Sarah usually spends this time visiting her sisters, which she’s very close to. I usually spend that time going to a gaming convention with friends, typically Gencon.

On top of that, my previous job required me to attend multiple conventions and/or conferences a year.

Between these, I’ve had a lot of experience traveling to conventions and I’ve learned quite a few tactics for saving money on them. Here are a few things you should try when traveling to any convention.

Decide early
Most conventions have an “early bird special” which reduces your price of entry. Take advantage of it.

I have already made plans to go to Gencon for the next several years, as well as another convention that I’m going to dip my toes into later this year. That includes convention registration at the first possible date as well as watching carefully for flight prices to dip during that entire timeframe.

Find roommates – lots of them
Here’s the thing: at most conventions, you spend very little time in your room. If you’re not sleeping or doing basic hygiene, you’re going to be out and about, checking out the features of the convention or hanging out with other convention attendees. If you’re spending a lot of time in your room, you’re wasting useful convention time.

Because of that, it makes a lot of sense to put as many people in your room as you can. Fill it up to capacity with people, then split the cost of the room among you.

Don’t sweat the sleeping arrangements too much, either. Let people crash on the floor in sleeping bags. I’ve went to many a convention where I’ve spent the night on the floor in a sleeping bag. Most nights, I was completely exhausted after a day at the convention and I fell asleep almost immediately.

Stock your room
Eating out is one of the biggest expenses of traveling. It will sap your budget extremely quickly.

My solution? Stock the hotel room with food. On your way to the convention, stop at a grocery store and pick up the essentials for some quick meals. I usually get materials for sandwiches, some healthy sides (like dried fruit or nuts), and some beverages.

Each day, I pack myself some food in my backpack, which stays with me throughout the convention. When I’m hungry, I just unzip and eat.

Yes, some of the time you will go out and eat with people, and that has significant social value. For those other times, though, it saves a lot of money to have some food in your backpack.

The same thing is true with water bottles. Bring a well-insulated bottle with you and fill it with water whenever you can. It’ll save you money on beverages.

Utilize the free food
I’ve never been to a convention that didn’t offer free food or drink in some form, whether in certain receptions, party rooms, booths, or other places.

Find it. Utilize it. Enjoy it. It’s part of what you get from the price you pay for the convention.

Volunteer
Many conventions offer discount packages to volunteers. For example, some conventions have a deal where if you are willing to spend one of the days at the convention helping others, then you get your convention badge for free.

Take advantage of that opportunity, too. You can actually see quite a bit of the convention as a helper, plus you’re getting a pretty nice discount for helping out.

If reasonable, carpool
If you’re driving to a convention, look for people in your area to ride with (perhaps in addition to rooming with them). Most conventions have some tools for seeking out other attendees in your area. Carpooling saves you on gas, potentially saves you on car wear and tear, and allows you to utilize HOV lanes for faster travel.

If that doesn’t work, look for ways to pick up people on your way to the convention. You can then at least save some money on your gas bill.

Conventions are expensive, but you can find a lot of ways to trim down the cost if you’re careful.

The post Some Tips for Frugal Conventions appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Storybook Island
If you have children under about nine years old or so, this is an absolute must.

It’s a large, free park in Rapid City, South Dakota. It’s about 8 1/2 acres in size and is loaded with sculptures, playground equipment, and other items each themed around a classic children’s story such as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Humpty Dumpty. There are slides, train rides, treehouses, tunnels, bridges, ships, and countless other things to explore. We spent about four hours there and could have spent more time, easily.

You can find out more about Storybook Island at storybookisland.org.

Dinosaur Park
The Dinosaur Park in Rapid City features a handful of concrete dinosaur sculptures on a hill overlooking the town.

The sculptures are impressive in size. I was able to stand underneath a couple of them and my children loved climbing up on the smaller ones. In addition, the spot offers a gorgeous view of Rapid City. Expect to spend half an hour to an hour there. There’s no admission fee.

You can read more about the Dinosaur Park at http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/10514.

Black Hills National Forest
You can freely drive through most of the Black Hills National Forest. The scenery is just amazing throughout this area. Take U.S. Highway 385 through the heart of the Black Hills and you’ll be amazed at the scenery.

I particularly recommend taking the time to drive along the Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway and taking some time to stop at Roughlock Falls:

You can find out more about Black Hills National Forest at http://www.fs.usda.gov/blackhills/.

Deadwood
Deadwood, South Dakota is a bit of a tourist trap of a town, but there are some free things worth seeing there.

For my family, the most entertaining free thing in Deadwood was the daily gun fights held on the main street through town. A few times a day, they close off Main Street and stage a gun fight (with blanks, of course), which was highly entertaining. They also stage a re-enactment of the assassination of Wild Bill Hicock.

Overlooking the town is Mount Moriah Cemetery, which is also free. You can view the grave sites of Wild Bill Hicock and Calamity Jane, among other Western figures.

You can find out more about Deadwood at http://www.deadwood.com/.

National Parks and Monuments
The national parks and monuments in the area (Mount Rushmore, Devil’s Tower, Badlands) are all worth seeing. In the case of Mount Rushmore, Devil’s Tower, and Crazy Horse (which is private), they’re large enough to be seen well outside of the actual national park for free (it’s difficult to see much of the Badlands outside of the park). In the case of Mount Rushmore, it’s free to walk to the monument, but the parking ramp near it costs $11.

In the case of the other monuments and parks in the area (Devil’s Tower, Crazy Horse, and Badlands), you have to pay for entrance whether on foot or in a car. However, national parks are something I strongly support and am happy to pay $2 or $3 per head for the opportunity for my family to see our nation’s preserved wonders up close.

