Traveling On A Budget With Your Family!
Family travel in the U.S. has a stigma around it: the more money you spend the better the experience. But don’t worry – I’m here to teach you our favorite secrets for traveling on budget!
The American mindset of more, more, more is the way we used to live. Since 2020, we have prioritized exploring with our family & showing our girls there is more to the world than the small country town we live in. Most people’s reasons for not traveling are finances. The cost of fuel, food, lodging, rentals, plane tickets etc can cost more than you’re willing or able to spend.
Finding deals on things from couponing for groceries to shopping clearance for off season items or Black Friday deals – I have always had a love for saving money (although I have quite a problem NOT shopping for deals…it’s like Target’s clearance finds me every time!)
Encouraging families to budget their travel & save money while doing it is a passion of mine. I’m here to show you that you can travel to beautiful places with your family WITHOUT going into debt. You can have those experiences you’ve dreamt of, show your family what the world has to offer – and still be able to put gas in the car when you get back home! Trying just a few of these budget money saving tips could save you hundreds on your next trip.
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1. Prioritize Travel
This is a no-brainer when you’re planning a trip. Putting the trip you’re planning forefront in your mind will help you focus on your spending habits & decide what you really want to spend your money on.
Our main way of prioritizing travel is to have it in front of us all the time. I write our trip dates in my planner, add it to our shared family calendar app as well as our dry erase calendar we keep in our kitchen. That way we are constantly seeing our timeline, which motivates us to choose how we spend our money & save on everything we can before the trip arrives. This #1 tip for traveling on a budget will help you reach your goals quickly & affordably.
2. Be Flexible
Flexibility is KEY to traveling with kids and traveling on a budget. Now, with this being said – I know flexibility isn’t possible for everyone. Brad works in IT, and I am in the education field. We have lots of holidays & breaks along with weekends we can put toward traveling.
If your career is flexible, it opens up a wide array of options for you when it comes to travel. Being able to jump on a flight last minute can save you hundreds & open you up to explore new locations you previously may have not thought of visiting. Scott’s Cheap Flights is a great resource for finding these flights!
When it comes to road tripping, flexibility can be extremely helpful. Traveling in the off season (or shoulder season) can save you loads of money on hotels or campsites & usually offers smaller crowds in the popular locations. We actually prefer to travel in shoulder season for max savings, and we often have the locations to ourselves!
3. Plan Ahead
One of the first things I do when we are researching a location is to search ‘FREE places to visit in XYZ City” – and then go from there! You can often find unique activities in any city that have no cost & these are some of the things we love best!
On our last trip to Hocking Hills, OH we made a stop in Dayton to visit the National Aviation Heritage Area (run by the National Parks System) as well as Young’s Jersey Dairy (free admission with paid food & activities if you choose – we bought lunch & ice cream!) These two locations were so much fun to visit, and only cost us the price of food & goat feed – because, come on – we HAD to feed the goats!
Researching the location you’re visiting and finding out prices for parking, activities & cheap places to eat can help you find ways around expensive unnecessary spending. Taking action by planning ahead can help ease the worry when traveling on a budget as well. You & your family will have fun & make great memories, all without spending a dime!
4. Shoulder Season
I touched on this above, but traveling in the off season can save you big bucks.
If the weather in the off season is something you can handle (for example, we visit Disney World & Universal in January/February which is cooler but still mild) you’ll find low crowds, low prices & more time to spend with your family exploring.
We prefer to plan our campgrounds out a year in advance. We research locations, the best times to visit & what is available in the off season. If we can still experience the things we want in the shoulder season I will book for that time of year. It has saved us lots of money (especially in places like Disney World & Universal) which we can put toward other experiences or souvenirs.
5. Flights
While our preferred mode of transportation is with our truck & rig, we do fly from time to time (the most recent being Brad’s trip to Universal Orlando in 2022). Flights can be EXPENSIVE – especially when you are a family traveling together. We have 2 tips for traveling on a budget when flying with your family.
PRO TIP: Taking the earliest possible flight out, and the latest possible flight home will save you money & add a full day of exploring into your vacation.
