Over the past week, my wife, my children, my parents and I all went on vacation to the Dallas/Fort Worth area (we had planned a longer road trip, but we made an on-the-fly decision to just stick around DFW). While there, we visited family and saw a large number of sights and events in the area.

Before the trip, I collected suggestions for free things to do in the area from both readers of the site and on Twitter. The response was pretty surprising, with lots of great suggestions thrown our way. I collected all of the ones suggested by multiple people, selected the handful that I was sure would be a hit with my family, and we tried out several of them.

So, here are the great free things to do in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

Free Things We Enjoyed
Here are the four free things we really enjoyed on our trip. We tried several things, but these stood out from the pack.

Pioneer Plaza

Pioneer Plaza is a beautiful park in the middle of Dallas that features a life-size bronzed cattle drive – three cowboys herding a lot of cattle across a stream. The setting is beautiful and the sculptures are fantastic.

We wound up spending almost two hours here, even on a hot summer day. We admired all of the bronze statues, walked across the stream a few times, and my children petted a horse ridden by a Dallas police officer. It would have been a perfect place to have a picnic had we been more prepared.

You can find out more about Pioneer Plaza from the Texas Trees Foundation.

Dallas Farmer’s Market

What can I say? I love farmer’s markets. There are tons of fresh food samples, opportunities to buy delicious produce at a very low price, and almost always a surprise or two. The Dallas Farmers Market, on the quiet Wednesday morning that we were there, was sparsely crowded but had a lot of vendors happy to talk and offer samples of all kinds.

In the picture above, my daughter was discovering that she loves watermelon – she was trying a (free) piece of yellow watermelon. We wound up buying quite a few fruits at the market, which provided afternoon snacks for the family and some breakfast food as well.

You can find out more about the Dallas Farmers Market at their website.

Dealey Plaza
This is the area where President Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963. You can stand outside the School Book Depository and observe the route that Kennedy took. There’s also a lot of public works projects in the area, built in the 1930s.

Although there is actually a very nice museum nearby in the School Book Depository, I found that the actual setting outside the Depository had much more of an impact. I walked along the route that Kennedy took, absorbed the area, and thought about that tragic moment.

Wikipedia has an excellent entry on Dealey Plaza.

Fort Worth Stockyards

Over in Fort Worth, we visited the Stockyards. While there are a lot of shops in that area, there’s also a ton of free things to see and do – walking around the stockyards themselves, for starters. There are several free special events each day as well.

The highlight, though, was seeing the longhorn steers being leisurely driven down the street by three or four cowboys (pictured above). My son loved this part and kept talking about it for days afterward.

This is a great way to spend most of a day in Fort Worth. You can find out more at the Stockyards website.

Things Recommended By Two or More Readers
Here are five free activities recommended by multiple readers that we simply didn’t have time to make it to on our trip. All of these sounded like quite a bit of fun – and we would have likely done all of them had our trip been a few days longer.

Jazz Under the Stars
Each summer, the Dallas Museum of Art has a free concert series – in 2009, this series is called “Jazz Under the Stars.” Each Thursday at 8 PM, people gather at Ross Avenue Plaza, spread out blankets and picnic baskets, and enjoy a free outdoor concert by some very good jazz ensembles. More information is available at the Dallas Museum of Art website.

Crow Collection of Asian Art
The Crow Collection of Asian Art is a beautiful art museum located in the Dallas Art District that several readers raved about. It’s right in the heart of the city and features a stunning collection of Asian art, both historical and modern. Outside, there’s an extensive sculpture garden, which includes 20 statues from the French masters. Find out more at CrowCollection.org.

Farmer’s Branch Historical Park
This is a large collection of historical buildings from the 19th and early 20th century, maintained in a state as close to the original as possible. For people into folk history, this is apparently an exquisite place to visit. You can find out more about the Farmer’s Branch Historical Park here.

Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center
The Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center is a spectacular concert hall with extremely impressive architecture and acoustics. Built by I. M. Pei, the Center also features one of the best pipe organs in the United States. Check it out at MeyersonSymphonyCenter.com.

