Tips For a Budget Friendly Spring Break

As we ease into fall and winter some of us are already thinking about beach trips and Spring Break. For those of us with big families where airline tickets get really expensive, or with a little budget hangover from too much holiday shopping, we already know we’ll be looking for a budget-friendly spring break this year.

1.) Drive don’t fly – With a big family picking a destination you can drive to will save you money over flying and you will get to avoid the new pat-down procedures that the TSA is quietly rolling out.

2.) Vacation Rental instead of hotels – renting a house affords you more space, more flexibility, things like a kitchen, and will flat out save you money over hotels.  One example on a recent business trip the local hotel was $199 a night – I got an AirBnB for $92 a night.

3.) Off the radar Spots – going to beach towns not typically associated with spring break can be a good way to save money, without question Daytona beach will be busy, but Corpus Christie? Not as much.

4.) Shop – or more specifically while at your vacation rental, shop for food and necessities, rather than eat out every meal. This is dependent on #2 above as a vacation rental will give you a kitchen and thus the ability to have meals in.

5.) Travel on off days – Thursday to Thursday is a good example, hotel rates are lower, and if you do decide to fly airfare will be cheaper.

Those are some of the things that are going into our planning during slow days at the office.  Planning ahead will help us save a few bucks on our coming vacation. You might also look at this list of budget-friendly spring break destinations from US News and World Report