money while traveling.

Below are some of the simple tips that I recommend to you:

1. Plan for the journey
Before we go on a journey, we should make a plan. In this plan, we must know the main places that we will go and start including those alternative places that we might go. After this, we must include a budget plan. We have a budget on our journey. The main expenses are transport, entrance tickets, foods, hotels, shopping and others small expenses. PS : Don’t take easy with this, because we will easily spend more money if we don’t have a plan on this. You also must reserve some money for emergency usage.

2. Transport
Different transports have different pros and cons. The airplane is fast, you can save a lot of time by taking an airplane. However the cost of airplane is expensive and it is cannot be chosen as your main transport. Train and cruise is another kind of economical transport. However it is slow. You can easily get tired and drop down your mood of travel. If you can afford, you may choose airplane as your main transport. However it is also a good experience if you choose train and cruise as your transport. Anyway, since it involves your money, you must plan and budget it so you can control your expenses.

3. Credit cards
If you go on journey with your family member, expenses can easily go up to thousands dollar. It is troublesome if you bring cash along with you, but it will be more convenience if you bring along you credit card. You may use your credit cards to pay for hotel, foods, shopping and others. If anything happen, you can use it to withdraw some cash from local bank for emergency usage. But, please remember, you still need to budget your expenses. If not, once you over the limit, nightmare will come after you happy time of journey. From my experience, you can treat credit cards as a debit card. You set a limit of $1000, and then you cannot spend over the limit. PS: here you must control your emotion, don’t let your happiness of journey burst your pockets.

4. Walking VS Transport
Just now we mentioned about the transport. However you have to pay for most of the transport. But thanks god, we have a transport that is free - our legs. The main point of travel is - be personally on the scene and feel the natural world around us. Along with the fast development of the world, there are a lot of facilities available in hot travel spot. We go around with car, mountaineering with cable car. We not only spend a lot of money here, but we also by pass a lot of beautiful scenes. If you choose walking, this not only saves some transport expenses, but you also can feel the real purpose of travel.

5. Choose the right place to stay and eat.
Normally, you will spend more money in travel spot. Therefore, it is recommended to choose your hotel and restaurant that outside the travel spot. For example, before you arrive the travel spot, you may choose some hotel in the small town around it. After having your meal, you can visit those places that you want to. If you can, you can eat more in your breakfast and bring some food, such as bread, ham and water for lunch. This just a saving idea in travel. You still need to figure out a complete plan to budget everything you spend in travel.

Tags: Budget Your Money