Thanks-Giving Square
This is an open area in the center of downtown Dallas dedicated to the idea of giving thanks as a universal human value. The location features an interfaith chapel, a stunning courtyard, and an impressive array of nature and art. Find out more about it at ThanksGiving.org.

Believe it or not, our summer vacations for the next five summers are penciled in right now. For each of those trips, I intend to do the same thing: ask around for free things to do, try out as many as I can, and report on the ones we didn’t make it to.

As you read this, I’m likely somewhere in the sky over the western half of the United States. I’ve flown quite a bit over the last decade, but I haven’t flown since the most recent restrictions on carry on items. These restrictions really shoot in the foot most of my strategies for saving money in the airport, such as bringing my own bottled water from home and making sure I have a well-stocked carry-on with all my essentials in it (many of them are now banned).

Instead, I’ve adopted some new practices to avoid the ridiculously high costs I’ll face inside of an airport – and also at my destination if my luggage were to go missing. Here’s what I do to get around the new regulations (along with some of the better things I used to do):

I pack an empty water bottle into my carry-on luggage, then fill it at a water fountain inside of airport security. The empty bottle is completely fine within regulations, and then the bottle can easily be filled at a water fountain inside the airport. This saves a lot on beverage costs within the airport.

I pack some energy-rich snacks. Things like granola bars are very filling and energy-dense, perfect for keeping away hunger while in an airport. I can generally find good, healthy food on the other end of my trip so that I don’t have to pay for overpriced airport food.

I look for “travel size” toiletries for cheap – or free – wherever I can. I do much of my shopping at warehouse stores, where quite often you can find full size packages with “travel size” items attached to them for little or no cost. I’ve started to look out for these and then collect them, so I don’t have to pay a lot for a travel sized bottle.

Before trips, I actually refill the “travel size” shampoo and conditioner bottles. These are easily refillable with whatever shampoo I have – I just use a small bulb to suck out a little from a large bottle, then squirt it into the small one. That way, I don’t have to buy these again. This process doesn’t work as well with toothpaste, though, unless you’ve been very careful with the tube.

I always keep at least two days’ worth of clothes in my carry-on. Nothing fancy, but something that will work. That way, if my luggage vanishes, I can wear these clothes in a pinch without having to dump cash on some clothes at a shopping mall. On shorter trips (like this one), I plan the entire trip solely out of my carry-on, though that may mean some ironing when I arrive at my hotel.

My number one tip, though, is assuming that I will be delayed. I always pack a long book of some sort into my carry-on, always. I also pack away my trusty Nintendo DS and more than enough granola bars (along with that empty water bottle). I’ve been stuck in airports for many, many hours before and the last thing I want to do during that long wait is to get bored and then talk myself into buying stuff I don’t need.

All of these tactics work with the new airport security regulations – you should be able to zip right in without skipping a beat and not have to open your wallet for needless things.

When I was young, my family did not have a whole lot of money for trips. Most of our “vacations” were trips to Grandma’s house – she lived a few hours away and had a big house that even had a hidden tunnel in it that let you sneak from one bedroom to another through a door in the back of a closet. To me, this trip (we would stay for four or five days) was the highlight of my summer most years.

However, we did take a few trips besides these. They stuck in my memory then because they were so much fun, but looking back on it now, the ideas behind the trip were pieces of pure genius from my family. Here’s what we did.

We would travel by Amtrak to another part of the country. Most of the time, these trips weren’t particularly far, actually – we were only on the train for a few hours (at least in my mind’s eye). However, one could schedule a trip to almost anywhere in the continental United States using this logic.

We would bring along camping equipment. On this Amtrak trip, we would bring along camping equipment – a tent, sleeping bags, and such. Our actual luggage was usually pretty light – t-shirts, shorts, sandals, and so on.

Upon arrival, we would completely play it by ear We would usually get off in a rural place at mid-day and from there we would completely play it by ear. My father would keep cash on him and he’d simply ask at the train station (or at the nearest business we could find) about local state parks and campgrounds. He would also usually inquire about transportation to this campground – most people would feel most comfortable with a rental car, but he usually asked about a car repair place, headed there, and offered some cash for use of the “loaner” for a few days – the cheapest rental possible, basically.

