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We use our credit cards to purchase everything (for security reasons) and pay them off each month. Both cards have rewards points associated with them. Next year we are taking a vacation during off-season (another way to save money) using our rewards points to pay for a good chunk of the trip.
Here are some other ideas, assuming you want to stay at decent hotels but want to save some money:
-Find hotels that have a "stay 2 nights get a night free" or similar deals
-Find hotels that offer a free continental breakfast or buffet breakfast
-Look for deals when you combine hotel plus airfare (or see if buying separate is better; it can vary)
-Stay in places with shuttles or within walking distance of attractions to cut down your transportation costs
-Sometimes buying tickets ahead of time to attractions saves you money
Would love to go to Disney World/Land but can't imagine breaking the bank for it. Car or Flight - June/July. All aspects.
For some things (like destination places) you have to separate the getting there and back aspect
from the being there and actually enjoying that time aspect.
Disney is a perfect example of that.
Even with the airline packages and gate deals and all the rest... it won't be "cheap".
The most you can do is shave the costs some.
Loving, what part of the country are you in? And I agree with cowdog on camping. We can find decent clean hotels for $50 and up. If you camp, around here anyway, tent camping starts around $12/night and a camper with electricity for around $20/night. I've camped at Stone Mountain, Ga., Myrtle Beach, S.C., Biloxi, Ms., Smokey Mountains, Tn. and a lot more.
Does it have to involve overnight travel? If not, you can really save. You can plan out day trips that are relatively cheap (or just about free). Go to the beach, museums, parks, fairs/festivals, historical sights, etc.
Would love to go to Disney World/Land but can't imagine breaking the bank for it. Car or Flight - June/July. All aspects.
Disney is a user-experience oriented trip. There's only one way to experience it properly and it isn't cheap, unfortunately. Walt was big about the entire experience from start to finish. Skimping will only ruin the type of experience he wanted us to enjoy. This is not where you should cut back on spending.
The thing you can control is, however, the transportation. I've known people to drive down the east coast to spend a week in Disney with their family. It works out pretty well. But with cheap flights these days and the price of gasoline, this might be a tossup as well.
Niagara falls is an inexpensive vacation.
Vegas can be an inexpensive vacation.
I would also echo camping to be an inexpensive vacation option. $80 gets you and your entire family entry to every national park / national forest / recreation area / etc. in the country for an entire year. Most theme park tickets by comparison will cost you upwards of $80 per day per person or more. If you don't have camping gear, ask around, most of us have at least one friend or family member who has all of that stuff and would be willing to lend it. No charge for hiking.
Contact the local Tourist Bureau and ask for their free brochure/magazine. Get a hard copy mailed to you. Orlando Convention and Visitor's Bureau has info (web site, brochures, etc). Kissimmee has one also. Florida state has one. In fact, every state has one and they will send you free Travel Guides if you ask. They almost always have a nice map included.
The travel guides list hotels by price and amenity. They list campgrounds and attractions. There are sometimes coupons and specials listed as well. You can go to tripadviser dot com and read reviews about hotels.
Once you arrive to your destination, hotels and some resaurants will have a brochure box that has local attractions and coupons and such. You might find $2/off per person at a local attraction. Use it.
For a Disney trip, you can save a ton of money on hotel by staying outside Disney property. There are hundreds and hundreds of nice hotels in that area. You might spend $250/night staying at a Disney owned hotel. Or $50/night staying at a nice, newer hotel 6 miles away.
For rental cars, always google for coupon codes and discounts ahead of time. They are usually on the web and you enter the codes online when reserving. You can get 25% discount on rental cars.
If going to a restaurant once a day, choose lunch or breakfast because dinner has much higher prices and often longer waits. This is especially true of a pricier restaurant. Save your dinners out for the cheap places but you can often get a decent reasonably priced lunch at a nicer restaruant and get the same experience as dinner but for much less money.
For some things (like destination places) you have to separate the getting there and back aspect
from the being there and actually enjoying that time aspect.
Disney is a perfect example of that.
Even with the airline packages and gate deals and all the rest... it won't be "cheap".
The most you can do is shave the costs some.
Indeed. My wife and I go to FL every other year, and Disney is high on the list. It's not cheap at all. We can travel for cheap if you book early enough or watch airfares, you can go for $150-170 a person (coming out of DC). Rental cars are cheap if you rent away from the airport. This years trip, we're renting from an offsite company called Sixt - I'm getting a luxury car (C Class/3 series/Caddy CTS) for about $35/day after taxes. Renting from the airport, that price gets me a Corolla or a Camry, and I don't do small cars. Obviously, the smaller you go, the cheaper it is. We stay at a timeshare, so we get a 1 bedroom condo for about $400 for 7 nights, including all resort amenities.
Once at Disney though, it gets expensive. The last time we went, we bought tickets for 2 days and it was almost $400. Our tickets this year will be closer to $600 for the two of us, for 5 days. Add Universal to that and it goes up. Plus food in the parks (which isn't all that bad), drinks, etc. You have to budget for that sort of thing, and while you can find Disney tickets at the roadside outlets for cheaper, it's not that much cheaper.
We go on the offseason whenever possible. Either end of August or in the fall. This year, it's the first week of October. Going in the summer is for the birds unless you have kids in school. Too hot and too expensive.
i have a marriot rewards card. i use it when i travel for work since we amost always stay in marriots, and then i can use the free stays for personal travel. i signed up recently though and haven't gotten any free stays yet. supposedly you get one per every two nights you stay.
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