Five Ways I've Wasted Money While Traveling on a Budget (And How You Can Avoid Them)

Every budget traveler has faced that moment of frustration—the cheap hotel that feels unsafe, the bargain flight with endless layovers, or the too-good-to-be-true deal that actually wasn't worth the hassle. As someone who lives by the philosophy that spending less on one trip means affording more adventures overall, I've made plenty of costly mistakes in my quest to travel economically.

In this candid episode, I pull back the curtain on five significant budget travel blunders that actually ended up costing me more money, time, comfort, and peace of mind. From enduring a 24-hour return journey from Portugal with multiple exhausting layovers, to discovering my "bargain" Belize Airbnb had no air conditioning in 80+ degree weather, these experiences taught me valuable lessons about when saving money becomes counterproductive.

You'll learn practical strategies to avoid these pitfalls, including how to use Google Street View to assess a neighborhood's safety before booking, why checking your credit card's travel benefits could save you from paying twice for rental car insurance, and how to evaluate whether that super-cheap flight with three layovers is really worth the savings. I also share my new approach to flexibility in bookings, specifically why I now only book accommodations with reasonable cancellation policies.

Whether you're planning your next budget adventure or simply want to travel more mindfully, these hard-earned insights will help you find that sweet spot between saving money and preserving your travel experience. Because sometimes the cheapest option isn't actually the best value. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts if you've found these tips helpful—I'd love to hear how they've shaped your own travel planning!

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https://goingwith.me/6gsk6x5d

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Travel Budget Mistakes
• 2:40 Mistake 1: Booking Cheap Flights
• 9:46 Mistake 2: Cheap Airbnbs Without AC
• 11:58 Mistake 3: Unsafe Budget Accommodations
• 14:20 Mistake 4: Unnecessary Travel Insurance
• 15:59 Mistake 5: Accommodations Without Breakfast
• 18:38 Additional Budget Travel Pitfalls
• 21:19 Final Thoughts and Call to Action

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Have you ever purchased an item and then one week later, it's now on sale and you just get so frustrated and angry? Or you see a really good travel deal that might actually be too good to be true and don't jump on it and you miss that opportunity. There's a frustration along with that, and sometimes you can feel like you've been conned as well. Well, in today's episode, I'm going to share with you five mistakes I have made trying to travel on a budget. Welcome to Solo Travel Adventures.

Speaker 1: 0:35

I'm Cheryl Esch, your travel coach and budget traveler, so I'm here to share some of the mistakes I've made trying to save money while traveling. I am all about saving money. This may or may not be you, and if you like luxury and you have the funds to book those kind of trips, great For me. My mindset is the less I spend on a trip, the more I could spend on additional trips. Meaning, you know, let's say I take $2,000. Could I get two trips out of that instead of one? So that's sort of my mindset here, and I have made some mistakes in trying to be frugal, and so I'm going to share what those are so that you can, and I'll give you some antidotes to how to avoid that.

Speaker 1: 1:30

The first thing that I have done, that I am known to do, and only in the last year have I really been like kicking myself because as I get older it gets a little harder to travel this way. But one thing I'm known to do is I will book a cheap flight. They just entice me, I can't help it and I follow Going, which used to be Scott's Cheap Flights. I will also show a link that, if you want to join, it sends me daily emails and notifications on inexpensive flights and I love it. I get so enticed by it. But the reason why they are often cheap is because there are multiple layovers usually and even long layovers. So I have experienced that and you know the past year, even though I have dealt with it because I was more interested in the cheaper flight, it has taken longer to either get there or get home, depending on the situation, and more than one lever, and sometimes I'm okay with that. It really depends on how long the layover is. For me I would rather be able to get out of the airplane every few hours and stretch my legs and walk around and use a proper bathroom at the airport, but instead of being stuck in an airplane, in a tube, not being able to really walk around or stretch in for like 12, 13 hours at a time. So sometimes I'm okay with that.

Speaker 1: 3:02

But I'll give you a couple examples of you know some situations that were not so fun in having those long layovers or multiple flights. So the first one that I recall very strongly was when I went to Peru, lima specifically, and we had a layover in Mexico City and I think it was maybe it might have been on the way home, I can't quite remember, but it was one of those long overnight layovers as well, before we get back to the US, and so we did have to pick up our backpacks. So I was traveling with my son at the time. We had went to Machu Picchu and we had our backpacks. So we were we couldn't get checked in either for the next flight to the US because it was too early, right, we couldn't give them our backpacks, so we had to hang on to them until I think it was like a three or two hour minimum before we could actually go through the gates another security check to get to the portion, the part of the airport that we needed.

