Some tips on saving money for travelling:
1. go travelling during off-peak seasons
In travelling, the year is divided into three seasons:
- peak season: mid-June - August (usually in Summer)
- shoulder season: April - mid-June (in Spring) & September - October (Autumn)
- off peak: November - March (Winter)
That is according to this source.
Peak seasons in Malaysia are based on school holidays and major religious festival celebrations. This website defines and explains peak seasons in Malaysia:
- peak seasons: December - end of January, June - mid-September, Hari Raya Aidil Fitri, Chinese New Year & Christmas
I often use Skyscanner to search for and compare flight tickets for international destinations. Skyscanner compares flight ticket prices from various airline operators based on our travel dates, no of travellers, destinations and no of stops. For our recent travel, my family and I flew with Garuda Indonesia to Melbourne, Australia from Malaysia. Garuda was the cheapest option for us to go to Melbourne, based on our travel dates and no of travellers.
I also use AirAsia website to find out any promotions on domestic and international flights. I flew with AirAsiaX twice to Japan: Osaka 2012 and Tokyo 2016.
For our holiday in Spain, we flew with RyanAir, a low cost airline company in the UK. We departed from Liverpool to Granada, Spain. Well, that was in 2005.
Other destinations like India, US, UK and New Zealand, my family and I flew with our national carrier, Malaysia Airline.
3. stay at suburbs
Staying outside the city gives more benefits than in the city such as:
- a better option - cheaper, bigger house
- a better scenery - countryside
- opportunity to blend in with local people
Our rented accommodation in Melbourne
We stayed in Mooroolbark, a 45-minute drive to Melbourne City Centre. We secured a spacious house with its own space - garden & backyard. A peaceful, beautiful neighbourhood, I could not ask for more.
We stayed in Mooroolbark, a 45-minute drive to Melbourne City Centre. We secured a spacious house with its own space - garden & backyard. A peaceful, beautiful neighbourhood, I could not ask for more.
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| This is our rented accommodation |
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| At the backyard |
In Tokyo, we rented a BnB which is a double-storey, semi-detached house in Takasago, about 30-minutes by train to Tokyo. From our rented house, it takes about 10-15 minutes walking to the nearest train station. Some pictures near our rented accommodation. One obvious thing about Japan is that it's clean. Hard to find any rubbish on the street.
4. rent a car
If you go on holiday with your family and are planning to explore the country, it is often cheaper to rent a car.
There are many car rental websites, so please study them carefully before making any decisions. Things you should cosider before renting a car:
- your budget
- type of car - make, capacity, transmission
- insurance coverage - zero excess, 2nd driver
- security deposit
- mileage - unlimited mileage
- toll charges if applies
- payment type - credit and/or debit card
- pick up and drop off locations - airport or main office
- extra charges such as early pickups or drop-offs - some companies charge this
- other hidden charges
- driver licence
In Melbourne, we rented a Hyundai Sonata from Auzrentals.
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| Arissha with our rented car |
In New Zealand, we rented a motorhome, MAUI motorhome. If you decided to rent a motorhome, you have to find out the places where you can drive and park your motorhome because not all places especially in the city allow you to bring or park your motorhome.
Since we have lost all of our photos while in New Zealand, well we were there in 2004, I used a picture which I found on Google. The motorhome looks like this:
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| Source: Google Images |
There are different sizes of motorhomes. In general, motorhome can be:
- 2 berth - fit for 2 people - sleeps 2
- 4 berth - fit for 4 people - sleeps 4
- 6 berth - fit for 6 people - sleeps 6
We rented a 4 berth motorhome to accommodate 5 of us: 2 adults, 2 kids & 1 infant. Without motorhome, we did not need to rent an accommodation. We drove it in Auckland way to Paihia, an attraction in the north of the North Island of New Zealand. We picked it up at the Auckland Airport and dropped it in the city of Auckland. Then, we drove a Toyota Caldina to Rotorua, where I presented my paper at APCHI conference in 2004. We dropped it off at the Auckland Airport.
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| Toyota Caldina 2004 - Picture from Google Images |
Parking fare at any city centre is really expensive. So, finding a cheap parking area can be a 'pain-in-the-ass' task if we did not use any assisted technology. Now there are many parking apps available which can be accessible on both web and mobile phone, which can help us search for cheap parking places in the city. The apps allow us to compare parking fares based on the parking location (in, and near the city), duration (per day or week or month) and type of parking (private or public). Usually the parking prices are really cheap with this kind of app because the parking spaces actually belong to the residence, and this residence rents out their private parking space to the commuter or traveller like us.
For our recent trip to Melbourne City, we used Parkhound app. It is an app for finding a parking space across Australia. We rented a parking space for three days from a lady residence. Her accommodation is only a walking distance to University of Melbourne and is about 5-10 minutes drive to the city centre. It cost us AUD6.80 per day, and security deposit of AUD120, but it was refundable upon returning the parking key.
6. cook and pack food
That's what I often do while travelling. We brought food from Malaysia, especially the instant sauces like Sambal Ikan Bilis, Ayam Madu and Ayam Masak Merah, instant noodles, instant rice porridge, the canned sardins, and packed rendang. We also brought water bottles, food containers and picnic mat.
We often do groceries even during our travels. For example, in Melbourne, we bought breads, eggs, milk, tea. chocolate, biscuits, crips (or potato chips), doughnuts, frozen fish nuggets, frozen prawn, cooking oil, disposable plates and cups, washing up (or dishawahing) liquid and laundry powder from Coles Supermarket. We were lucky that our house owner, Damian, already prepared us with a bag of basmathi rice (5kg) and two rice cookers. So, we did not need to buy rice or bring our own rice cooker.
I often cook breakfast and dinner for my family. I make sure that I pack food or bring 'food-to-go' for our day-out, so that we only spent on late lunch or early dinner meals. We often had kebabs and chips in Melbourne. Doing so can help us save our money for something else like souvenirs and other purposes.
When I was in Tokyo, I also did the same: breakfast at home, packed lunch & nice dinner at a diner OR breakfast at home, lunch & dinner at home.
Well, I did not cook in India and Indonesia. When I was in India, there were only me and my husband, and we stayed in a hotel. There was a breakfast buffet at the hotel every morning and we often ordered our dinner from the hotel kitchen at night. I had my lunch and tea at the conference whereas my husband was often out and about by himself during the day.
When we were in Jakarta, we just ate outside for two reasons: (1) this was our layover and (2) the food is similar to ours.
7. go to places which are free or 'kids go free'
In Australia, there are many attractions in the city which are free or kids go free.
All the street arts, parks and ACMI (Australian Centre for Moving Images) are basically free.
Melbourne Zoo offers free entrance to children 16 and below on the weekends & during the public and school holidays. See their entrance fees here. Melbourne Museum offers free entrance to children 16 and below everyday. Click here to see their fees.
To see kangaroos, koalas and penguins for free in Australia, you can see them in the wild, for example, koalas can be spotted in Kenneth River at Great Ocean Road (GOR) and kangaroos near Tullamarine Airport. We can also see penguins at night at St Kilda pier. Well, of course, we can't touch them, at least we can see them and take pictures!