The following are our Top 5 Travel Tips for saving money while on the road. The biggest advice I can give is to begin chasing miles and points for free travel, which I’ve written about in the Just Carrying On – Miles and Points Beginner’s Guide. But beyond that, these 5 tips can save you additional money and make travel more convenient.
1. T-mobile
There is no single more helpful and convenient travel recommendation than to switch your cellular provider to T-mobile. The plans are cheap and you don’t have to pay for your phone once you own it (our bill is about $15/person/month now that we’ve paid off our iPhones).
But I’m really recommending T-mobile for the global benefits. Included with our plan is unlimited data and texting in over 120 countries around the globe (we’ve used it in over 20 ourselves). The data speeds are reduced to 2G, which is pretty slow, but who cares? We literally land in a country, turn off Airplane Mode, and without worrying about roaming or data fees we are connected to a local cell company and are greeted with a text from T-mobile welcoming us to the country.
The benefits of having data while traveling are enormous. Google maps, restaurant reviews, checking on ours for a tourist attraction, and even figuring out airport transport after landing when the airport doesn’t have wifi. To not be forced to be wholly prepared 2 or 3 steps ahead for everything is so freeing. I can’t recommend it enough.
2. Priority Pass
My other personal favorite travel tip is to get lounge access with Priority Pass. This is a company that contracts with over 1000 airport lounges around the world to give you access to any in their network. We use it all the time. The network in the US isn’t as good as it is around the world, but we’ve been to dozens of lounges in the 3 years since getting Priority Pass. To read about what makes lounges so nice, check out my post on lounges here.
But the short story is free food (and free booze if you want).
So how do you get Priority Pass? The easiest way is with a premium credit card. I recommend the Chase Sapphire Reserve which will give the primary card holder a Priority Pass membership that includes up to 2 guests per lounge visit. After getting the Chase card (or the Citi Prestige, which comes with 1 free guest) don’t forget to sign up with Priority Pass separately to get your card and membership number. To read more about credit cards and their features, read my Top 5 Travel Credit Cards post. If you want to buy lounge access outright (which I don’t recommend), unlimited access will cost $399/year for one person.
3. Charles Schwab Investor Checking Account
A recent decision we made was to open a new Charles Schwab Investor Checking Account. They reimburse all ATM fees worldwide, both by not charging for withdrawals themselves but also by reimbursing any fees imposed by other banks. In three weeks I imagine we’ve already saved over $50. The best part is it completely eliminates any stress about how much to withdraw and how often, a very nice emotion to reduce when traveling, wherever possible. To sign up you must also open an investor account, but we have yet to do any investing with them, and none is required.
I’ve read that CapitalOne360 also has great ATM benefits but Charles Schwab is largely considered a safe bet for completely free withdrawals.
4. Trail Wallet
The Trail Wallet app came as a recommendation from other travelers. As you spend you input each transaction into the app, tagging the type of purchase and adding any other tags you choose, such as location. The app tracks your daily spend and compares it to the daily budget you’ve set. For us, this is $100 per day. Having one reference for where we’re at, both during each day but also over time, helps keep us on track. Our current daily average for our trip is about $101/day so we’re doing ok for now.
If you do use the app (and you’ll need to pay the $4.99 for unlimited use), keep in mind that it is not cloud-based, meaning the data is local on your phone. If you want to export the information, which I would recommend every so often, you can do so in a spreadsheet file type.
5. Borrowing e-books from the library
We couldn’t believe it when we learned that our local library loans electronic books in almost every format (including for our preferred Kindles). Ever since our discovery, we’ve been adding our names to the waiting list for our favorite titles (putting them on “hold”) and then reading voraciously when they come available. Our local library gives us 3 weeks but we’ve discovered that if we put our Kindles in airplane mode before the due date and don’t return to the menu screen until we’re done, we can keep the book until we’re finished.
There’s also now a smartphone app called Libby that will integrate seamlessly with your library and facilitate the reservation and checkout process. Just remember to sign up for a library card before you hit the road, if you don’t have one already. We’ve read countless books this way, including guide books and we’ve even had success requesting our library buy more obscure titles that were not originally available.
Honorable Mention: Global Entry
This last travel tip is more of a time-saver than a money-saver, but time is money right? Global Entry is a service that makes the process of returning to the US after international travel super easy. There are separate lines for immigration and customs and we’ve never had to wait in a line yet. Additionally it grants you a Known Traveler ID number which gives you TSA pre-check on all flights within the US which can be huge when you stumble upon an extra-long security check line.
The $100 Global Entry fee can be reimbursed with the above mentioned premium cards, or you can just pay it yourself. It lasts for 5 years and requires an interview at a participating US airport. It’s worth it.
There are so many creative travel tips for saving money while on the road. If you have another favorite, leave a comment below.