Do you need a family friendly vacation? When fiances are tight it’s easy to forgo a vacation. It is true that traveling can be expensive –things like gas prices, plane tickets, and hotel reservations have a way of adding up fast if you’re not careful. But for savvy savers, planning affordable family vacations doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg! If you are dying to take your family on vacation, but are worried about being able to afford it, here are some tips for planning fun family vacations on a budget.
Family Vacation Ideas on a Budget
1. Eliminate Travel Costs.
You can do this by finding vacation spots close to home. Take some time off to explore your home town and find out what kind of vacation ideas and activities it has to offer. You may be surprised by what you discover. Look into museums and parks that you can visit during the day that are close enough to where you live that you can return to your home at night. This way, you do not have to worry about paying for accommodation for the whole family.
2. Travel By car. Even with fuel prices rising as summer approaches, taking a road trip with four or five people in the car will be less expensive than purchasing separate plane tickets for every family member. Pack non-perishable, easy-to-prepare food to take with you to cut down on restaurant expenses.
3. Save Money on Air Travel
Some vacation places are simply to far to travel by car. These days, there are many web sites out there that are devoted especially to helping people find special deals and budget rates on airfare. To save more money, you can sometimes book your plane tickets, hotel reservations, and car rental as an entire package and receive a discounted rate. We are huge fans of hotwire to help us plan cheap family vacations!
4. Call Individual Hotels and Airlines.
As great as the Internet is for helping travellers find budget options, there is something to be said for speaking to hotel management and airline representatives in person – or on the phone.
Sometimes if you call the airline or hotel and ask about special deals, they may have something to offer you that is not listed online. If you are willing to fly on less popular days and at less popular times, you can also often find cheaper tickets for those kid friendly vacations.
5. Accumulate miles through a credit card or frequent flyer program,
This works especially well when buying plane tickets for the entire family, since the more you buy, the more points and miles you rack up.
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Great tips! I am all for travelling by car because it saves so much money than travelling by plane even if takes more time.
Fabulous tips!!! We travel often and our great hack is traveling on non-popular days. Crazy the deals you can get when your not traveling on a weekend or during peak season.
These are great tips. I have to agree that traveling by car is way cheaper than traveling by plane.
These are all great tips. I really like traveling by car. It makes the getting there as much as a part of the adventure.
These are all great tips for planning a family vacation on a budget. It is such a good idea to use a credit card that you can get frequent flyers miles and or the cash back programs. The exploring your home town is indeed an awesome idea also. Thanks for sharing the tips.
We have also noticed huge savings when we drive instead of flying. I also like the idea of calling individual hotels and airlines instead of buying a package deal.
I am a family of five and need to be on a budget. I think this is the best way to go and save money. Trips can become expensive. Thanks for the tip.
Great tips! My friends and I are planning a road trip this summer and budgeting was one of the main reasons we decided to drive instead of fly.
I love these tips!! We love to travel but try to find every way we can to save money to be able to go on more adventures.
I completely agree with you that it is so worth it to call the actual hotel or airline, aside from doing your research online. The representative may have some options or discounts that the website doesn’t offer!
We always travel by car! I’m hoping we’ll be able to do something fun on the road this summer! Too expensive these days to travel by plane with the entire family.
Awesome ideas, I vacation along mostly so I prefer to fly as my destinations are always abroad
These area all great tips and I’ll use them this summer as I travel. My sister travels a lot so she takes advantage of the frequent flyer program.
Those are all really great tips. When it comes to summer travel we try to travel by car because it does cost a lot less. With 4 children in tow, I sure do save a lot more money that way.
These are great tips! We are driving from Boston to Vero Beach this summer… I feel like we are insane, BUT 4 airline tickets would render us poor 🙁
Great tips. We always travel via car because its so much cheaper. Thanks for sharing
Great ideas! Travel is so expensive when it’s just me, I can’t even imagine what it’d be like with a full family. SO pricey!
Excellent tips ! One usually forgets about places close to home and tends to think all the “nice” spots are further away. I’m also working on our frequent flyer points now !
Great tips! Aside from the place you want to visit, budget should also be considered when travelling. Thanks for this!
i love traveling. these are some awesome tips also i love the photos.
Thank you for sharing! We always desire to go on a vacation, but have a hard time affording it. I think that we can take some of these steps above and enjoy our time away.
Great tips! Thanks for sharing. 🙂