Travel Tips for Students on a Budget

As a student who loves to travel it can often be difficult trying to budget for many trips across the year. Often times I only think about flights and accommodation and forget about the money that I will spend when I’m there. However over the years I have realised that there are plenty of ways to save money on your trips that will give you more to spend on the experiences whilst you are there, which I believe is the most important thing. Here are some of the main ways that I save whilst planning a trip.

One of the most important tips I can offer is that if you are wanting to be able to stick to a budget you need to be able to put the time and effort in to searching for the deals. If you want to save you can’t just click on the first package deal you see as it will often be the least cost effective option. I advise taking a few hours out of your day to explore your options. When booking my trip to Prague, I only spent an extra half an hour looking in to hotels and managed to save £100 by taking the time to look on the map and explore my options.



Following on from that, another key piece of advice is to book your flights and accommodation separately, often times package deals are overpriced as the work is being done for you but if you are looking for the best price then it’s important to invest your time. So how do I look for the best flights and places to stay? Well here are a few steps I take when booking a trip

Skyscanner
My favourite tool when booking my flights any where is Skyscanner. I have the app on my phone but you can also use the website. Skyscanner compares flight prices from all major airlines and travel agents, and find the cheapest tickets for your destination. It gives you the option to filter for your preferences and also select the ‘anytime’ or ‘anywhere’ option which allows you save if you are able to be more flexible with your dates or destination. My trip to Ireland came from pressing the ‘anywhere’ option for flights from Edinburgh and seeing the cheapest flight was to Dublin. You would be surprised what cities come up! If you are not sure where you want to go it is a brilliant feature. Once you have found the flight you want, I would recommend following the links through to the actual airlines website to book.



Airbnb
When searching for accommodation I always used to search ‘hotels in …..’ and go from there. However what I have discovered is that if you are travelling in a group, often times opting for a full house and splitting the cost can often be a lot cheaper. When travelling in the USA with a group of 11 of us, instead of splitting up in to hotel rooms we rented a large house on Airbnb and split it and it was so much less expensive. I would always use the map tool first and look at your ideal location then move out, often times especially in the off season you can find some amazing deals and if you are booking for a few days then most hosts do a discount. It is definitely worth a look in to before looking at hotels as it also gives you freedom and privacy.




Traveling out of season
I know that the summer is popular for travelling due to warm weather and school and uni holidays. However this is also when prices are highest. By travelling off season, you are able to save a lot of money. Whilst at uni, I have managed to fit in many short city breaks by using weekends and in-term holidays and working around my classes. I have enjoyed places such as Budapest, Prague and Amsterdam in the winter months and I feel like the cold weather hasn’t impacted the trip at all as you are just exploring the city. Off season travel can also mean less crowds and shorter wait times for activities!



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