Here are some useful resources for these sites:
Mount Rushmore – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Rushmore
Crazy Horse – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Horse_Memorial
Devil’s Tower – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devils_Tower_National_Monument
Badlands – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badlands

Wall Drug
I have somewhat mixed feelings about recommending Wall Drug, as it’s akin to a shopping mall.

However, it is free to enter and there are several interesting free things going on inside of it. There’s a park for children to play in near the back and a great collection of Americana art. Also well worth noting is the fact that they provide unlimited free ice water and provide cups of coffee for a nickel.

You can find out more about Wall Drug at http://www.walldrug.com/.

A Big Frugal Tip
A vacation to South Dakota can be very inexpensive, as most of the things to see and enjoy are free or are pretty low cost.

However, I highly recommend that you bring your own food when you’re out for the day. The restaurants and other services near most of these attractions are incredibly expensive for what you get. This is more true for South Dakota than almost any trip I’ve taken, as most of the things you’re doing are pretty rural and the options for food can be limited.

The post Free and Inexpensive Things to Do in South Dakota appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

One of my big ideas for planning the trip was to look for ways to take advantage of the size of the group in order to reduce the per-person cost of the vacation without reducing the fun of the vacation for anyone.

I highly recommend traveling as a group for vacations. Even if you conclude that you won’t save a significant amount of money, the social opportunities make a vacation that much more fun. Consider vacationing with relatives and close friends.

First, a few caveats. We didn’t end up doing all of these things for various reasons, a major one being the health of my parents. Also, many of these tactics may work really well for some vacations and not as well for others. As always, evaluate the numbers yourself.

So, how can you take advantage of a group to save money?

Housing
Hotel lodging is often the default choice for people when they travel, but it’s also quite expensive. I’m often hard-pressed to find a clean and comfortable room for a price that doesn’t make me gasp. If you’re in a group, this gets worse, as people consider getting either suites or multiple rooms to house a sufficiently large party.

When you’re traveling with a group, you’re in the perfect situation to look for housing opportunities besides hotels. Group camping can become a wonderful experience, with a larger group to split up the tasks related to camping meaning more relaxation for everyone.

Another option is simply renting a house or a cabin, which is a great idea for a large group. A house can perfectly accomodate a very large group (roughly one family unit per bedroom) and it can be significantly cheaper than a group of rooms or a suite at hotels in the same area. This has the additional advantage of making food preparation much easier, something I’ll touch on below.

Carpooling
On many vacations, you’re either going to be driving to your destination or renting a car when you land at the airport. If you travel separately, that may mean two or three cars utilized on the vacation, which means lots of miles on lots of cars or lots of rental agreements. If you are with a sizeable group that packs reasonably, you can easily reduce that count by one or two cars, saving everyone money.

There are also additional savings that come from having a smaller vehicle count on vacation. A great example of this is entry into national parks and monuments. At many national parks, you pay per vehicle for entry if you’re not camping. In other words, the cost of driving a car with one passenger into a park is the same as driving a minivan with six passengers into a park, thus reducing the cost per person entering the park.

Meal Preparation
For many of our lunches (and at least one of our evening meals) during this past vacation, we prepared picnic lunches out of simple, tasty fare. We assembled sandwiches and side dishes in the morning, packed them in a cooler, and headed out for the day.

This was far cheaper than eating out as a group, and because many of the meals could be prepared assembly-line style (sandwiches, for example), it didn’t take up that much time, either.

Camping or staying at a cabin or house makes such meal preparation easier, of course. It’s possible to do this in a hotel room, but most hotel rooms aren’t conducive to food preparation.

Visitor’s Bureaus
If you’re in an area that has a welcome center or visitor’s bureau, stop in. These places can be a cornucopia of information about the place you’re visiting, helping you to identify interesting low-cost/free things to do.

While this tactic is true for any vacation, it’s particularly valuable for groups. The people working there can often help you quickly figure out things that will work well for a group of your size, help you identify things that match your interests, and sometimes even provide discounted or free passes for everyone.

Larger Groups
If you’ve got a group of ten or more people, ask about a group rate with everything you do. If you’re flying, ask your airline about a group rate. If you’re staying in a hotel, ask about a group rate. If you’re going to a museum or a garden or an exhibit, ask about a group rate.

Remember, the worst that can happen is that you don’t qualify for a group rate and end up having to pay the same rate as before. All this tactic can do is save you money.

The post Using Group Travel to Save Money appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Vacations can be a lot of fun, but they can also be really expensive, and one of the biggest travel expenses is food. When you’re traveling, not only do you not have access to your own kitchen, you’re also often tempted to just eat at a restaurant when you’re near one while out and about visiting sites.

That can seriously add up. If we were to eat out and spend even just an average of $10 a meal per adult and $5 a meal per child, our trip to South Dakota and Wyoming would set our family back $1,485 just for food alone! That actually exceeds our lodging for the trip, believe it or not.

At the same time, eating out at an unusual restaurant in a town you’ve never been to before and may never be in again can be quite fun. To us, that’s a part of a family vacation.

So, what can we do to cut down on those costs without removing the fun? Here are some of the tactics we’ve built up over the years.

Take along some food for the first leg of the trip. The night before we leave, we’ll actually pack a bunch of food for breakfast and lunch the next day. Fresh fruit, sandwiches, vegetables, water bottles, and other such things can easily be packed up in advance and kept cool with ice.