The first tip would be to sign up for a travel rewards credit card. We choose the Rapid Rewards Southwest Chase Card, which we use for our monthly bills. This card gives us 1 point for every $1 we spend, which you can imagine racks up quickly! We have used this card twice for ‘free’ flights & plan to continue using it for all our flight needs. Find more info on the Rapid Rewards Card HERE!
The second tip I would offer you would be to fly a discount airline, like Frontier. Now, I know these airlines get a bad rap because they’re so cheap. The first time Brad & I flew Frontier I was terrified! If you’ve ever seen Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation you know what I’m talking about. Remember the plane the family takes that is flown by gremlins? That’s what I thought we’d be walking into by flying Frontier. To my surprise, the plane was large, clean & the staff was extremely friendly. No gremlins in sight!
Frontier has a VERY LARGE pro & a VERY LARGE con in our books. The pro is that kids can ‘fly free’ on specific days. If you sign up for their Discount Den membership, you can fly a kid (under 15) for free per adult. So if you & your partner have 3 kids, only 2 of them would be free and you’d pay for the 3rd. The con with Frontier is you are allowed 1 carry on bag for free, but any other baggage you bring is an additional fee. When looking for a budget airline, Frontier wins if you’re talking a short trip with light luggage. Another thing to think about when flying Frontier with family – you are not guaranteed to be seated together. If you want that guarantee, that is an additional fee.
Always check your dates with multiple airlines to see what the best deal for your family would be, and sign up for their emails so you receive their deals & discounts right to your inbox!
6. Avoid Restaurants
If you know us, you know we are major foodies! We love trying foods that are specific to the region we’re visiting. However, eating out at every meal can become VERY expensive VERY quickly! To save on food costs when traveling on a budget, we bring snacks & easy to make lunches with us. This is extremely easy to do when traveling with our rig, as we can keep food in the fridge/freezer & stop at a rest area for lunch. I make the girls lunch & they sit in the camper & eat, then everyone uses the bathroom (including Chip!) and we’re on the road again.
Researching the area you’re visiting & finding a restaurant you & your family will enjoy will help you choose one or two locations to try on your trip, while making the rest of your meals in your camper or hotel room. This is a main trick we use to save big bucks!
Find one of our favorite, super easy recipes HERE!
7. Bring Snacks
While we’re on the topic of food, let’s talk about snacks. Many theme parks & attractions will let you bring in your own snacks, which will help you save on the high prices of food in the parks. You can also take snacks through TSA as long as they’re sealed, and are not liquid or gel.
Often, we take the girls to Sam’s Club or Costco with us & let them pick a few things to bring along on the trip. I separate the snacks & let them keep a few in the backseat, while the rest go into the rig to eat while we’re camping or hiking. This keeps them from asking us for convenience store food every time we stop for gas, and often keeps us from going inside the gas station at all. This trick has saved us hundreds when traveling on a budget with our girls!
8. Purchase A National Parks Pass
If you plan to visit multiple National Parks throughout the year, investing in an America The Beautiful pass will most definitely save you some cash. 108 National Park locations charge an entrance fee ranging from $10 per person to $55 for a park specific pass. The American The Beautiful pass is $80 for a year of unlimited visits to those 108 locations. This will save your family money if you plan on visiting more than one park in a years time.
9. Save On Fill Ups
With the price of gas going up, up, UP we are always looking for ways to save. We have used the Upside app for a few years now, and get cash back on every single fillup. With Upside, you choose your gas station, claim your reward & upload a photo of your receipt. It’s as easy as that! Check it out HERE and use code HJMRQ to earn a FREE $4.22 bonus on your first use!
10. Plan, Plan, PLAN!
Having a plan will not only save you time, it will save you money as well. Knowing your route & what is available along the way is so important. We often like to drive until we’re tired, and then look for a place to sleep. Sometimes this pays off, other times our only options are hole in the wall locations or extremely expensive hotels.
Check out a few bigger towns on your route, see what they have in terms of gas stations, hotels & stores & pinpoint where you would like to drive to (if your drive will take you longer than a day) and what hotels/campgrounds you’d consider stopping at. Knowing these things in advance will be a staple in saving you time & money on your next trip.
I hope these tips helped you find new ways to save time & money on your next trip! Leave me a comment below if you have additional tips you’d like to share!
Thanks for reading! See ya’ at the next mile marker!
Jess