The sales of recreational vehicles have really been on fire lately, as more and more people discover the high level of freedom, and low level of cost, that an RV vacation can provide. As air travel becomes more of a hassle, and the cost of hotel stays continues to rise, many people are discovering the convenience of taking their hotel room with them wherever they go.

The attraction of a recreational vehicle, of course, is that it provides the budget traveler with the freedom to go where he or she wants, whenever they want to go there. An RV frees the traveler on a budget from rigid schedules, lines at airport security, restrictions on luggage, and so much more. And with over 15,000 RV parks and campgrounds dotting the country, there is bound to be one wherever you want to go.

And many RV’s have all the amenities of home, including living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens and bathrooms. Many RV’s also have rooms that slide out to provide even more living space when the vehicle is parked.

There are some important tips for first time RV’ers to follow to get the biggest bang for their travel buck. Some of our favorite tips for a low cost and hassle free RV trip include:

Hit the web for tons of free information on living the RV lifestyle and keeping costs under control. There are a great many web sites and newsgroups dedicated to recreational vehicles, and they can provide valuable tips for those newcomers.
Try renting an RV before you buy one. The purchase of a recreational vehicle is a big decision, and one that is likely to have a major impact on your lifestyle, especially on how you vacation. With the average RV costing as much as the average house did a couple of decades ago, it is important to know that an RV is the right decision before taking the plunge. There are a number of places that rent RV’s, and these rental agencies can provide a low cost alternative to RV ownership, or a way to “try it before you buy it”.

Do your research. If you do decide to buy an RV, be sure to research the buyer’s guides, and read the reviews on the internet. Doing so will allow you to get the most RV for your money.

Visit a couple of RV dealers, and attend an RV show. RV shows are great ways to see a wide range of models quickly, and it is often possible to strike some very good deals at these events.

Do the math to be sure an RV is right for you. An RV makes sense for a great many people, particularly families traveling together. RV travel can be significantly less costly than travel by car or plane. Fees for campgrounds are considerably lower than hotel room rates, and this can really trim the travel budget.

Be sure to inset in a quality guide to RV campgrounds. Knowing where the campgrounds are, and having good directions for getting there, will save you lots of hassle, as well as gas money.

For many people, good food is a large part of the travel experience, and sampling the local cuisine should be a goal of every traveler to a foreign location. Saving money on food does not mean skimping or missing out on the special food that makes many regions of the United States, Europe, Asia and other destinations so special.

It is important to eat a healthy and hearty breakfast every day while traveling. Many hotels include a daily breakfast in their room rate, and if this is available it is important to take advantage of the perk. Starting each morning with a healthy breakfast will give you the energy you need for walking around and seeing the sights, and it will help deter you from splurging on expensive and unhealthy snacks before it is time for lunch.

Lunch can be a very important meal when traveling, and it is the best time to get the most value from some of the finest restaurants in your destination city. While lunches in the working world are often rushed affairs eaten quickly, or even in the car on the way back to work, vacation lunches can be long, restful, relaxing and delicious. If there is an expensive restaurant you’ve been itching to splurge at, why not head there for lunch instead of dinner? You get the same great food, often at a significantly lower price.

One great way to sample the local cuisine and save money at the same time is to eat where the local people do. Ask the staff at your hotel for recommendations of restaurants they eat at. Restaurants with a large concentration of locals are usually high quality and low priced destinations.

Eating dinner or lunch in ethnic neighborhoods is another way to sample the local cuisine and culture while saving lots of money. Sampling the food in the local Chinatown, Korea town, Little Italy, Little Saigon or similar neighborhood is a great way to meet local people and enjoy some great food.

For a quick pick me up or snack, try packing a few granola bars, a bag of trail mix or a few pieces of fruit in your backpack or purse before you head out for the day. These items can be bought inexpensively at local markets or grocery stores.

A quick trip to the local grocery store for supplies can be a great way to save money while traveling. For instance, many travelers will spend a half hour at the local grocery store, stocking up on bottled water, cereal and other low cost foods. Keeping those foods and water on hand in the hotel room is a great way to save money on eating.

Having your own picnic is another great way to both have a great time and save money on food while traveling. Try packing a picnic lunch and enjoy the spectacular views as you hike to your favorite spot in the mountains. Or pack a romantic dinner for two and head for the local outdoor concert. Picnics are great, and very memorable ways to enhance any vacation experience.

