A hotel room - Why not a suite?

If you’re traveling to a major city on a budget, consider booking an apartment or suite hotel instead of a standard room. Specifically, find a room w/ a kitchen especially if you’re staying four or more nights. Instead of eating out twice a day, you can look to have an eat-in dinner or make take-away lunches.

If you’re driving to your destination, consider bringing some key ingredients from home such as coffee, cooking oils, spices, condiments, and cereals. This is especially important if you’re only traveling for a few nights and want to avoid buying some of these items at a tourist destination. Also, don’t forget to bring some of your better cooking tools such as a good knife or frying pan.

If you’re going to a foreign destination, some of the best local (and often cheaper) produce and meat/poultry can be found at markets. I like visiting the markets early on my first day of the trip to load up on ingredients. Markets tend to carry only seasonal items so be flexible on your menu and ingredients.

If you like take home food, why not on your trip? Instead of eating out, bring back a pizza from a local restaurant, a rotisserie chicken, or even Chinese or Indian take-out. Just do a little bit of research of what types of food are really good at your travel destination.

Motel Coupons

Prologue

My name is Jake and I am a bargain traveler addict. I would like to go to a 12 step program for addicted bargain travelers but I have not found one. If any one has heard of one please let me know. Meanwhile writing about bargain traveling and hearing from others with a similar addiction will hopefully help me keep my sanity a little while longer.

Using Coupons to get Bargain Rates On Motels

One of the cheapest methods I have found of getting a motel room is to use travel coupons. These coupons are available by stopping at a visitors bureau in the area you are visiting. You can almost always find a state visitors bureau on major interstate highways as you cross the border from one state to another.

There are usually two such books – a red colored one and a green colored one. Typically these books cover the whole state and have about 20-30 pages of coupons and maps showing you where the motels are located.

Moderate priced chain motels motels make up the bulk of the coupons and are located along the interstate highways. Also covered well are tourist or vacation areas including beach areas such as Virginia Beach, VA and Myrtle Beach, NC. Major cities also have many entries but are usually on the outskirts of the city. Accommodations in the center of a large city such as Atlanta may have only a few choices.

What you can expect from these coupons are $30- $35 per night for a room in a moderate priced chain motel during off-season in the South and other less pricey regions. This usually includes a continental breakfast or sometimes a breakfast with some hot items. For $40 to $50 in the cheaper regions during off-season, you should be able to get a room in a slightly better facility e.g. one with inside corridors and possibly an indoor pool.

You can also sometimes get motel rooms below $30 in non-chain motels or lesser known chains. Accomodations in tourist areas and centers cities are more varied in terms of price and quality.

You cannot usually make reservations with the coupons, but If you call the motel the same day they will let you know of likely availability.