Speaker 1: 4:15

So we were kind of like in this holding zone kind of like where all the food court is. Some shops were there and we were just kind of hanging, hanging out. You can only do so much in an airport, right? You can only eat so much, you can only shop so much. And we're sitting on a bench and my son and I are just kind of hanging out there and this gentleman, an American vet, sits down next to us and he gives us the story he shares, that he had tried to sleep in that airport and actually got his bag stolen. So he was stuck in, definitely stuck in the airport because in his bag. So he was in Mexico City to have he has a prosthetic leg, so he was there to get a new one, and they actually had stolen that along with his passport, while he was sleeping in the airport. So after hearing that story, you know, we gave him some of our food that we actually had and I really didn't have any money, unfortunately, because we were, I think, on our way home. That's why usually at that point I were pretty dry out of money. So I took it as a warning. Like you know, we had considered, you know, just kind of laying down. We saw a lot of people laying down in the airport, you know, sleeping away, and that story will make you not want to sleep because there was no way I wanted to have my I didn't care, what was, you know, in my backpack stolen, that didn't matter too much. But of course no one wants their passport stolen. So we didn't sleep really hardly at all, maybe dozed a little on a chair while one of us watched. I know I didn't sleep, so that was one sort of disadvantage of taking a cheap flight, having that long overnight layover.

Speaker 1: 6:05

Another example was more recently, last fall, my return trip from the Caminos. I was coming back from Lisbon, portugal, back to the States. I did have two layovers. Again, I had a really inexpensive flight flight but it did. I did have some layovers and again the whole trip from the time I left Lisbon to the time I arrived back in the US. It took 24 hours and you know, after getting back from walking the Camino I was fairly exhausted. I had been gone three weeks and I had told myself at that point that I getting too old to do this. I can't do this again. I have to just be more conscientious about booking my flights, even if it means I pay a little extra for maybe one less stopover. I don't mind one, but two is getting probably a little much. Now I did recently have a positive experience, knowing ahead of time and it was only one layover, so it was not a big deal.

Speaker 1: 7:12

I went to Iceland, as you know, in April and I was able to get to New York City and fly out of JFK, because the flight from JFK to Iceland is very inexpensive expensive I think it was $400, maybe slightly less round trip. But I had to get to New York City and you know, no one wants to miss an international flight. The timing just wasn't perfect. I did book that flight separately because of wanting to use a certain airline with points and such, but I used it positively. I had not been to New York City in years, probably since the 90s and I wanted to see what the city landscape was like Again. My nephew actually lives there now and so I used that time to, you know, get to see the city. I actually left the airport. I had enough time to leave the airport that's kind of key. And then the way back, same thing. I use that time to spend time with him and his new girlfriend and did actually get to sleep in their apartment for a few hours before I had to head out.

Speaker 1: 8:21

But so now I just want to share, you know, booking those cheap flights. If that's kind of what entices you a lot, just make sure you're aware, if there are multiple layovers, how long it will actually take you. Is it worth your time to do that? So you have to sort of evaluate that for yourself. So in some cases, as long as I'm using it positively, I'm okay with booking a cheap flight, like I did to Iceland. Plus, the travel time from New York City to Iceland was only five hours and 50 minutes Not a bad flight. Being in a plane, I loved the short time frame.

Speaker 1: 9:01

Number two I booked a cheap Airbnb only to discover that it did not have air condition in a hot climate, and so what had to happen is, because it had no AC, I had to pay more to rebook somewhere else. Our last two days I was in Belize again with my son and found a really cute Airbnb, really inexpensive for the. I think we were supposed to be there six days, I believe, in Belize, and it had no AC, and I thought in April I would be fine, but I miscalculated that by April. In Central America it is hot and humid and it was 80s even in the evenings. It never dropped below 80 in the evening, so it was very uncomfortable to sleep and having, you know, being right in like the height of my menopause just really really experiencing already hot flashes at this point in my life and my hormones were really out of whack. I just I couldn't bear it any longer, and so we ended up having to pay more, obviously because I'm not getting my money back from that Airbnb to book our last two days somewhere else.

Speaker 1: 10:26

Now, granted, it did work out, I think, a whole lot better because at this little tiny beach resort, a whole lot better because at this little tiny beach resort, they actually offered this was in 2021, they offered on the premises COVID test because we needed to have those before we left the country, before we can get back to the US and the other place. We would have had to somehow taken a taxi to go somewhere at a medical center and have that done. So, all in all, it did work out. But my recommendation to you, as you look at you know, vacation rentals, whatever site you use, read the description carefully, be aware of what's included, what's not and keep in mind your comfortability of whether you're willing to sacrifice that or, you know, look at the location as well, but that's one way that I actually paid more on that trip for our accommodations than I anticipated.

Speaker 1: 11:29

Number three I booked a cheap hotel only to feel very unsafe. Okay, so, as a solo traveler, we know this is important. So luckily, in this particular trip, I was traveling with my son, so I had a male adult figure with me and if I had truly been alone and being it was only one night, I definitely would have rebooked or gone somewhere else. I would have told the taxi to just keep going. There's no way I'm staying here, not sure where I would have gone, but so when you book your hotels and you're looking for, you know it was cheap. I was like oh yeah, this is great, you know, um.