Then, we just stop at a state park or something near lunchtime and eat a picnic lunch. It gives the children a great opportunity to run around and wear themselves out, which usually causes them to nap most of the afternoon (enabling much easier travel for a while).

Visit a grocery store upon arrival. Pick up things like breads, cold cuts, fruits, cereals, and other such simple fare. Fill up your refrigerator (in your hotel room or cabin) or your cooler with the stuff that needs to remain cool.

Each day, prepare a simple breakfast of fruit and cereal from what you have on hand and pack a lunch with those materials, too. Pack the lunch along with you and eat it on that day’s excursion.

Use the peak-end rule for evening dining. Pick two evenings during the trip in which you’ll eat out at a very nice restaurant. I suggest an evening fairly early in the trip for one such nice meal and the final evening of the trip for another nice meal.

For the other evening meals, eat at a low-cost place for dinner or, if you have a cabin or are camping, simply prepare a meal of your own at those spots.

The “peak-end rule” is a psychological phenomenon in which we judge our experiences almost entirely on how they were at their peak (pleasant or unpleasant) and how they ended. For example, if you have a family reunion that was largely pleasant except for one big argument in the middle and a big argument at the end (I have been part of such reunions), you’ll view the whole reunion as pretty unpleasant in retrospect.

Similarly, I’ve found that if you plan a vacation with one amazing event in the middle and a pretty good event to close the vacation, you’ll remember the vacation as being incredible, even if most of the days weren’t stuffed with excitement.

The same goes for dining. If you visit a town and eat two really great meals there, one at the end of your visit, you’ll come to think of the food as incredible on the whole and you’ll look back with pleasure. The rest of the meals are far less vivid in retrospect, so make them inexpensive and simple.

Keep hydrated and keep snacks on hand. If you end a vacation activity and find yourself really hungry and thirsty, you’re going to find it much easier to talk yourself into eating out somewhere expensive without making a good, rational decision about it. If you keep some snacks on hand, though, and everyone has access to water bottles, you won’t have your choices driven by the base impulses of hunger and thirst and won’t make a rash decision.

Choosing and executing a few simple frugal food tactics can turn a rather expensive vacation into an affordable one without taking away from the experience or the memories.

The post Food and Vacation appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

The children are hungry and thirsty and often tired after such a trip (and, to be honest, I’m often feeling much the same). As we wander through the souvenir shop, the children inevitably spot something that they want and then the usual impasse occurs, which either ends with a hungry and thirsty and now upset child or with a minor souvenir being purchased.

This is absolutely my least favorite part of traveling and visiting new places. It’s often an expense. It’s always a hassle.

Thankfully, years of planning family vacations with a frugal mindset has helped me to avoid these traps more and more often. Here are some of the tactics we use to avoid souvenir and tourist expenses while still having an awesome vacation.

Do the research. Before you go on vacations, spend some time researching the places you’re considering visiting. Find out if these places force you through a gift shop or not, and use such techniques as a negative when considering whether to use that item as part of your vacation.

I understand that many places use gift shops as a revenue stream and a gift shop can often be the difference between keeping the doors open or not. However, a gift shop needs to be my option, not foisted upon me.

Find souvenirs and mementos outside of the gift shop. If you want souvenirs of your trip, don’t start by looking in gift shops.

Your first step should simply include digital photographs. If you want to remember something, take a picture so that you can look at it later. Similarly, recording your thoughts in a travel journal while going from place to place on a vacation can be wonderful.

I often look for natural souvenirs to bring home, such as unique rocks. We have stones from tne north shore of Lake Superior and from the Arbuckle Mountains in our yard. Other family members have bricks and baseballs found on vacations.

Plan ahead for hunger and thirst. There’s no reason not to have a quick snack for everyone in your traveling party. A quick drink and a handful of nuts can make a giant difference when you come out of a tour or an exhibit and find yourself (or your children) hungry and/or thirsty.

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve went through a museum or something with one of my children, only to find them saying “I’m hungry” or “I’m thirsty” near the end of the exhibits. They’ll start eyeing the gift shop and hoping for a quick stop to quench their thirst or hunger. That trip into the shop will often lead to other requests and suggestions, ones that will often lead to unneeded spending.

If I can just pull a snack out of my pack, then the desire to go into the gift shop is halted. It’s a simple step, but an effective one.

Be well rested. This is always the best tip for avoiding temptation while on vacation.

Enjoy it. Get plenty of rest and sleep. If you find that you’re frazzled, spend a day taking it easy and not hitting many sites. Vacation is meant to be restful, and if you’re rested, you’re a lot less likely to spend unnecessarily.

The post Handling (and Avoiding) Souvenirs and Tourist Traps appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Several people wrote to me after that post asking for details on our trip planning. Most of them were from people who were also planning trips to the South Dakota area in the next year or two, but at least a few were looking for some strong general tactics for frugal family vacation planning.

We’ve become fairly adept at planning out affordable and memorable family vacations over the years, even with young children. Just in our oldest son’s lifetime, we’ve taken long trips to the Chicagoland area, Lake Superior, Texas, western Washington state (this was the only non-road trip), and now to South Dakota and Wyoming. Each of these trips has been affordable and enjoyable for everyone involved.

I’m usually the one in charge of planning our family vacations. Here’s the process I use for planning them.

Pick a location, not a destination
If you center your vacation around a specific destination (say, Disneyworld), that becomes the focus of the trip. Other opportunities in and around that area become secondary to the destination, and the destination is often an expensive one.

Whenever we plan a trip, we try to make the location of the trip as general as possible. For example, we could easily say that this trip was to the Black Hills National Forest, but instead we’re thinking of it as a trip to South Dakota and eastern Wyoming. That way, the trip’s focus isn’t just on the Black Hills.