What did you do? Once we were camped out, we would often see local attractions, particularly free ones. It was trips like these that made me fall in love with Americana – things like the world’s largest twine ball, for example. Things like these are completely kitschy fun. We also enjoyed the natural beauty of the state parks – exploring the trails and such. The best part of rural state parks is that they’re quite safe for families – we were basically allowed to wander wherever we wanted in the park, even at a young age, and we would rarely see other people at all.

We’d usually spend at least part of the time learning how to do something new, usually something bordering on survivalism. We would start fires using nothing but the materials around us, make fishing poles with nothing but a Swiss army knife and what we could find, and so on. We’d catch fish, dress them ourselves, and eat them for supper. It was incredibly fun, challenged us all to be creative and learn new things, and yet it was incredibly relaxing – our biggest worry would be finding another piece of fallen wood for the camp fire.

What did it cost? There would be seven or eight of us on these trips and we would stay for a week. What did it cost? According to my calculations, some of those trips to another part of the country for a week, including travel and food and other supplies, would be less than $500 in today’s money (assuming you had the basic camping equipment). That’s a frugal vacation – and one your family would talk about for years to come!

If you take nothing else from this, remember that the fun of a vacation is in the time spent with people you love, not in the places you go. You don’t need to blow thousands on a trip to DisneyWorld to have an amazing vacation.

I received a very interesting note from a reader who really deserves a vacation:

I’m in the Army National Guard, currently serving in Iraq. I am scheduled to get home around mid-July, and my wife and I want to take a nice vacation. We’re planning on going to Ireland next year, so we’re not looking to do anything absolutely huge. But, after a year in Iraq, I want to do something very relaxing. Have you ever used a travel agent? We’re considering that route as a possibility, since neither of us have used one, and it would be nice to have someone plan a vacation for us. We’re also considering a road trip to Missouri or Ohio (we live in Indiana), but we have no family to visit, so some of your road trip suggestions don’t really work for us. We’re willing to spend about $1,000, up to $1,500 if necessary, for a nice vacation…

For a small domestic trip like this one, I would not use a travel agent. They’re useful for planning big trips (I used one when planning our honeymoon in the UK) but for smaller trips like this one, it’s not worth the money. Instead, I would do the following:

Have your wife and yourself separately write a list of twenty (or so) places in the United States that you’d love to see. Do this separately, and try to be honest and also creative. My wife and I did this for our 2005 summer vacation (we actually wrote a top 50 list because we really got into it) and we both found that the more honest we were about what we would like to see, the better the trip became. Include visiting relatives and friends on this list.

Once you’re together again, figure out where all of these places are on a US map. Mark them all with thumbtacks so that it’s clear where they all are. This will give you a visual indication of where everything is. We literally used a bulletin board and used two different colors of thumbtacks, one for me and one for her.

Go to the area where the largest grouping of thumbtacks can be found. For us, this turned out to be southern Nevada/western Arizona, because we wanted to visit Las Vegas, Hoover Dam, the Arizona desert, and the Grand Canyon. This area had four tacks pretty close together and they were an equal balance of our colors.

Research that area online and find out the cheapest way to get there and the cheapest place to stay there. For us, we stayed in Las Vegas because we went during the week when the hotels were cheap and the flight there was very cheap. There are lots of sites online for doing such research – Priceline, Expedia, Hotdeals, and so on. Don’t hesitate to look into camping, too, because that can be a very economical option.

Don’t spend more than half your budget getting there, sleeping, and getting back. That means try to keep the travel and lodging under $750 at all costs, leaving you $750 to do things you’ll actually remember. One of our best memories was an amazing breakfast that my wife and I had on that vacation; it was ridiculously expensive, but somehow wonderful. The parts we didn’t remember were when we were sleeping or traveling (other than my wife forgetting stuff at the hotel when we arrived at the airport).

Our Nevada/Arizona trip was by far the cheapest vacation we’ve ever taken, but it was almost our most memorable one, too (behind our honeymoon). Good luck planning your own trip.

This weekend, my wife and I are traveling to see her younger sister graduate from college and also attend a small family reunion. We’ll have to drive at least seven hours this weekend and also spend three nights away from home, which in the end implies a lot of extra expenses.

