How to travel cheaper?

[Alan]

Find the cheapest flights

The ability to find and book flights at the lowest price is the most necessary skill for budget travel. The main rule to always remember is that the earlier a purchase is made, the more likely it is to find an attractively priced option. Our 15 Jedi tips will help you become a real master of finding the cheapest flights . It makes sense to keep track of current promotions of airlines on our website and see our special reviews of the cheapest ways to get to a particular country or city.

Also, be sure to read about how cheap it is to travel to Europe - in this article we talked about the schemes of budgetary access to the Schengen countries through the European countries bordering Russia. In addition, we advise you to find out about low-cost airlines that allow you to fly for amounts close to zero (buying tickets for 20/30/40 euros will not be a problem).

It is best to search for flights on the Aviasales metasearch engine - it will find the best deals for you in any direction. This is a good assistant for independent travelers, as he searches for tickets among hundreds of airlines and does not take a single ruble commission from the buyer. The search engine makes it possible to view the cost of tickets to any country from all cities of Russia (or any other country) at once - a very convenient feature for budget travelers, it allows you to find an option at the best price.

We also recommend that all travel lovers get a Tinkoff-Bank All Airlines bank card (as a gift: the first year of service is free). From all purchases you will receive cashback in the form of miles, with which you can then pay for tickets purchased from any airline! Especially high cashback is charged from booking tickets and hotels (up to 10%). Also, the owner is provided with a free insurance policy for trips around the world. This is a really great card - we use it with pleasure and get nice bonuses (for example, we flew to Istanbul and Phuket for free). Find out more in my Tinkoff card review .

(Photo by Rennett Stowe. Licensed cc by. www.flickr.com)

3. Make your own visas

Why resort to the help of an intermediary and pay him twice or three times as much for it? You do not turn to the help of agents if you want to buy something in a supermarket, and here you do not need to. After all, we are going to travel economically, and not to improve the welfare of strangers.

Find information on the Internet about the nearest consulate or visa application center of the desired country, collect all the required documents and go to them. Many people think that it is more reliable to do it through an agency, allegedly this way the probability of visa refusal is lower. This is a delusion, since the whole mission of these intermediaries is that they will take the documents to the consulate instead of you. Tips on how to prepare the right documents to improve your chances of getting a visa are easy to find on the Internet. Our website also has a section on visas for a number of popular destinations.

4. Find and book your accommodation the right way

To make travel cheap, you need to find inexpensive accommodation. You can use the excellent metasearch engine Hotellook.ru and choose the right hotel according to your criteria and a reasonable price. This resource compares prices among different booking agencies and finds the best deals. Large database of hotels, hostels, guest houses and so on. We recommend reading our tips on how to book hotels cheaper .

An alternative to hotels is a popular service for renting private housing Sutochno.ru . Try to find an apartment or house for your trip. It is much more comfortable and often cheaper (especially if you travel with a company or family). The service has a huge selection of housing in Russia and neighboring countries.

And for those who generally want to live for free, the Couchsurfing resource is vital , where after registering and creating a personal profile, you can find people who are ready to host travelers. The network covers millions of users around the world.

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(Photo by Phillip Pessar. Licensed cc by. www.flickr.com)

5. Travel light

Take only what you really need - do not burden yourself with excess luggage. As a result, there are a number of advantages: there is no need to wait a long time for baggage claim, there is no threat of losing it, you don’t have to pay for overweight (and with low-cost airlines in general, any baggage is always paid separately and can cost you up to hundreds of euros), and moving around the airport and in your destination will be much easier and more pleasant if you do not have to lug huge suitcases and bags with you. We even fly to Asia for semi-annual wintering with only one backpack per person.

Read also our tips on packing for a trip and building a travel first aid kit . By the way, we recommend shopping on Aliexpress (we order camping equipment, equipment, and numerous accessories there) - it turns out to be much more profitable than shopping in ordinary stores. Pay attention to reviews to choose the best product. Another good store for sports and travel goods is Decathlon (where we bought a tent, hiking clothes and other equipment for trips to Altai and the Caucasus).

[Alan]

Take a break from your guidebook and look for small local restaurants and cafes with great food and low prices. I'm highly recommended to buy this ebook for travellers - https://budgettravelbook.com/. I think that without it it will be much more difficult to travel. There you can find interesting life hacks and so on.

Eat where the locals do, they don't spend a fortune on food and neither should you. You came to see new places, not hotels, so take a look around, live like a local and travel the world in different ways, so you save a lot of money and have more extraordinary experiences.