Look for everything of interest within that location
One great way to do this is to order a state or regional visitor’s guide (or look one up online). Almost every state has a department of tourism that produces a wonderful traveler’s guide for their state.

For example, South Dakota has a great website listing things worth seeing and doing within the state.

Over a period of a few weeks, we looked through these guides and marked everything of interest to us, which was quite a lot. I made special note of things that seemed interesting that were also free (or very low cost), as these activities would provide the backbone of our trip.

Use Google Maps to plan the route
After a while, I started marking locations of interest within Google Maps. This helped me to eliminate locations that were outliers. For example, there was some interest in visiting Wounded Knee, but there was nothing else marked within two or three hours of driving of that location, so we eliminated it from consideration.

Eventually, we recognized that most of the things we wanted to see (at least, ones that weren’t outliers) were fairly close to a single driving path, so we set that as our driving path.

Be loose with the trip planning
For each of the “pins” marked on Google Maps, I will be printing off an address and a page of information describing what it is and why it’s interesting. We’ll assemble these (along with the maps) in a “trip binder,” which we’ll take along on the trip.

To this point, we haven’t scheduled anything with a specific time or date. There may be things that require a specific time or date when you travel, but you’re better off minimizing those and allow your schedule to be flexible, because there will always be interesting impromptu things to see on an open-ended trip.

Look at a wide variety of housing
Housing on vacation doesn’t have to simply mean booking a hotel room. If you’re driving in the area, camping is a possibility, too. If you have a large group, a cabin in the area might be less expensive, considering you can make some of your meals there.

Rather than just hitting something like hotels.com when looking for housing, we use things like TripAdvisor and look at options like camping, cabins, rental homes, and other options.

Which one is the right choice? It depends on your group composition, really. For some groups, camping would be the best option (this is certainly true if it’s just my wife, my children, and myself). For larger groups, a cabin might be the best option as it might reduce the cost per person to a level lower than a hotel. There may also be people with special needs in the group that lean you toward one option or another.

The key is to not limit yourself to just hotels. There are many less expensive housing options if you expand your horizons, particularly when you consider places that enable you to make most of your own food instead of constantly eating at restaurants, which can really add up.

Use the “peak-end” rule
On our trips, we usually let everyone select one thing that they really want to do out of the options and we make sure that we do that thing, no matter what it is.

For example, I really want to see the Crazy Horse Monument, while my wife is very excited about going to Devil’s Tower. Our oldest son wants to hike in the Black Hills, and our daughter wants to see Mount Rushmore. All of these are things we will definitely see on the trip.

Simply put, we make sure everyone has a great “peak” experience for the trip.

Similarly, we try to figure out one thing that we all have a strong interest in doing. For the parents and the two older children, the one thing we all really want to see is a gold mine. (Yes, seriously. We’re kind of quirky.) We plan on doing this on the last day of the trip, providing our “end” experience.

Everything else we do is really secondary to these things, because most of our memories from the trip will come from our “peak” experience and our “end” experience, and as long as we’re all happy with those, the rest of the trip can be filled with whatever may come. That’s why we have a trip binder with many free options to fill our days.

The result of this planning is a family vacation we’ll all enjoy that’s not loaded down with expensive destinations. It’s worked wonderfully for our last several family vacations, and we don’t see it changing for this one.

The post How We Plan for a Summer Vacation appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Because we took some time to plan the trip in advance and involved everyone going on the trip in the planning, we ended up finding quite a few free and frugal things to do on the trip. We were also able to save money on the trip by only taking one vehicle.

However, there were other elements of the trip that weren’t quite as frugal. Our housing wound up being quite costly, for instance, as did our food bill.

This leads us to this winter. Sarah and I often plan the details of the following summer’s family vacation during the preceding winter so that we have plenty of time to find bargains for the upcoming travels.

We’re essentially planning two vacations for 2012, and both of them are going to be quite frugal. What do they have in common? They’re both group vacations.

Here are some of the things we’re doing to maximize fun and minimize cost on these trips by leveraging the fact that we’re traveling as a group.

We’re going with people with a similar mindset. None of the people we’re choosing to travel with next year are heavy spenders. All of them are frugally-minded people. They’re also people that we feel good about spending a significant amount of time with over a week. We want to have a reasonably-priced vacation and they’re on board with the same idea.

We’re splitting costs, looking for deals, and budgeting in advance. For both of these vacations, we’re essentially budgeting costs as a group, looking for deals as a group, and splitting costs as a group. These moves enable us to look at our situation through a lot of different eyes and the net result is reduced costs.

We’re going to visit places that are within a reasonable driving range. One vacation is within our own state. Another is only two states away. On trips this short, it makes a lot of sense to drive, not just based on money, but actually based on time. Not only that, driving means we can bring more of our own supplies, which makes these other options easier.

We’re going to camp for at least some of the vacation. This drastically reduces our housing costs. For us, it also adds to the flavor of the vacation due to the exposure to the outdoors. We’re also considering renting a cabin for our larger group vacation.

Because we’re camping, we’re also going to make most of our own food instead of eating out. Rather than going out to a restaurant, we’ll prepare a meal in our Dutch oven. We can still have something delicious and memorable without spending a ton of money.

The vacations are based on experiences rather than being a tourist. Some of the big things we intend to do on these trips involve going on hikes and fishing, not going to pricy “tourist-y” places. Because of that, our overall budget for vacation is much lower.