The world of budget travel is one of the most exciting and interesting, and in today’s world traveling on a budget is becoming more and more of a necessity. Keeping costs low while traveling is important, whether you are a solo traveler seeing the world for the first time or a family with a carload full of kids heading for the beach or the theme park.

When it comes to coming up with a travel budget, the first step should be to decide what is important to you and where you can cut back a bit. For instance, some travelers are comfortable spending a bit more for a better class of hotel, while others prefer to save money by using budget accommodations and spend the money they saved on sightseeing or a special meal for the family.

As with other aspects of finance, it is a good idea to create a travel budget. Determine a budget for the various aspects of your vacation, such as hotel, airfare, rental cars, sightseeing, gasoline, etc. Once you have a good idea of what each element of the vacation should cost, it is time to start shopping around for the best deals.

Once you have determined what is most important to you, it is time to start determining how to get the best deals. Often, admission deals on area attractions are the easiest to come by, since many theme parks, museums and other destinations run specials to attract out of town guests.

To score big discounts on area attractions, the best place to start is the web site of the attraction itself. Be sure to check the web site for any specials, such as two for one deals, free admission for children, special reduced admission days, etc.

If you are a member of the military, a senior citizen or a member of an organization such as AAA, there are often additional discounts available. Most AAA offices sell discount admission tickets to theme parks, museums and other popular attractions within driving distance, and most AAA offices sell discounted admissions to popular attractions like Walt Disney World as well. The key to making your travel budget stretch farther is to ask about, and take advantage of, all discounts that may be available.

If you are driving to your destination, one great way to make your travel budget go further is to make sure your car is in tip top shape before embarking on your trip. Small details, such as under-inflated tires or worn spark plugs can really eat into your gas mileage and end up costing you a bundle, especially on a long road trip.

A good map can also be a money saver, since it will keep you from driving around in circles and wasting gas. Finding your way easily to and from the hotel and the surrounding area will make your vacation more pleasant and less costly.

No matter how you save money on your next vacation, having a budget and sticking to it will help you enjoy your vacation more, and worry less about paying for it.

When it comes to hotels, things boil down to a tradeoff between low cost and convenient location. In many cases, especially when traveling to major cities and popular attractions, the closer the hotel to the city or attraction the more you can expect to pay. The best way to save money, particularly in large cities, is often to stay in the suburbs.

Of course, this means that you will spend more time getting to the places you want to visit, and this will mean spending additional money on gasoline, etc. It is important to compute all these costs to make sure that you will really be spending less on a less convenient hotel room.

There are of course a number of ways to save money on hotels and motels without compromising quality. For one thing, a membership in AAA or a similar auto club also entitles you to discounts on hotel rooms, as does military service and senior citizen status. When inquiring about a hotel room, always inquire about discounts that may be available.

In addition, shopping early for a hotel room can often yield the best deals. That is because hotels often reserve a block of low cost rooms, and when they are gone they are gone. Thus the last room at a hotel may be much more costly than the first. Getting the best hotel room deal is often a matter of timing.

Of course getting a great deal on a hotel will mean nothing if the place is a dump. Shopping for a budget hotel should not mean settling for a hotel that is dirty, poorly run or in an unsafe location.

Fortunately, finding a good budget hotel has been made much easier with the help of the internet. What used to take weeks or even months to research can now be done in a matter of hours or even minutes. Many hotels, even budget properties, feature pictures of the property and the surrounding area, so be sure to research the property you are considering if you have never stayed there before.

It is important to research the area in which the hotel is located as well. Be sure to check out things like restaurants and attractions within walking distance of the hotel. Doing some research on the area will help ensure you do not end up staying in a dangerous neighborhood just to save a couple of bucks.

The internet also provides a number of review sites where those who have stayed in various hotels share their experiences and their impressions of the hotel properties. These review sites can be very useful for travelers, particularly those traveling to a new location for the first time.

In addition, the internet hosts a number of comparison web sites where travelers can easily find and compare hotel properties for their individual dates of stay and destinations. These web sites offer a number of ways to search, including distance from a particular tourist attraction, price, star level and more. The only caveat to consider when using such a web site is its independence. Some comparison web sites feature only properties that pay an advertising fee, so using a comparison site does not necessarily guarantee the best price. It is best to use a number of such web sites to get a true picture of the lowest prices available.

Adventure travel is one of the fastest growing segments of the travel industry, but it is often difficult to find good bargains when booking adventure travel. With so many people itching to go on the adventure of a lifetime, the prices in those travel brochures can lead you to believe that adventure travel is beyond your means.

