Everyone loves a good vacation right? Whether it’s relaxing on the beach, hiking, camping, sightseeing, there’s always fun to be made when you’re on a vacation. But what if you decide to travel alone? What will your costs be and how can you save money on your trip?

Solo travel can be great. You can do what you want, when you want. Although I haven’t done a lot of traveling by myself, I have done some small trips by myself.

You can also test your independence, meet new people, and everything else that you’ve wanted to do, especially if you know how to save money while traveling alone.

If you’re traveling alone, there are many ways to save, even though it might seem like in the beginning that it’ll be very expensive (since you can’t split the cost with anyone else).

Travel when it’s off peak

This tip is good and can save you a lot of money. Hotels, traveling costs and everything else seem to be much cheaper when you travel off season. However, always make sure that the weather is what you want. It might be hurricane season, and that’s why everything is so much cheaper. You don’t want to travel off season when it’s a horrible time at that vacation spot and have it ruin your time there.

Also make sure that everything is open still. Sometimes whole towns might shut down because everyone is on vacation during their off peak season. If everything is shut down, then obviously there will be nothing to do there while you are on your vacation.

Find cheap places to stay

There are a ton of useful resources for where you should stay. You can stay in a hostel (extremely cheap!), look into couch surfing (and stay somewhere for free plus you get to meet someone new), use Priceline bidding and so on. If you stay at a hostel or couch surf, you can also most likely meet other travelers who are very similar to yourself! You can possibly share meals, have a potluck, etc. with the people who you meet.

Transportation

Since you are by yourself, it will be a little easier to get places. See if you can be put on standby for any transportation, or see if you can split a car/cab/etc with someone else. Also, if you have time, sign yourself up to be bumped on a flight. If you get bumped, you can most likely score free food, a hotel stay, future vouchers and even potentially extra cash.

Also, use the local transportation system if you can. It’s usually very cheap and can get you places quickly.

Food

There are many ways to save money on food. You could buy food at the grocery store and bring it back with you.  Hopefully you have a fridge, microwave or something else so that you can make a wider variety of food items. Making food yourself is almost always cheaper.

If you do decide to eat out. See if you can find any coupons online for restaurants near you. This way, you can get more bang for your buck and get fuller off what you buy with your money.

What solo travel savings tips do you have?

Michelle

Michelle

Michelle Schroeder is the founder of Making Sense of Cents and Diversified Finances, a personal finance and lifestyle blog about budgeting, traveling, life, and student loans. Read further on her story and life.