How to save money on travel

1. Use LastMinute.com. This is one of the easiest ways to save money. Look for last minute deals on flights, hotels, car rentals, vacations, tickets, etc. on LastMinute.com.
2. Use Kayak.com’s Explore tool. Visit Kayak.com/Explore, which lets you enter the amount of money you are willing to spend on a plane flight and it’ll show you on a map where you can go.
3. Get travel deals from Travelzoo.com, a website that aggregates travel deals and sends them to your email (you can subscribe to deal newsletters for particular regions).  Travelzoo has over 21 million subscribers.
4. Visit Kayak.com/Deals for deals to a variety of cities.  You can also search for deals by theme (i.e. beach, family, golf, etc.).
5. Visit Washington, D.C. If you are interested in politics, history, or natural history, this is one of the most enjoyable ways to save money. You can visit a lot of the museums, nearly all the memorials and get a tour of the U.S. Capitol from your Congressman’s aide for free.
6. Before you visit any hotel, visit TripAdvisor.com. There, you can see hotel reviews, which will help you make sure you get exactly what you’re paying for.  I consider saving money (getting a good price) and not wasting money (getting the quality you’re paying for) very similar and sites like TripAdvisor help you do both.
7. Before you go abroad, make sure you know, according to local customs, if you’re supposed to negotiate over prices in the country or countries you’ll be visiting.  Also, make sure you know whether or not you’re supposed to tip.
8. If you are planning to visit Los Angeles or live in the area, sign up for On Camera Audiences’ email lists. On Camera Audiences is a group that aggregates free tickets to tapings of TV shows in Hollywood, including American Idol, Hannah Montana, America’s Got Talent and So You Think You Can Dance?  Somebody has to sit in the audience.
9. Go camping, one of the least expensive vacations possible.
10. Negotiate the price of hotel rooms. I’ve already covered the importance of negotiating prices, but I have to point out hotel rooms in particular.  If you walk into a hotel in the evening, always ask how many rooms remain.  If a large number are available, request a lower price, as assuming you’d leave and go to a different hotel if you didn’t get a price reduction and assuming the price you’re quoting the hotel’s staff exceeds their costs, they’d be foolish to reject your offer.  Even if they can’t rent the room for its retail price that night, they’ll still make more than they would if the room remained empty.
11. Purchase overnight train tickets. In a foreign country?  Don’t care where you travel to?  Save money by getting a train ticket that’s about eight hours long and sleeping on the train overnight.  You’ll skip having to pay for another night in a hotel.
12. Don’t use a travel agent; book your own travel package online. In fact, you can even order travel brochures and recreate the packages using cost comparison engines online.
13. Take a vacation to America’s national parks. A lot of them are free.  Most of them are at least cheap.   Nearly all of them are great.
14. Visiting New York City?  Here are two ways to make your experience cheaper: (1) Visit TKTS, which offers last minute tickets to Broadway and off-Broadway shows at 25-50% off and (2) use Bolt Bus to travel regionally to/from Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore and elsewhere.  Bolt Bus was created as an alternative to Chinatown buses, which are inexpensive but not particularly comfortable.  For the same prices as Chinatown buses ($10 -$25 per trip), you can ride on a comfortable bus with Internet access included.
15. Before any trip, pack plenty of snacks. This will help you avoid having to buy snacks in costly airport stores or at roadside rest stops.
16. Stay in hostels while traveling. If you are interested in meeting people from around the world, this is one of the most enjoyable ways to save money.  HostelWorld.com and Hostels.com are really great aggregators of hostels.
17. Travel using CouchSurfing.org, a network of people who will let you crash on their couches for free.  Another option (that’s a little more expensive than free) is AirBnB.com, a website that allows people to rent out rooms in their houses like hotel rooms.
18. Book red eye (overnight) flights. You can spend one less night in a hotel by booking a red eye flight and sleeping on the plane.
19. Use Hotwire.com, a service hotels use to fill their unfilled rooms.  Hotwire explains, “When 3- and 4-star hotels have unsold rooms, they use Hotwire to fill them, so you get them at prices lower than any other travel site, guaranteed.”
20. Swap houses with a friend for a cheap vacation. Instead of paying for a hotel, save money by coordinating with a friend to trade homes for a few days.