Ease of Travel

Lunch at a major theme park, or any tourist destination worth going to, can run close to $10 per day per person so a great frugal travel tip is to pack your own lunch. This is often easier when you’re still within the United States because you’ll be familiar with the stores, the selection, and the prices - packing your own lunch will save you significant amounts of money that you can use to splurge on other things.

Packing your own lunch also gives you the freedom to eat when you want and not waste time waiting in line or sitting at a table. Sometimes you want to enjoy the sights and the aromas of an authentic local meal but that may not be so important during the middle of the day when you’re absorbing the experience full tilt. Let dinner be where you spend a little extra money and let lunch be just a larger mid-day snack on the cheap.

Until recently, the only way for you to find cheap gas was to rely on luck and try to remember where the cheapest gas was. Then came a great little site called Gas Buddy that I talked about at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. Then someone coupled that site with Google Maps, quite possibly the coolest online mapping site with their use of AJAX technology, to create Cheap Gas. Now it seems, AAA has joined the mix and I discovered, through a CNN Money article, that AAA members will have access to “AAA Fuel Price Finder.” AAA Fuel Price Finder’s data comes from credit card transactions (collected by OPISnet.com) - not volunteered information like at Gas Buddy! This means accurate updates and more frequent updates - another perk for AAA members.

Also, here are some good driving tips to help you save precious gas!

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This is a tactic I’ve been using ever since I set foot in a hotel room - take the soaps, shampoos, and conditions from hotel rooms. Partially it’s my frugal nature, I’ve paid for it and it’s mine; partially I don’t want to waste it (especially when I’ve only stayed one night); and partially because I know that if I go on a trip where I’ll need travel sized toiletries it would be convenient to keep around. I don’t see the logic in going to a CVS or RiteAid and paying money for something that I would throw out any other day. So next time you stay in a hotel, just keep the toiletries and if you look in your closet and find a million bottles of shampoo… maybe it’s time you should take a vacation.

What’s the best part about going to Vegas besides the shows, the gaming, the clubs, the women (and men), the thirty minute weddings, the bufetts, the freebies and the comps? The great hotel rooms! The common strategy for folks who travel to Vegas and intend on staying a week is to spend the weekend nights in an older, middle of the Strip, hotel and the weekday nights in the newer, end of the Strip, hotels. In a recent trip to Las Vegas, my party spent the weekends at Bally’s and the weekdays at Mandalay Bay - and when you’re spending a week there, you’ll find the weekdays are just as rowdy as the weekends in Las Vegas. This strategy is great except now you have to search for the best prices on hotels for the weekdays and then once again on the weekends - then book them both. This is where Travelaxe comes into play.

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What are CityPasses, Go Cards, and Connect cards? They’re all-in-one discount pass cards to local attractions within a certain city. In cities where attractions are closeby and easy to access, all-in-one passes are an incredible deal because they let you into places cheaper than if you paid for them individually. For many of them, they are valid for multiple days (some CityPasses are valid for up to a year after you first use them) and contain actual tickets so you can bypass the regular lines, which can get pretty big at popular destinations.

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If you have ever used Priceline, you know that their process is a little tricky and if you aren’t careful - you could end up in a roach motel. Well, here is where BiddingForTravel will be an eternal lifesaver for all you Priceline addicts out there. Since Priceline isn’t about to give you a list of their four stars in each city and they aren’t going to tell you which lowball bids were accepted for what flights, you’ll need to rely on BiddingForTravel’s loyal users to provide this knowledge through their own experiences.

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Silver Medallion is one of the levels in Delta’s Medallion program, part of Delta’s SkyMiles Frequent Flyer program. The silver medallion is the lowest of the three (Silver, Gold, Platinum) but still affords some nice benefits over regular passengers. These benefits are all yours until February 28th, 2006 if you take a flight out of one of 14 cities.

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When I booked a cruise recently, Travelocity was offering a packet of dollar-off coupons as an incentive. These coupon codes come in the way of coupon promotion codes so I thought I’d share it with the loyal Ease of Travel readership. If you are interested in using them, all I ask is that you use an Ease of Travel link to Travelocity and throw a few bucks my way. Click on the full article below for the complete list of coupon codes. Cheers!

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You may not know it, but that 5 euro espresso is actually going to cost you more than you anticipated. When you use a domestic credit card for a non-US Dollar purchase, the credit card company is going to charged you anywhere from one to three percent just to convert it into US Dollars. This is on top of whatever you’re getting screwed out of in terms of our horrible exchange rate now. What makes it worse is that when your credit card company is getting charged, it’s already been converted into US Dollars for them. It’s not like you’re paying them to convert euros to dollars, it’s already been done for them. Read on to find out what cards will screw you the least.

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I’m going on a cruise in October to Bermuda and the first thing on my packing list will be: Booze. Why? Because in order to have fun, you need alcohol. (well, I need alcohol anyway) You are on the cruise to have fun, not pay $8 for a beer because even Miller Light is priced as an import when you’re on the high seas.

How you try to sneak it on depends heavily on when you try to sneak it on. The earlier the better, once you’re on the boat, you’re on their turf and they’re in control.

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