You have spent months and months saving and, on your 10-day vacation, does all the money go like water through your hands? Surely yes. It is really frustrating because one gets used to the idea that it is only enough to travel like this once a year and the other trips will have to be on weekends. “How can I travel through Europe or Asia for a month if I can’t even take 10 days?”

Surely in your travels, you have made costly mistakes that have gone unnoticed and affected you more than you think. At Market Times we help you to travel for much longer and make money work for you. We leave you some mistakes that travelers make and we tell you how to avoid them.

1. Travel in high season

Many travelers decide to go traveling during the summer or Christmas holidays, which is synonymous with high prices: expensive flights, crowded hotels and crowded tourist attractions. There is no doubt that it is the best time for the tourist business, but not for you.

If you have not traveled at a time other than common holidays, try to do so. It may be a bit complicated to travel with all your family or friends in those times because not everyone can, but if you dare and someone else accompanies you, you will see how you will enjoy less congested and cheaper vacations.

The cheapest times to travel are before vacations or after vacations. For example: the last weeks of January and the month of February, the months of April and May, the months of October and November.

2. Be inflexible

The next mistake after traveling in high season is making travel plans on a certain date and at a certain place without first checking the prices of the flights.

Before you start planning a trip and choose the date and place, we recommend that you choose your trip based on the prices of the flights. Various flight search engines such as Skyscanner or applications such as Hopper offer the flexible search option anywhere to show you the cheapest prices in various destinations. Maybe instead of going to Merida, you can go to Cuba for a better price.

3. Travel on tour

Many people choose to travel on a tour because they feel that this way they will have the whole trip solved, they are afraid of moving around the city and building their own route, or of being in a foreign country by themselves, or they are lazy to have to book hotels separately. , flights, restaurants, attractions, etc. Big mistake: perhaps they are missing all the meaning that the word “travel” encompasses. A trip begins from the moment you imagine and start planning.

Many of the tours that are sold are too expensive because obviously, the travel agency has to make some profit. There are few tours in which the price of a trip decreases. Instead of traveling on a tour, design your own tour yourself. At first, it is scary to be wrong, we know. You can start looking for flights and buying the cheapest tickets. Then, look for lodging (hotels, hostels, places to camp, etc.) Continue like this with the various tourist attractions, surely on the Internet you will find which places you can visit and their prices. We recommend you take Free Walking Tours (tours in several cities that are free).

We assure you that if you do it this way you will be able to save up to a quarter of the money you were going to spend and that you can allocate for your next adventure.

4. Not knowing how to use money abroad

If you travel in a country that is not yours, there will surely be another currency, and therefore you will have to pay a fee for the currency exchange. Many tourists do not know about this and start exchanging their money in exchange houses that are expensive or make several withdrawals from ATMs.

Avoid changing your money at airports because that is where they have the highest exchange rate. Also avoid making many withdrawals at ATMs, because each time you withdraw you will be charged a commission, it depends on your bank and the ATM where you do it. We recommend you talk to your bank before going abroad and ask about the commissions they have. Also, use your credit card as much as possible, because if you were to have a problem with your debit card, you would run out of money. 

5. Not using public transport

If you start using taxis, uber or others, the cost of your trip will increase significantly. The best thing you can do is travel by bus, or subway, or use apps like BlaBlaCar where you can share rides. If you are staying longer, you may want to rent a car.

Have you made these mistakes on your travels? What do you think now?