When we plan for long-term trips, we research a lot. This isn't just because we are obsessive and like to research, it is also because we know a well researched itinerary can save a lot of money. In the two-and-a-half years before our second long-term trip, I looked up just about every major component that would cost us a significant amount of money and optimized it such that our spending would be at a minimum.Naturally, the two largest items for any trip are the airline tickets and accommodations, and our optimized route saved us a significant amount of money while out on the road.
Airline Routes
When it comes to spending money, airline routes are always going to be the most expensive item any traveler has to pay for. While we used our credit card points to pay for our major long haul routes, we still had many short distance flights we chose to take. They included the following:
- Dayton, Ohio to Paris, France (Points in Business Class)
- Nice, France to Geneva, Switzerland
- Rome, Italy to Heraklion (Crete), Greece
- Milos, Greece to Athens, Greece
- Athens, Greece to Kayseri (Cappadocia), Turkey
- Skopje, Macedonia to Dubai, UAE
- Muscat, Oman to Kathmandu, Nepal
- Kathmandu, Nepal to Lukla, Nepal (RT - Included in a Tour Price)
- Jaipur, India to Goa, India
- Kochi, India to Mumbai, India
- Mumbai, India to Mauritius
- Mauritius to Cape Town, South Africa
- Livingstone, Zambia to Johannesburg, South Africa
- Johannesburg, South Africa to Buenos Aires, Argentina (Points in Business Class)
- Buenos Aires, Argentina to Ushuaia, Argentina
- Santiago, Chile to Easter Island (RT)
- Guayaquil, Ecuador to Galapagos (RT)
- Cartagena, Colombia to San Jose, Costa Rica (Points in Economy Class)
- San Jose, Costa Rica to Cancun, Mexico (Points in Economy Class)
- Cancun, Mexico to Dayton, Ohio
Not all flight routes are created equal, and our entire itinerary and flight choices were crafted on what were the cheapest route choices at the time. But rather than doing this in a day-of fashion, leaving our destinations up to last minute whims, we researched popular routes well in advance.
That flight from Nice to Geneva was not a random coincidence, it was chosen because it is about the same price as train tickets and does not require two transfers. Macedonia to Dubai is another odd one, but only was possible because Fly Dubai has a few direct flights per week at ridiculously reduced rates. Go on the wrong day and with another airline and you'll be paying 3-5x as much and likely stopping over in Istanbul. Even our choice of doing Greece first, Turkey second, and Eastern Europe third was crafted into a logical progression of cheap flights just to save $50.
Do we recommend doing this kind of research for all long-term trips? Most definitely. That is, if you have the time. I was bored at my day job and began looking at the options, and what first started as something fun to do ended up becoming an addiction that really shaped our itinerary into what it was. I don't think anyone knew of that flight from Macedonia to Dubai, and why would they? But after doing a lot of research on one way tickets I ended up finding out that was the best price in just about all of Europe. Why yes, I'll gladly end my Europe travels there for that.
For those looking to do this kind of research, I recommend using Kayak or Kayak's Explore feature to see where cheap routes are available. By looking at all possible combinations of nearby cities, then expanding out to search various days of the week to see if select fares come and go, you'll find the best segments in no time at all. What could be $700 one day may only be $120 the next on a different airline and end up saving you tons of cash!
Savings Estimate: $7,000. Over $5,500 of this was resulting from us paying for our long-haul flights with points. The rest was due to optimizing our flights to make sure we were on the best route on the perfect day of the week. The bonus? 40 more days on the road.
Apartment Rentals
After exploring 66 countries around the world over in over 700 days of travel in the last 6 years, you can say we've slept in a lot of beds. Even though we've written about this topic a number of times on this blog, it may come as a shock when we say that staying in apartments saved us a ton of money when traveling.
The culprit responsible for this is none other than Western Europe.
Our first bed when we started this great adventure was in Paris, France, which is one of the most expensive cities we visited in Europe. It is a well known fact that hostels in Paris are expensive, and those traveling as a couple may actually spend more money for two hostel beds than they would in a private room. This trend actually continues in most of Western Europe and we found ourselves staying in Airbnb apartments several times during our stay. We even scored a great private room in Munich for Oktoberfest at < $100 night when dorm beds were upwards of $150 per person!
Had we not taken the few moments to research prices on Airbnb during our trip, and in the case of Oktoberfest researching about 9 months in advance, we would have been paying more money to stay in a less desirable accommodation choice. We like to consider that one a double win in the planning book.
With all things, renting an apartment does have its pitfalls. We fell in love with the idea so much that we wanted to rent apartments everywhere, until we realized not every part of the world had this same pricing benefit and we went back to our standard of boutique hotels and, in extreme cases, hostels. Even though they are our favorite accommodation choice, there were still only select cases where it was cost effective to choose this option- most of the time being in major cities that had absurdly expensive hotels. But when the price of accommodations started to creep up to disturbingly high rates, you can be sure researching an Airbnb alternative was the first thing we did.
Savings Estimate: $1,000. The savings on this one is a lot lower than optimizing our route with our flights, but it did allow us to upgrade our accommodation styles and get an extra week on the road with no extra effort. For that, I can't complain.
Do It Yourself!
Out of all of the tricks we've come up with to save money while traveling, researching airfare and adjusting our accommodation choices saved us nearly $10,000 on this trip. The ironic thing is that by doing so our level of comfort actually went up most of the time as we had better accommodations and decreased the number of layovers we had! When it comes to being on the road for months on end, can you really say no to saving money and having a better experience?
We don't think so, and this is why we always recommend putting in the proper research to make sure you have the same great experience on your own long-term travels!
Have you been on a long-term trip? What is the one thing you did that helped save you the most money? Comment below to let us know about it!