Here are ten things that we do on such a family trip to save money. Some might seem obvious, but keeping them in mind will save you money on a trip like this one.

Pack meals for the road trip, at least when departing. This way, we avoid the need to stop and buy expensive and unhealthy roadside food. Homemade sandwiches, finger veggies and cheese curds, and a drink make for a much cheaper and healthier meal on the road for everyone.

Air up the car tires before we leave. Having properly inflated tires can significantly improve your gas mileage, and with gas at $3.24 a gallon right now, it’s worth the effort if you can save a few gallons of gas on a long road trip.

Plan your trip in advance. Make sure you know the route, and make sure you know which states along that route have the least expensive gas prices, then optimize things so you can fill up on the appropriate side of the state border to maximize your dollar. It takes only a minute or two to use Google Maps and check on gas prices online, but it can save you significant cash.

Stay with family if at all possible; otherwise, consider camping. Both options are much more thrifty than a hotel. We camp regularly on such visits, but this time we’re actually staying with relatives, which is even cheaper.

Eat communally with other family members if possible. We’ll do such things as order food together or even make meals together at the house we’re staying at. This cuts down greatly on food expenses per person for all involved. The more you can avoid eating out, the better. Even if you do something like ordering pizza, getting everyone involved and chipping in means a big savings.

Bring along homemade foods to share – and convince others to do the same. We often bring jars of our homemade salsa, and then we talk to others in advance and encourage them to bring things. The end result is cheap and delicious food for everyone: my mother-in-law’s tremendous dessert bars, her sister’s fantastic ethnic treats, and so on.

Drink lots of water. When I was younger, I was strongly tempted to start downing sodas and other beverages whenever we went on such a trip. Now I drink lots of water and maybe a hand-crafted beer or two in the evening. Why? Water is cheap, it hydrates you quite well, and it’s free of corn syrup and other additives. In fact, I tend to drink water more often when I’m traveling, perhaps because I’m conscious of it.

Carpool heavily once you’re all together. Don’t take four cars to transport nine people; instead, pack as many as you can into someone’s Suburban and have everyone chip in a dollar or two for gas. We have relatives with SUVs and minivans who just volunteer to haul everyone around at such events.

Suggest cheap and free activities over expensive ones. Play card games or frisbee or touch football. In order to open the door to such things, we bring the needed items along: our trunk has a deck of cards, a few frisbees, a football, a horseshoe kit, and a few other items that can get people to hang out and do something free rather than wanting to go out and burn a bunch of cash on a tourist-type situation. Quite often, we’ll get out frisbees and touch footballs for the children and teenagers, while the adults wind up playing card games.

If you feel an urge to get out, let the local host show you great free stuff to do – or research the area in advance. There’s always something culturally interesting in any area, even in northern Iowa and southern Minnesota. Instead of dropping $20 a head to go to an amusement park or going to a gigantic shopping mall, see if there are any free museums or historical sites to see or any cultural festivals going on. Many of my best memories are from doing things like visiting the twine ball in Arthur, Minnesota or checking out the Spam Museum, not going to the Mall of America or an amusement park. And guess which one is cheaper?

A few months ago, I wrote about four techniques for saving money on road trips: performing maintenance before you leave, minimize your distance, pack snacks before you leave, and research gas prices before you leave. These are useful for planning your trip in advance, but here are five additional ways to maximize your cash while you’re actually on the road.

Use your cruise control. This is an effective technique in multiple ways. Not only can you lock in your speed to ensure that you aren’t ticketed, keeping your speed near the speed limit on long legs also improves your gas mileage.

Settle in behind a large vehicle. Get in behind a semi, get your speed roughly matching theirs, and pop it into cruise control. You’ll really cut down on gas mileage because the large vehicle in front of you cuts down on wind resistance, thus requiring less energy use to maintain the speed you set.

Require that all passengers use the bathroom when you stop. This minimizes the chance that little Joey has to use the bathroom about fifteen minutes after you get back on the interstate. Even if everyone in the vehicle is an adult, if you stop, everyone gets out and uses the bathroom. Even if it extends your stop by a minute or two, it saves time in the long run if it prevents a stop.