That does not have to be the case, however. The key to affordable adventure travel is to book directly from the providers of the adventure, instead of going through multiple layers of travel agents, tour operators and tour guides.

Booking a tour directly has many benefits besides monetary ones, including meeting wonderful local people and enjoying the local culture. Often the best way to enjoy a vacation on a budget is to book low cost airfare to the destination of your choice, take the local bus into town, and start asking around about the best adventure guides in town. Local tour operators know the area, they know how to please their clientele, and best of all they are inexpensive. U.S. currency goes quite a long way in many exotic locations in Africa, Asia and elsewhere, so dealing with local tour guides is the best way to make your adventure travel dollar stretch even further.

Many inexperienced adventure travelers are unsure how they can possibly book an adventure tour on their own. For one thing, there is often a language barrier in far off locations, and you may be many thousands of miles from home in an unfamiliar location.

What these first time travelers often don’t realize, however, is that finding a tour operator is often the easiest part of the journey. In many cases, the tour operators will find you as soon as you land, without you having to seek them out. And in most places, especially those frequented by American tourists, the guides will speak at least a little bit of English. Listed below are some of the best tips for booking your own budget travel adventure.

• Be sure to ask around before you leave. Get opinions from other travelers who have done the adventure you plan on.

• Refer to your guidebook for references. Guidebook writers are often quite knowledgeable about which tour operators are good and which are more questionable.

• Check on the message boards, both virtual and real. Real message boards are available at hostels and local guest houses, and they can provide excellent information on local tours and tour operators. The staff at local hostels can also provide excellent information about adventure travel. And internet message boards devoted to travel can be great sources of information, both before you leave home and after you arrive in your far off location.

• Interview your potential trip leaders carefully. Ask lots of open ended and probing questions about the equipment used, the experience level of the guides, the lodging the food, and what is and is not included. Be sure to negotiate everything in advance, since you will have little leverage once the adventure trip has begun.

• Finally, if your crew did a great job, be sure to tip them generously after the tour has come to an end. Good tour operators rely on these tips to supplement their often meager wages, and this helps to keep the best tour guides in business and the best tour operators in operation.

There is no doubt that airfare is one of the biggest expenses of any vacation. Airfare costs can easily represent at leas half of the total cost of a vacation, and if you do not get the best possible deal on airfare it is easy to go over budget. There are some important strategies for getting the best deal on airfares, and this article discusses some of our favorites.

One of the things I have learned over the years is that it is almost always less expensive to fly out of the larger airports than the smaller regional ones. While this is not always the case, and it is not true of every small airport, most larger airports have far more airlines competing for passengers. As we know, more competition generally equals lower prices for passengers.

Many of the larger airports are also home to the low cost carriers that have been such a phenomenon in the industry. While Southwest, Jet Blue and some of the other low cost carriers serve smaller airports, many are left out. The great thing about the incursion of these low cost carriers is that they drive down the prices of the major airlines as well. So, even if you don’t like the open seating, peanuts only policy of a low cost carrier like Southwest, chances are you can still score a good deal at an airport they serve, even on one of the old line air carriers.

Of course the problem with flying out of major airports is getting there. Many people are in the same situation I am. That is, they have a small, regional airport nearby, with a couple of major airports a few hours drive away. What I do every time I need to fly is compare the cost of flying out of my close regional airport to the price I can get if I fly out of a major city. While I have been able to score some excellent deals from my regional airport, in most cases the difference in fare has been at least $200.

I then must weigh the costs of that cheaper ticket against the convenience of local flying. Usually it makes sense to head to the large airport, particularly if I am buying more than one ticket. At a $200 price differential, it is easy to see how much money can be saved for a family traveling together.

One great trick that too few people take advantage of is booking an airport hotel for the night before your flight. This is especially valuable for those early morning flights and saves you having to get up in the middle of the night and hit the highway. Instead, head down the night before, get a good night’s sleep and take the airport’s shuttle right to the airport door.

The extra added bonus of this approach is that in most cases these airport hotels allow their guests to leave their cars at the hotel for the duration of the vacation. In many cases this service is free with the hotel stay, and even in cases where there is a few involved it is usually much lower than comparable parking at the airport. So instead of paying $10, $15 or even $20 a day to park at the airport, you have a safe, well lighted place for your car during the trip, plus a comfortable place to spend the night. I honestly don’t know why more people don’t take advantage of this great way to save big bucks on both airfare and parking costs.

