Frugally traveling

My husband and I maintain some of our frugal ways while we travel. As always, we cut corners on things we don’t care about in order to have money to spend on what we do care about, even when we’re in another country. Some people don’t want to travel if they have to be frugal on the trip, but we don’t mind, because it gets us what we want while we’re there.

It’s all about setting priorities. We don’t fly first class nor do we stay in high-end hotels. We don’t want to try to afford the Georges V in Paris if every waking moment will be spent out and about and all we’re going to do at the hotel is sleep and shower; that would take money we could be spending on other things. On my last trip to Paris in 2008, I got a great deal in a small hotel for $80US a night. It was lovely, newly rehabbed, in a fabulous neighborhood, had a flat-screen HDTV and a typical Parisian balcony, and the price included a delicious breakfast buffet.

Granted, that kind of luck doesn’t always happen. We’ve also done our share of time in some not-so-lovely places that had seen better days. However, unless the neighborhood seems unsafe, we don’t change hotels, because we’re only in the room to sleep and shower, not look at the furniture.

We also save money by eating on-the-cheap and planning for just one really spectacular meal per trip. As luck would have it, we almost always have several spectacular meals per trip, because more dollar signs on the menu do not necessarily equal better food. One of our most memorable meals was in a pizza place in a little town in northwest France, where we sat at a communal table; the people were friendly, the food and wine were delicious, and the local cheeses were out of this world. At a communal table in a hamburger joint in Geneva, Switzerland, lunch became a two-hour gabfest with a fascinating Saudi family who worked for the World Health Organization.

We also picnic in public parks with food we buy at local farmers’ markets or grocery stores. We eat street food: What could be better than one of those plump, juicy rotisserie chickens from a street stall? And the memory of the vendor, a gregarious African man who spoke no English, who tried to figure out what parts of the chicken I wanted by slapping different places on his body? And of his Vietnamese wife, who was cooking noodles and vegetables over a steaming wok in the back? I can still see the steam from the wok envelop her profile and dissipate over her head.

We also take advantage of freebies. Almost every public attraction and museum in the world, including the Louvre, has a free admission day; plan accordingly. Many cities have museum passes; you can buy a week-long pass to almost every museum in that particular city that pays for itself after only one or two visits.

Before you go, study guidebooks, CDs and DVDs about your destination, borrowed from your public library. Find out about freebies and low-cost attractions. For example, after one overnight flight, I landed at dawn, went out for breakfast, and then headed to a beautiful, old church known for its free pipe organ concerts every Sunday after mass.

We rely on public transportation almost exclusively when we travel, because most cities have some form that is reliable, safe and clean, and a fraction of the cost of cabs, so buy a map, preferably before you leave, so you know where you’re going when you get there, how much it costs and how to use it. Yes, we’ve been lost a couple of times, but it’s all part of the adventure of travel. Besides, it forces you to interact with the locals, and that adds a flavor to travel that you might not get otherwise.—Carol Wiley Lorente