How to Travel Well When You’re on a Budget

On January 7, 2020 By Isobar ExpeditionsIn Travel Tips1 Comment

Today we are featuring a guest blog from Soulful Travel who embraces the benefits of travel.

Travel enriches lives. Travel educates, it expands and deepens perspectives, it allows for rest and rejuvenation, and when traveling with others it strengthens relationships. Perhaps you’re feeling the itch to live in wonder, act outside of your comfort zone, and try new experiences.

While experiencing other places is a cornerstone of a well-lived life, many people feel like they can’t travel due to finances. However, travel is manageable for any budget with a little planning and saving where possible. Let’s discuss ways to travel smartly so that you can have a wonderful experience — even when you’re on a budget.

Rent a Car from Enterprise

If your car is not very reliable or runs high in gas mileage, then it’s worth considering renting a car for road trips and trips to farther destinations. A rental car is also particularly useful if you are traveling with a larger group and want to avoid paying for airline tickets. To save on travel costs when getting to your destination, and to ensure you have a reliable vehicle with adequate space, consider renting a car from companies such as Enterprise. Renting from Enterprise is easy and affordable on any budget, especially when you use promo codes to save more money.

Consider Nearby Travel

While cross-country trips and foreign travel have their appeal, many cannot afford the costs associated with longer voyages. For some, their work schedule does not afford adequate time off to accommodate long-distance travel, and for others, the costs associated with airline tickets may not be in the cards. Whatever the reason may be, short trips or exploring your hometown may be the better option. Many forget to explore the treasures and landmarks nearby home, which can be just as rewarding and fulfilling as traveling afar.

Save on Food

A large part of a travel budget is spent on food. If you can avoid eating out, even for one meal a day, you will save quite a bit of money. Here are some ways to save on food:

Rent an Airbnb or extended-stay hotel that has a kitchen that allows you to prepare a few meals yourself.
Stay at a hotel that serves a free breakfast and monopolize on their free coffee or tea all day. Many hotels even offer a free midday snack.
If traveling by car, pack a cooler full of food and snacks.
Carry snacks with you while traveling around your destination to avoid accumulating little overpriced expenses.
Carry a reusable water bottle with you and fill at water fountains, cafes, and restaurants.
Use discounts, coupons, and promo codes when available.
If eating out, try to choose spots further away from high tourist destinations.

Take Advantage of Free/Low-Cost Activities

Take advantage of all your travel destination has to offer by looking for free events to attend, free/low-cost museums and parks, and so forth. Cities offer a wide variety of entertainment for their citizens and tourists that are full of enriching learning experiences, physical activities, and entertainment. You can even search online for routes and key destinations and host your own self-guided walking tour. Attend local farmer’s markets to get a feel of what local artisans and farmers are offering. Plus, many of the products will be unique to the area.

Traveling is meant to be an enjoyable, life-enriching, and positive experience. You can have a great time and still stay within budget. Use Enterprise rental car services in order to get the perfect-size, reliable car at a great price. Explore all the nearby spots around you that are full of rich sites and events. Finally, by planning ahead of time, save on food, entertainment, and activities by looking for free or low-cost options.

Image via Unsplash

Do You Ever Go Back to the Same Location?

On October 4, 2018 By Isobar ExpeditionsIn Travel Tips23 Comments

One of the challenges for people who love traveling is deciding between going someplace new versus going back to someplace visited before. At first, it seems like a pretty straight forward decision, why not go someplace where you’ve never been? On the other hand, there are definite reasons for going back to a location. If we could travel as often as we wanted, we would do a mix of both as we always love seeing new places, but there are many places that we wish we would have had more time to see or would like to see it at a different time of year.

Clearly, going someplace new is always exciting and interesting. There can, however, be some challenges when traveling someplace new such as visa requirements, learning some of the language, having to research travel and accommodations, etc. Excitement can also mean anxiety about the unknown and, depending upon where you are going, uncertainty about safety. What if you choose the wrong part of town to stay in, which of the multitude of things to see should you prioritize, whose information do you trust? With all of that said, that is what creates the adrenaline and anticipation that we truly enjoy.

There are few places that we’ve visited that we haven’t at least once said that we hoped to go back to. There are also some places that we have gone to more than once and have thoroughly enjoyed it. Even after only a single visit, returning to those places has a sense of familiarity that is calming. The time during the returning trip seems much more relaxed as there isn’t the sense that you have to rush to see every possible sight as you’ve seen many of them before. It almost like seeing an old friend that you’ve missed for a few years. Paris is one of those places that we have been to more than once and would return to several times again.

View of the Quilotoa Caldera and Lagoon in Ecuador

Unfortunately, we don’t have unlimited resources or time to travel to every place that we would like. Our next trip is in a couple of weeks to Carlsbad, California, a place that we haven’t been to before. If we had to choose only one option, we suppose that we would choose going to someplace new, but we are certainly glad that we don’t have to limit our choice. If you had to make a choice, which would you choose?

Temple on Sun Island with Moon Island in the Distance on Lake Titicaca, Bolivia

How Do You Choose Your Next Travel Destination?

On February 2, 2018 By Isobar ExpeditionsIn Travel Tips13 Comments

Deciding where you want to spend your money and time visiting can be one of the more stressful decisions that anyone can make before traveling. There are many ways to make that decision and some of those might be determined by your personality. Some people are willing to throw a dart at a map and randomly go wherever fate might take them and other people use very rigid logic in making that decision. There are times when you pick a location because it has always been on your bucket list and there are other times when you have a fixed budget and you find a place that fits within it.

We choose our destinations based on a mix of all of those styles. We generally start with a relative date in mind and definitely have a budget in mind. From there we generally start searching airfares for a variety of locations as that is often the bulk of the expense and there aren’t always as many options. We try to go to someplace that we haven’t before and we basically start with several cities across those locations and then look for airfares using different apps. A good example of this was our first trip to South America where we looked at Peru, Columbia, Chile, but ultimately ended up choosing Bolivia.

During our time in Europe, choosing a location was far more random, but basically followed the same pattern. We would sit down for dinner on a Wednesday evening and toss out ideas of where to go that weekend and then check prices. Because we were traveling on fairly short notice, availability of transportation and hotels was usually a bigger deciding factor. If there was limited availability, it would normally drive prices up and we would decide to go someplace else.

We are currently trying to figure out our next big trip that will take place in the near future and are struggling with making a decision. Part of that is due to our own schedules and nailing down a time window and part of that is finding reasonable prices for the places that we are considering. We are leaning towards some place in Asia, but who knows if that is where we will end up traveling. This might sound insane to some people who plan things out years in advance, but for us, picking a destination can be as much a part of the adventure as the actual trip. How do you pick the places that you visit?