In the end, it’s all about people and experiences. Keep that in mind and you’ll find yourself having a great vacation without a great dent in your pocketbook.

The post Planning a Group Vacation appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Naturally, such a trip is an expensive proposition. We have two adults and three young children, which not only means that we’re paying for five, but it also means that some techniques that adults or older children might use to save a bit of money on travel didn’t really apply.

One big area of our travel cost was housing. Our family would need lodging for several days while out there – seven days, to be exact. The least expensive hotel within any reasonable range of the places we were visiting that didn’t have frightening online reviews and pictures was well north of $70 per night for a room that would have been cozy with five people in it.

Another big area of our travel cost is food. Travel typically means that you’re going to be eating out quite a lot. The options for food preparation in a hotel environment are pretty slim, usually resulting in continental breakfasts and sandwiches… or just convincing yourself to eat out somewhere.

Our solution? We talked to other people who were also traveling out for the wedding and rented a house for a week with them.

This simple solution handled all of our problems well. It gave us a location that was reasonably close to the places we wanted to be at, minimizing our gas expenses while out there. It gave us plenty of room, particularly for the dollar. It also gave us a fully-functional kitchen, which enabled us to prepare many of our own meals instead of going out.

Our nightly rate ended up being a bit less than the tiny hotel room, but we significantly cut our fuel costs, significantly cut our food costs, and significantly increased the amount of space we had. We also had the convenience and joy of being able to sit out on the porch every evening with family and friends instead of hanging out in hotel rooms.

Most days, we woke up, ate breakfast together with everyone staying in the house, packed a picnic lunch for the family, and then went out to wherever our destination for the day was – the coast, the mountain, the forest, the sights of Seattle.

In the evenings, we would return home and, many nights, prepare a simple supper at home. We did eat out a few nights at places highly recommended by the locals we knew in the area, but for the most part, we prepped our own food.

The contract was mostly managed by another member of our party who was retired and was willing to set up the contract and everything for the rental. It was quite easy from our end – we simply arrived, entered a code into the keybox that was waiting, pulled out a few keys and distributed them around the party, walked into the house, and unpacked.

Leaving was similarly easy – we just put the keys back into the keybox after locking the house, then called the property manager. From our end, once the contract was set up in advance, the actual checking in and checking out of the house was extremely convenient.

In short, if I ever travel again with a large group of people, I will absolutely suggest this as an option. It reduced all of our costs, gave us plenty of space to spread out, and provided a great environment for hanging out and socializing.

If you’re interested in this type of solution for your vacation, just use Google. Type in “vacation rental” and the location to which you’re traveling and look through the offers you find. I checked several potential vacation destinations that we’re considering over the next few years and found solutions in each of them.

The post Renting a House as a Vacation Option appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

One big thing I couldn’t help but notice, though, is that many of the emails contained very similar tips for inexpensive vacations in those cities. The specifics were different, but the general ideas were identical.

Here’s what I learned from those emails in terms of general tips for traveling inexpensively to a new city.

Hang out with locals that you know. They’ll almost always guide you straight to great deals, such as the best “bang for the buck” restaurants. Sometimes, they’ll even cover a meal for you while you’re traveling. If I know I’m going to a city where I know people, I’m always sure to contact them well before the trip and set up some sort of event with them, whether it’s meeting for lunch or whatever.

Look for local hotels, not national chains. Generally, these have stellar rates as long as you’re not traveling to the city during a key tourist time, like going to Mardi Gras. Local hotels often have rustic rooms that play on the history of the city, while large chain hotels have rooms that look more or less identical to every hotel in that chain. In Las Vegas, I would take this tip to mean to avoid both chains and hotels directly on the Strip.

Know the mass transit. If you’re staying in a large city, the mass transit system will likely completely take care of your travel needs (aside from perhaps going back and forth to the airport). Buy a seven day pass and let that take care of all of the travel you need within the city. It’s far, far cheaper than renting a car for that long.

Grab the local papers – especially the free ones. They often have huge lists of cultural events and attractions going on in the city. I’ve seen free concerts and gone to free museums in the past due to simply gazing through local free newspapers shortly after my arrival.

Visit areas near universities. In almost every city where a university can be found, the blocks around the university are full of the best “bang for the buck” food you can find, particularly if you like ethnic foods. Not only that, universities often have interesting cultural events going on that you can freely attend.

Take advantage of the staff at the local hotels. They usually know the area quite well and can point you towards options that you probably never considered before arriving. On our trip to Las Vegas in 2005, we stayed at the Artisan, a small hotel off of the strip. The staff was beyond helpful in suggesting things for us to do, even pointing out roadside free things to look at as we drove on to the Grand Canyon.

Do something completely alternate for housing, like camping. For example, if you’re staying in Seattle, consider camping in the Olympia National Forest or on Mount Rainier and then just go into town on days when you want to sight-see. The cost is much lower, particularly if you have someone in the area from which you could borrow a tent and some sleeping bags (like, for instance, the “locals that you know”).

Make a big list of the free sightseeing options. For example, on our Dallas trip, our list included Pioneer Plaza, the Dallas Farmer’s Market, Dealey Plaza, the Fort Worth Stockyards, Jazz Under the Stars, the Crow Collection of Asian Art, the Farmer’s Branch Historical Park, the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, and Thanks-Giving Square. We couldn’t possibly make it to all of this worthwhile free stuff, and the sheer size of the list gave us options for spontaneity.

Check out museums, zoos, and other cultural and educational attractions in the city. Museums are almost always a cheap way to spend a day, and it’s often easy to make it cheaper by planning your trip on days with even lower rates – or on free days. Most cities have a noteworthy museum or two and the largest ones (like Chicago and New York) have several.