One way to keep costs as low as possible, of course, is to choose the smallest, most economical car you and your family are comfortable with. Choosing a compact, subcompact or economy car makes sense on a number of levels. For one thing, such cars are generally less expensive to rent in the first place. The other important consideration, however, is gas mileage. You as the renter of the car will be responsible for keeping it gassed up, including topping off the tank before returning it. Buying a car that gets great mileage will definitely help your travel budget stretch farther.

If you need a larger car or minivan, it is important to shop around for the best deal you can find. While it is important to shop around no matter what type of car you are considering, it is even more important when trying to rent vehicles for which there is a lot of demand, like convertibles, minivans or SUV’s. Shopping around at a number of travel related web sites, as well as at the web sites of the rental companies themselves, is usually the best way to land the best deal.

The length of the rental can have a large impact on the cost as well. Weekly rentals are often far less costly than a comparable daily rate spread over a week. So if your vacation plans are for a week or more, be sure to inquire about special rates.

Joining a frequent renter club, or using the same rental car company each time, is a great way to get some special coupons and some very good deals. In addition, most car rental companies partner with at least one airline to provide frequent flyer miles or other types of rewards when you rent a car. In addition, many airlines run bonus programs where you get extra miles or extra credit, so be sure to inquire about these bonuses when making your reservation.

Another great way to save money and keep your rental car budget low is not to buy things you do not need. In most cases, this means waiving the optional collision insurance coverage offered by the rental car company. Many rental car companies really push this insurance, but in most cases you are already covered and can safely decline it.

For instance, most automobile insurance policies already provide collision coverage for rental cars, so be sure to check with your car insurance company before starting to plan your vacation. Even if your insurance company does not cover your rental car, chances are one of your credit card companies does. Many credit cards provide coverage for rental cars paid for with the card, so be sure to check with your credit card company to see if they provide this coverage.

Another method to keep rental car costs to a minimum, and one that many people are unaware of, is renting a used car. There are a number of large national companies, and a number of smaller local companies as well, that rent used cars at a much lower price than comparable new cars. In most cases, these cars are only a few years old, and they provide the same protection, and the same transportation as more costly new cars.

Think of it this way – while a traveler with just a backpack or small carryon will be comfortable taking the inexpensive city bus into town, the traveler loaded up with several suitcases will need to opt for a much more expensive taxi ride. It is easy to see the impact proper packing can have for the budget traveler, so we present some light packing tips borne of personal experience.

• Try to avoid checking bags whenever possible. If you can live out of your carryon, you will be much better off. Not checking a bag means no wait at the baggage carousel, and that means you can get into town and start having fun while everyone else is still waiting for their bag.

• Airlines have gotten much more strict lately with carryon limits, with most major carriers now allowing only one carryon plus a purse or other personal item. To make the most of this policy, carry a large purse and pack it with extra items, like toiletries or cosmetics, that would otherwise take up valuable luggage space.

• Wear your largest shoes and bulkiest clothing on the plane to preserve space in the suitcase. For instance, a pair of hiking boots or sneakers can take up valuable luggage space, so pack your smaller dress shoes and wear your boots or sneakers on the plane. In addition, you will appreciate having comfortable shoes as you make your way through the airport.

• Plan your outfits carefully to minimize the pieces needed. A stylish black skirt or pair of pants can easily be made into several outfits with some creative accessories and a couple of nice shirts. Pack small items like a scarf, a tie or favorite pieces of jewelry to give your outfits a new look without taking up a lot of room.

• Try packing a large oversized t-shirt in place of a bulky bathrobe. An oversized shirt can be great for wearing right out of the shower, and it can double as quick cover up after a visit to the hotel pool.

• Invest in a quality pair of stylish yet comfortable walking shoes. Shoes that are comfortable and attractive can be paired with a variety of outfits for a different look. Since shoes take up more space in the suitcase than many other items, it is best to choose versatile footwear when traveling.

• Try rolling clothes instead of folding them. Rolling clothes allows you to pack more clothes into a smaller space, and helps keep clothes wrinkle free as well.

• Stock up on small sample sized products like shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste deodorant. Many seasoned travelers keep a bag of such tiny soaps, shampoos and conditioners (gathered from hotels during previous journeys) in a bag at home for quick packing.

• Pack a large but foldable extra bag in your suitcase, and use this bag to carry the purchases and souvenirs you buy on the return trip.