Top Ways to Save Money on Family Vacation

If times are tight, but you do not want your family to miss out on some quality vacation time, do not worry.  There are plenty of good ways to save money on family vacation, and still have a great time together.

Staycation can be the best vacation

In times of economic crisis, the “staycation” has a tendency to become very popular.  Take some time off, or schedule some time around when your kids are not in school and go on a staycation.  Sure you are not going anywhere, but  a staycation can be a great time to explore your hometown and surrounding areas, visit a museum or park that you always want to go to, but can never find the time during the rest of the year, or even just play fun games at home and relax the rules a bit for the kids.  Sure, you are not going anywhere, but with a little creativity you can have just as much fun at home as you would on the road.  Plus, since you are saving money on travel and accommodations, you can splurge a little bit on the family.  

Plan ahead

If you do decide to travel away from home, the best advice is to plan ahead.  This can be hard to do when it seems like plans and schedules change every five minutes, but if you do want any chance of a reasonable airfare or hotel rate, you should start making plans months in advance.  This will allow you the widest range of options and prices.  If you want to travel, you need to commit to it early on, and find prices that work for your budget.  If you wait until the last minute, prices for places you do want to go will either be extremely high or unavailable, leaving you to either fish deeper into your wallet than you want in order to afford a vacation, or not taking one at all. An other great option is to rent an apartment in less expensive countries like Nigeria from their local free-classifieds website! 

Care to make a trade?

Another great way to save on accommodations is by looking into house swaps.  Nigerians use free classifieds website and other sites to find a person or family in another city that is looking to come to their area, and in this way they spend less in accommodation. How does this work? You arrange to swap homes with them for a certain period of time, and you have a free accommodation in a new place! There are some things to keep in mind if you decide to give this option a try. You want to be sure that the people staying in your home are trustworthy, but that is an easy enough process, particularly when it will yield a clean, comfortable place to stay in an exciting new area.  You will, of course, have to pay for transportation to get there, but once arrived, you will be able to live like a local.

There are many ways to plan a low-budget family vacation, but the most important thing to do is be creative.  Think outside the box a little bit for fun things to do that do not cost as much as plane tickets and passes to Disneyland.