Search around for tickets for events. If you know you’re going to, say, Disney World, don’t just wait until you’re at the gate to buy tickets. Keep your eyes open for better deals on tickets by buying them early, often through some sort of promotional package. A few years back, my parents were eyeing hugely discounted tickets through their credit union, for example.

The post Ten Things to Look For When Planning a Summer Vacation (Thanks to Readers) appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

That’s right, 2015

This summer, we’re going to Seattle. The following summer is a trip to New Orleans with my family. The summer after that will feature a trip to Boston, with the summer after that featuring some extensive national park camping. The summer after that? Disneyworld.

We’ve even started talking about subsequent vacations, including trips to Norway, Japan, and France by the end of the decade (we want our children to be older before traveling internationally).

Why plan ahead so much, you ask?

It’s simple. Planning ahead on your summer vacations is an enormous money saver. Sure, maybe we’re going over the top a little bit with the advance planning, but having a firm grip on where you’re going at least a year in advance can save a huge amount of money.

Here are some of the reasons such advance planning really helps.

The day of the week you travel on really matters. If you watch airline ticket prices, you’ll quickly see that not all days are created equal. Tickets for flights on Wednesdays and Saturdays are much cheaper than tickets for Mondays or Fridays.

This, of course, means that planning the days you travel in advance can save you a lot of money, and the further in advance that you plan it, the easier it becomes to get the needed vacation time at work and so on.

You have more time to shop around for better rates on plane tickets, lodging, meals, and any other events. I’m not going to get into the mountain of travel sites out there, but suffice it to say that shopping around for tickets can save you quite a lot of money. The further in advance you’ve planned for a vacation, the more time you have to shop for such things.

The more time in advance you have, the more you can focus on banking frequent flyer miles. There are lots of ordinary things you can do that will help you to bank frequent flyer miles, and the more miles you have banked, the fewer tickets you’re going to be buying. Considering that our family’s travel in the air requires five tickets, that’s a fair chunk of change. Thus, for us, sites like TravelHacking actually pay off.

You have plenty of time to make (or re-establish) connections in the city you’re traveling to. Having people in the area means an inside track on things to do, places to see, bargains, lodging, food, and countless other expenses for travel. If you know long in advance that you’re coming to the area, start making contacts and re-establishing old ones. For me, this is easy – I know readers of The Simple Dollar in most of these areas, so I just send them an email. For you, look for any groups that you might be involved in. Put out a notice on Facebook. You might be surprised who pops up.

You have plenty of time to learn about the area you’re traveling to. This doesn’t mean filling your schedule with more stuff to do than you could ever possibly accomplish. It means investigating the area you’re traveling to thoroughly so that you can truly find the best experiences for your dollar and time.

In my own years, I’ve found that it’s rarely the “name” attractions that are worthwhile. My best memories from virtually every vacation I’ve taken have not been the expensive attractions, but the small free things, like walking past Westminster Abbey and Parliament with my wife while in London, her hand in mine, just absorbing the history of the area, or sitting next to my sister-in-law in a park in Canada, taking our shoes and socks off, and splashing our feet in some freezing water.

There is some serendipity in these moments, but the more time you give yourself in advance of leaving, the more likely you are to find things and events that are going to provide a very powerful media for such serendipity to grow in.

But what about spontaneity? Yes, it can be a lot of fun to just jump in the car or on a plane and see what happens. The problem with that, however, is that it tends to be expensive. You’ll often wind up in suboptimal situations. If you’re planning for that, great, but you can have just as much fun for a lot less if you put in some legwork in advance. A second problem is that it’s extremely difficult to go completely unstructured with young children, because while single me would have happily slept in a sleeping bag in a state park, I wouldn’t do that with a one year old and a three year old in tow.

However you decide to travel, good luck on making it cheap and fun!

The post Planning Summer Travel appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Of course, when you’re traveling during the holiday season, you’re opening the door to some potential challenges. Winter weather, overcrowded roads, long road trips, expensive stops – it all adds up to some serious time, some serious cash, and some risk for much more time and cash as well.

With that in mind, I thought I’d share with you some of the preparations we’re doing for this year’s road travels in order to save money and minimize risk.

Air up tires Take the car to the local refueling station. Use a tire pressure gauge to check the pressure in each of your tires (if you don’t have a gauge, ask inside). If there’s inadequate air, use the air pump there to refill each tire up to the recommended maximum found in your manual. If you’re unsure how to do this, most car manuals offer a very useful step-by-step guide for taking care of it.

Perform any scheduled maintenance If I’m going to significantly surpass a scheduled maintenance on the road trip, I get it done before I leave. This usually involves getting a mileage estimate from Google Maps, adding that to my current odometer, and seeing whether or not that new number exceeds when my next maintenance should occur.

Caravan If you possibly can, travel with others in a “caravan” so that, if one individual vehicle has problems, there’s support all around. Driving in a caravan has helped me out more than once – I remember one awful road trip where my son got extremely ill along the way.

Provide an ETA to your destination This way, if you don’t show up on time, they can be aware of your delay and attempt to contact you. Again, this has helped me in the past, as people at my destination were able to realize something was wrong and eventually offer assistance.

Visit the restroom before you leave It’s the Murphy’s Law of road trips: when you think you’ve got everything covered and are making good time, someone has to use the restroom. Remember, as I mentioned above, the more unnecessary stops you make, the more expensive (and longer) your trip becomes, so make sure everyone has used the restroom before you leave.