Speaker 1: 12:17

Two things you can do is ask for recommendations from other people and you know you're going to a specific place or city, um, go online, ask other people. Number two this is something I started doing after this experience. I hadn't really thought about it until I experienced this, and what I do now is, before I book a place, I will see if I can gather the address Sometimes. Sometimes they're not. They won't give you the exact address but they might give you an area. It just depends Hotels. They definitely give you an address. But I now go on to Google and I get the satellite street view of the place to get a better feel of what's around it and so with that feature you can kind of do a 360 kind of view. You can look across the street, you can look around, see what's next door and that might give you a better feel for what that place or area is like and maybe that'll explain why it's a cheap accommodations in a capital city of all places, right? So that is something I do now and that was something that was a bit unnerving and luckily, again I felt a little safer with my son with me. Okay, number four I have been scammed in a way, I guess, to purchase unnecessary travel insurance or car rental insurance.

Speaker 1: 13:56

I do recommend travel insurance, but especially car rental insurance. If you live in the US, check to see if your policy will cover you. Most times it won't internationally, but definitely domestically. It would Also check to see if your credit card this is where I got sort of scammed recently with a paying extra for a additional car rental insurance and they always tried. You know the car rental insurance place always tries to, you know, get you to pay extra and, you know, make you feel like, oh my gosh, I'm going to have to buy this car if I'm in a little accident. So don't let them scare. Use the scare tactic right. Check to also see. You know I now have a credit card that will cover that in my travels. So I have the Chase Sapphire preferred and within the benefits of that credit card. As long as I'm using that credit card to, say, pay for my car rental, that is actually included and so there's no need to purchase extra travel insurance. So check to see what other options you have before you pay double, essentially right or pay unnecessary travel insurance or car rental insurance prices.

Speaker 1: 15:20

Number five I booked an economy type accommodations, which I am known for, that did not include breakfast and paid for overpriced, bad coffee or a breakfast meal elsewhere. So I do tend to find, you know, cheap accommodations and most of them will not include breakfast. The ones that have, I have been surprised and very elated in having that included. Now, I'm not a huge breakfast person. Couple reasons I am allergic to dairy and cheese and eggs, all those wonder, and oats, all those things that entail a lot of what we call the American breakfast items, and I just I can't eat that. So for me, I have a special yogurt that I eat that's non-dairy, which I can't find elsewhere, right? So I can't really travel with that.

Speaker 1: 16:21

So typically when I travel, I definitely need a good cup of coffee, and that's not always possible and I'm kind of a coffee snob these days, I suppose. And I'm kind of a coffee snob these days, I suppose. So finding a good cup of coffee, even if I know it's not included in my accommodations sometimes, is very disappointing. I might pay for, you know, I might go to a coffee shop and pay, you know, I don't know, five, seven dollars for a coffee that is awful, and so, keeping that in mind, if that's something you want to include or make sure you have as a part of your accommodations, many hotels will actually include breakfast, which is a nice little perk, and so, if that's important to you, just be aware of some of those economy type accommodations. For example, a hostel, not, they're not all going to include any kind of breakfast, mostly not A bed and breakfast place or a guest house. Now I stayed in some guest houses in Iceland which all included a breakfast, which fabulous so, and it was things. There were things I could eat in those breakfast buffet areas. So that is something to consider when you book your accommodations. Don't just go for the cheapest one and then have to pay in the end for other things that you might've needed in your accommodations. So some other things that to just be aware of.

Speaker 1: 17:57

So if you're again, you're a budget traveler and you tend to do some of these things that I have done, now I have not been sort of scammed or had these mistakes, but they have happened to other people. So one thing obviously is booking a non-refundable flight, cruise or tour and then finding you have to cancel. Now I do book non-refundable flights, often cruises I just did a cruise, often cruises I just did a cruise and I have never had to cancel, thankfully. So if that is important to have that flexibility in your booking, then do not book a non-refundable flight, cruise, tour etc. Because then you are losing quite a big chunk of change, typically on those types of travel bookings, and that also goes for accommodations.

Speaker 1: 18:58

There's sometimes, for example, airbnbs. Often to a certain point, they don't allow cancellations. I only book rentals that allow me to cancel and give me about a week, two weeks out where I could still cancel and get my money back. If I book it three months out and they want full payment and it's non-refundable, I will not book with that place. I like to have a little bit of flexibility when I'm booking something so that if the, when the time gets closer, I do have the option to cancel. Now, I've never had to, so I've been fortunate, or I've been within that timeline when I needed to change accommodations particularly.

Speaker 1: 19:50

But that is something to be aware of, something that would cause you to not stay within a budget point. So, if you are a budget traveler, be aware of those five mistakes I've made and that sixth one that I have thankfully not had to experience, but I've heard other people getting hit with that when they've booked some you know, non-refundable accommodations, flights, all that. So I want you to, you know, find what works best for you as far as your travel budget. Be aware of these items that might catch you by surprise, so that you can stay within your budget and not come home from your trip maybe having to have put things on your credit card and feeling yucky about that because you weren't able to stay within your budget. It does happen, but if you're conscientious about these mistakes I've made, then hopefully you won't make those mistakes as well.

Speaker 1: 20:55

So, sister travelers, I would love to have you support the show and give me a review. I'd like to bring up those the SEO in this podcast so it can get higher rankings, but I would love to also just hear how this podcast has benefited you and love to hear those reviews. So go into an Apple podcast hopefully you have an account there and leave a review for the show for me. I would greatly appreciate that. Sister travelers get out there and have those adventures, but save money. Don't do what I did.