Choosing lodging on a budget

When choosing a destination for your vacation, take into account the length of your stay, the location and your budget!

You have several options:

• Stay with friends
• Stay in a hotel
• Renting a house/condo on a site such as vrbo or Airbnb
• Camp/rv

When staying with friends, make sure to bring your hosts a gift and if you have a large family like mine, help out with groceries!

Saving money on hotels

If you have a credit card associated with a hotel institution like IHG or Hilton Honors, redeem points for free hotel rooms. You may need to change your plans if you realize that your original idea is too costly as I discovered when trying to book a hotel in Barcelona. The rooms were tiny which would require our family to book a couple rooms to lodge us and the amount of points needed was high. We decided to stay a little further north in Spain.

On our New Orleans trip last fall, we were able to stay at the Waldorf Astoria using my husband’s points. While we typically choose simple hotels, this was a fun experience for our family.

While abroad, you many want to choose a smaller or boutique hotel to get a more authentic experience of the country you are visiting. These hotel are often affordable. Read reviews and ask friends for their recommendations. When we visit the Republic of Georgia, we stay at Hotel at Gomi 19. The location is perfect for daily excursions, the view is amazing and the food oh so tasty. The different types of rooms can accommodate single people, married couples as well as families.

Use the search engine of your choice to find the best deal on a hotel (Expedia, Travelocity, booking.com). Don’t forget to take into account whether free breakfast is offered as well as parking (when traveling to a city such as New York or New Orleans you most likely will have to pay for parking).

Renting a house or a condo:

I usually rent through vrbo.com, the main reason being that I have had good experiences using the website. You can search by location then filter your search by the size/number of rooms you need and price. I have used vrbo.com mostly for beach rentals and once for a trip to Rome, Italy. I usually look at location, price then read reviews before making a final decision. I always send an email with my inquiry to be more personal. The timely response of the owners usually helps me make my decision.

As a family, if we travel abroad, we usually travel where we can lodge with friends for at least part of the trip or where we can use our hotel points. This allows more room in the budget for activities and other expenses associated with our vacation.We have been to France several times (where I grew up and still have friends) and twice to the Republic of Georgia. We visited my brother in Rome when we had only our oldest and also went to Canada when my husband won a trip through his job at the time.

Since hubby’s idea of camping is renting a cabin, I cannot offer much advice in this category but I would suggest talking to friends and doing a google seach!

A  bientôt!