Pack blankets, sand, hand warmers, and a shovel This is more important for Christmas travel, but I also do it for this trip. I pack blankets to help with situations where we’re in an accident or trapped in a storm – same with the nad warmers. I pack sand and a shovel to help with situations where we might need to get out of a ditch.

Pack hearty meals We pack meals before we leave so that we can eat in the car without having to stop for expensive fast food. We often pack an abundance of food, particularly healthy snacks like unsalted nuts, raisins, and the like, because these serve the dual purpose of sating hungry children while also providing rations in the result of an accident.

Pack a charged “911 phone” (and charge your phone) A “911 phone” is a cell phone without an active contract that is only able to dial 911. Keeping such a phone in the car with you helps in case of a roadside emergency.

Pack a change of warm clothes After a winter trip in which I had to walk almost a mile in sub-zero temperatures without adequate clothing, I’ve started making sure I have at least one change of very warm clothes, preferably coveralls. This is particularly important if you’re traveling in the country on less well-traveled roads.

Make a map and check road conditions This is a tactic that’s more important around Christmas but can still be relevant at Thanksgiving – we’ve been caught in Turkey Day blizzards in the past. Also, before you leave, make sure you know exactly where you’re going and the route to get there.

Travel when the roads aren’t busy We’re traveling during the morning hours for most of our driving, which will avoid most of the traffic outside of towns. If you can, avoid driving on Wednesday evening and Sunday, which are extremely heavy traffic days.

Gas up This isn’t so much a money-saving technique on gas as it is a method to avoid an unnecessary stop at a roadside gas station where, after being cramped in a car, you’re tempted to run inside and, because you’re a bit hungry, you find yourself buying unnecessary stuff. Just avoid the stop entirely and make better time on the road.

The post Minimizing the Cost of Holiday Car Travel appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

How are we going to do this while simultaneously keeping our sanity (yes, you try traveling for several hours in a vehicle with a four year old, a two year old, and an infant) and keeping our wallets in good shape? Here are seven methods we’re using to provide great experiences for our family while also keeping our finances in mind.

Keep in mind why we’re doing this
Why would we want to travel with a car full of small children? For some people, there may be no rational answer to this question at all. For us, though, there are several reasons.

First and foremost, we want the children to see different places and people. The geography where we live is very flat; this summer, they’re going to visit some very hilly areas. There are no large lakes here, but this summer we’re going to visit Lake Superior. We’re also going to go to areas with at least some cultural differences from home. On top of that, we also want to spend a lot of time outside, as fresh air is one of the best things you can give a child or give yourself.

Those are the reasons we’re traveling. Those reasons have nothing to do with seeing some mind-blowing sites or going to spectacular events. We know why we’re doing this and we let those reasons lead the whole vacation. As long as we follow that lead, we don’t need to pour money on other activities or sojourns.

Stay with family and friends
On each of these trips, either in the middle of a travel leg or near our destination, we’ll be staying with family or with friends.

This provides both a social purpose (seeing people we care about) and a financial purpose (free lodging for a night or two). Usually, in exchange for this, we often will buy dinner when we’re there (or prepare it). We also allow any family and friends who are in our area to stay at our home for free.

This is an exchange that does nothing but build relationships and help out everyone involved.

Camp out
At least once this summer (perhaps twice), we will be camping out for multiple days. Yes, with a baby. We did it with just one baby and we did it with both a toddler and a baby, so I don’t think it’ll be a problem doing it again with two young children and a baby.

In fact, there’s one big advantage to camping: unless there’s a storm, when everyone falls asleep, everyone sleeps really deeply. I actually tend to sleep better when we’re camping because there are no night-time interruptions or other such things.

On top of that, camping can be incredibly inexpensive. We often request camping gear for gift-giving occasions, which makes camping nearly free. Usually, all we pay for is the spot to camp on – $10 to $20 a night unless we find a free option. Our supplies are usually inexpensive, too, especially if we collect or make our own while we’re there. It provides exercise, tons of fresh air, and some wonderful time in the great outdoors with the people I care about most.

Plan for the road trips
Road trips can be a very expensive part of traveling (as can flying, but I’m just simply not going to attempt that with three children under five). Between the gas, the maintenance costs, and the expensive food and beverages along the way, it can really add up.

That’s why I do some advance planning. The goal is to prevent stops, because stops are expensive.

First, I make sure there are plenty of beverages and snacks packed, probably more than we need. I usually pack sandwiches and vegetables and fruits so that we can have a full picnic meal on the road. I also prepare a big bag full of things to do for the children on the trip.

Second, we stop mostly at rest stops and everyone is required to go to the restroom when we stop. This reduces the temptation to spend money on overpriced stuff when we stop and it also reduces the overall number of stops. Another advantage is that many rest stops (particularly in Iowa) have areas for running around in the grass and picnicking, both of which happen on trips.

Use alternative housing
Hostels. College dorms. YMCA lodging. Housesitting. These are all great options for saving money on lodging when you arrive if you’d prefer not to camp. We are actually going to do some housesitting this summer for one of our trips.

Find out what types of alternative housing are available at your destination. This can be done with just a bit of effective internet searching. Reviews of the housing (available on many travel websites) can help you avoid unexpected problems.

Utilize free activities when we’re there
Vacation doesn’t have to be about jumping from high-priced activity to high-priced activity. Most of the best memories from the vacations I’ve taken in my life come from the free things we did: climbing a hillside in Edinburgh, putting my feet in the ocean northwest of Seattle, seeking out petroglyphs on foot in rural Arizona.