Avoid cities at rush hour. If your planned route takes you near the core of a large metropolitan area near rush hour, plan another route, even if it’s suboptimal, to avoid that urban center at that time. In the past, I’ve gone more than 50 miles out of my way simply to avoid a leg near O’Hare in Chicago at about 5 PM.

If you do need snacks, stop at a supermarket. You’ll save a huge chunk of money on food at the grocery store versus a convenience store, plus the selection is substantially better for choosing healthier items. If you’re concerned about time, have the driver dump everyone out at the grocery store and then pick them up after fueling.

I’m sitting here in the Dallas/Fort Worth airport composing this post and all around me I see opportunities to burn through a lot of money very quickly. Hungry traveler? You can drop $10 on some pretty awful fast food quite quickly. Want to eat somewhat better? TGI Friday’s will be glad to take a few Hamiltons from you before you blink. And if you expect to pay below MSRP for anything, think again. Think that’s bad? I watched a friend just this morning spend $12 on two breakfast sandwiches that were described as “awful” and a small container of orange juice.

So what can a busy traveler do to avoid these ridiculous expenses? Here’s what I do every time I travel so I’m not stuck shelling out a lot of cash during airport layovers.

First, I put a ton of goodies in my carry-on. I usually take beef jerky, Pepperidge Farm goldfish crackers, and Nutri-Grain bars, but you may want to try some other stuff. I also pack a meal if the trip is going to be really long or the layover is long. I have room for plenty of snacks in my carry-on, because usually I just have a few reading materials and maybe my laptop in my carry-on bag (which itself is actually the backpack I used in college). Beef jerky is the absolute best food to take because it’s extremely filling for the volume.

Second, I pack an empty water bottle in my carry-on. Most of the time, this goes through airport security without a blink. Recently, a security guard did dig it out and check it over, but it was completely empty so he didn’t do a thing about it. After I get it through airport security, I go to the restroom and fill it with tap water. If this bothers you, you can use a filtered water bottle instead.

I also pack plenty of reading material and other entertainment in my carry-on. This always includes a notepad and a pen. Why? No matter how bored I get, I can come up with things to write down. If I have my laptop along, I can always use that for plenty of entertainment (I like playing through older computer games, but that’s another frugal topic…).

When I’m in the airport, I head straight to my gate and sit down. Making this my goal as soon as I get through security makes it a lot easier to not get distracted by the shopping mall-esque qualities of many modern airports. Once I’m entrenched at a gate, the only thing that can really roust me is the need to use a bathroom, so I usually stop at a bathroom very near my gate (and also use that opportunity to fill my water bottle).

What about return trips? I make it a point to pack my bag with snacks before I even reach the airport. Sometimes, this means grabbing stuff at a grocery store in the middle of a trip, but it is much, much cheaper to do this than to buy stuff iniside of the airport. I usually pack enough jerky for both the trip going and coming and I keep it in a sealed container for freshness, so usually I just look for other snack items.

You can easily save $20 each trip using these tips, and even more if you’re ever “tricked” into shopping in airports. Just remember that airports are extremely poor for competitive prices and a bit of advance planning here is well worth the time invested.

The Simple Dollar is running a series in which we re-evaluate Money Magazine’s “25 Rules To Grow Rich By”. One “rule” will be re-evaluated each weekday until the series concludes; you can keep tabs on the action at the 25 Rules index.

Rule #24: Don’t redeem frequent-flier miles unless you can get more than a dollar’s worth of air fare or other stuff for every 100 miles you spend.

Throughout this series, I have often criticized the rules on this list for either being far too limiting or being flat-out wrong. For once, I’m going to issue a big compliment to the list.

This rule is completely spot on.

In fact, the same holds true for any “points” program you might be in. If you can’t get more than a dollar per 100 points in the program, hold off on using the points.

Here’s the trivial edit to the rule:

Rewritten Rule #24: Don’t redeem frequent-flier miles (or points from any bonus program) unless you can get more than a dollar’s worth of air fare or other stuff for every 100 miles (or points) you spend.

You can jump ahead to rule #25 or jump back to rule #23.