Many of us have put our traveling dreams on hold during these uncertain times in our economy, but sometimes a good vacation is just what we need in order to make it through a tough time.  With that said, traveling doesn’t always mean draining what little money we have left out of the bank.  Here are some tips and websites you might find helpful as you plan your budget vacation.

Start with a Travel Search Engine

Be sure to check the travel search engines for the best rates on airfare, hotel, vacation packages, cruises, and car rentals.

Booking Buddy – With this website, you can enter in your search criteria (i.e. your dates, destination, etc.) and then use the search buttons to search on over 140 different search engine sites, including but not limited to all the popular travel search engines such as Expedia, Travelocity, Priceline, Orbitz, and Hotwire.  Instead of visiting each travel search engine website separately and reentering your entire search criteria each time, you can simply enter it all once and start comparing prices easily.  This will not only save you money, but it will save you precious time, something we all have very little of these days. 

Visit the Visitors Bureau

Research ways to save money while on vacation before you leave.  Many times, we are very conscious about ways to save money on airfare and hotels, but once we start our actual trip, the budget flies right out the airplane window.  One way to save money is to use coupons at different restaurants and attractions.  Check the Visitors Bureau website for the city to which you are traveling for helpful links, calendar of events, maps, and yes, money saving coupons.  Most cities offer free travel guide books that include coupons and deals which can be ordered right from their site.  And who needs to buy one of those expensive guide books at the bookstore when you can get all your information on the city’s website or sent directly to you?  You might even find a coupon for an attraction you would not have even thought of visiting.

Read Reviews

There are a number of great websites and blogs that give great reviews, tips, and ideas for travel destinations all over the world.  Here are some that are geared especially for the budget traveler that you might find helpful while planning your trip:

• Frugal Traveler – On this blog, Matt Gross of the New York Times has chronicled his budget traveling adventures.  He shares his tips, ideas, and experiences along the way.  Here you can learn how to budget travel from an expert budget traveler.
• Budget Travel – You can subscribe to Budget Travel Magazine ($20 for 20 issues) or you can visit their website for free.  On their website, you will find a lot of helpful budget travel ideas, tips and deals.  You can also sign up to join and be a part of their budget travel community where you can participate in their forums and share travel ideas, photos, and journals.
• Independent Traveler – On this website, you can participate in travel message boards, read great articles about budget traveling, and best of all, utilize their free travel budget calculator which will help you make the most of your travel fund.

There are hundreds of websites that will help you plan your budget vacation.  You can literally spend days, weeks, and months looking through them all.  I hope these few websites will get you started thinking of the ways you can still afford to travel even when forced to do so on a tight budget.  The most important thing to remember when traveling is it doesn’t matter how little or how much you spend, it just matters that you get out there and enjoy life!