Yes, if there’s something your heart is set on that you really want to see that costs money, do it. However, use travel guides that help you identify the free things in the area and use those to fill up your activity schedule. Spend some time doing simple things, like walking in the woods or resting on the beach or building a great campfire.

Be resourceful
Before you go, tell your social network where you’re intending to go and ask if they have any tips or suggestions about traveling there. You might just be shocked at what your receive in return.

Be resourceful when you’re there as well. Don’t buy firewood if you can find it yourself. Don’t buy campfire roasting sticks – use a knife and make them from branches. Don’t buy beverages – carry an empty container and fill up at water fountains. Just by taking a few little steps to avoid buying things, you can save money left and right on your trip without reducing your enjoyment of it one iota.

Good luck!

The post Planning for Summer Vacation appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Some people take this advice and run with it. Camping saves a truckload of money over a long trip and it can provide a unique story, too. Yet some people look at camping and see nothing more than the loss of comforts of a hotel, never mind the savings and the incomparable perks of camping.

This tip column is for that latter group. Here are some ways to make camping much more enjoyable without breaking the bank in any way.

Bathrooms, bathrooms, bathrooms Toilet, sink, and shower service are often the thing that separates a good camping trip from a bad one for people who want to use camping as a substitute for hotel visits. A campsite with inadequate areas for personal hygiene will often get a big thumbs down, as it makes it impossible for people to start off their day with the normal hygiene routine, which is key for many (if not most) people.

So how do you solve it? My first recommendation is to start with – and focus heavily on – state and national parks. You can find tons of them at dto.com (short for discover the outdoors). Focus on parks that have a shower house near the destinations you’re visiting. You can also reserve sites with electricity – perfect if you have devices you wish to plug in (like an alarm clock, for example).

Camping after flying What if you’re flying to your destination? My suggestion is to take the tent with you on the flight. Repackage it in a large box along with sleeping bags, pillows, and other essential items for camping – these all compress surprisingly well. For the return flight, you might find that it’s less expensive to shop the tent and camping materials home via UPS or another shipping service.

When you arrive, purchase a small short-term use styrofoam cooler and pack the food items you wish to keep cold in that, as it’s less expensive than shipping a cooler (unless you can find a great way to pack it in your large box). In other words, one of your first stops will be at a grocery store.

Speaking of eating…

Tactics for eating well while camping Most meals can be cooked really well over a campfire by simply putting the ingredients in aluminum foil, tossing them straight on the coals, then retrieving them later with a stick. Thus, all you will need for dining utensils while camping are some paper plates (which can be reused for kindling the next day) and silverware.

Here’s an example. For breakfast, I will often pull out a sheet of aluminum foil, make a bowl out of it, then crack three eggs in it. Then, I’ll add some beans to it and perhaps some chopped-up vegetables, too, and maybe a sprinkling of cheese. I then fold this up tightly in the foil, wrap it again, then toss it straight on hot campfire coals for ten to fifteen minutes. When I’m done, I have scrambled eggs, perfectly hot. You can make toast in a very similar way, though I often use a pair of sticks to hold a few pieces of toast over flame.

You can make all sorts of different meals using the same exact logic. Use your imagination.

Sleeping comfortably This seems to be one of the biggest complaints about camping – it’s hard to sleep comfortably. I have back concerns myself and, quite honestly, they seem to crop up more from hotel beds for me than from camping, so I confess to not fully understanding this complaint. Instead, I’ll share with you my routine for sleeping in a tent.

First, I often gather leaves and sprinkle them in a pretty thick layer in the spot where we’re going to pitch the tent. In the summer, this often means retrieving them from low-hanging branches. This, of course, works well in some parks but not in others.

Second, I’m picky about my sleeping bags. One lesson I learned from my grandmother is that the place you sleep is a place where you don’t skimp, because it forms the successful basis for the rest of your day. Study them carefully and get a well-padded one that works.

Third, I usually use a sleeping bag pad. This is a very small, thin air mattress that rests under the sleeping bag directly on the floor of the tent.

Finally, and this is probably the biggest thing, I sleep with the windows open when camping. The clean night air makes me sleep very deeply and I almost always wake up feeling refreshed, even if getting to sleep took me a little bit. I tend to sleep better when camping than I do any other night.

Finally, camping’s savings really pop up when you’re on a longer trip rather than a shorter one. If you’re just staying for a single night, the time investment of setting up camp probably undoes the savings from camping. However, if the trip is a long one, the time cost per day is reduced and the cash savings per day is increased, making camping progressively more worthwhile. If your trip is short, it might actually be more cost effective to just stay in a reasonably-priced hotel, but over a long trip, few things beat the savings of camping.

One final note about camping when traveling: the aesthetic beauty of our nation’s state and national parks is an enormous perk when camping. There simply is no hotel on earth that can take your breath away like stepping out of your tent in the morning in the middle of a national park.

Good luck.

The post Camping Tips for People Who Don’t Like Camping appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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.

The post Frugal Vacation Notes: Great Free Things to Do in the Dallas/Fort Worth Area appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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.

The post Airport Frugality in the Era of New Security Regulations appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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.

The post An Inexpensive, Fun Family Vacation Idea From My Childhood appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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.

The post Helping A Soldier Plan An Inexpensive Vacation appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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?

The post Traveling To Family Events: Ten Tips For Saving Money appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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.

The post The Long Trip: Five Ways To Save Money On A Multi-State Road Trip appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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 post Blown Away By Prices Inside Of Airports? Five Travel Tips For Saving Cash Beyond The Security Checkpoint appeared first on The Simple Dollar.