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I was thinking we could have a topic on any good deals we hear about or what we're trying to find because summer will be here before we know it. Today I saw a New York Times article called Frugal Destination of the Year - Las Vegas. I didn't think for a second it would have anything cheap but it did. Las Vegas is feeling the pinch the same as every other city.
“You can stay at the Trump that was just built here for 99 bucks now,” said Anthony Curtis, the founder of LasVegasAdvisor.com, a booking site that tracks deals (and offers further discounts to its members, who pay $37 a year). “You can stay at Wynn Las Vegas for well under $200.” Similar five-star hotels in New York or Los Angeles, he added, might cost four times that.
At the low end, he said, are downtown hotels like the newly renovated El Cortez, where rooms were going for as little as $14 a night. Even rental-car companies are getting into the spirit, he said, with some cars going for $8.95 a day on Hotwire.com.
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We'll be picnicing in the back yard this year. I can't see how we can afford a vacation but I'd love one. Thanks for the ideas! It's been decades since I went to a local museum. I must find out about that.
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You don't always need to go for the best hotels. Cutting down from a three star to a two star, or staying at a bed and breakfast instead of a hotel helps too. You're only going to be sleeping in the room anyway. All I want is somewhere that's clean and tidy. I won't sleep in a fleapit LOL.
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I was surfing around the NYtimes site after reading your Las Vegas story greenmachine and found a guy that can go one better! And he said be careful of jaywalking in Vegas because he got a $190 fine for it.
I've never seen this but he stars in a reality show where he travels all over on $5 a day or five of whatever the currency is. Amazing Adventures of a Nobody sounds like a good show to catch!
The article.
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Is that just a guy thing to have the guts to do that? I wouldn't set out on a trip without enough money to cover me and then some. Anytime I don't feel comfortable with how much spending money we would have I'd rather not go at all. I hate penny pinching on vacation because I don't get them much at all and when I have one I want to enjoy it.
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Don't any of you want to try camping for a change? You can't get much cheaper than a campfire supper. Cheapncheerful, what you save on accomodation by camping could go towards your spending money. Campsites are modern now. You don't need to go potty in the bushes anymore like when I was a kid LOL. They have toilets and shower blocks.
This is a state by state Campgrounds Directory.
Link.
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TripAdvisor has a tool where you can find places of interest within a tank of gas of you or even a quarter or half tank. You just enter your city and see what comes up. It also tells you how much it will cost you in gas to get there and the distance.
http://tripadvisor.com/TankOfGas
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There's also the home swap option where you stay in someone's house and they stay in yours. I'm too paranoid about whether they would be raking through all my cupboards to do that. :D
That TripAdvisor is superb!
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I like the TripAdvisor too, purplerain. Thanks, cookiefan! I think no matter where each of us ends up at vacation time, what's important is being together as a family and having a good time. A tent in the back yard can be fun if you put effort into making it so in the same way that an expensive vacation can be miserable if no one does. You get out of vacations what you put into them. It's not always about the money.
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I like the TripAdvisor too, purplerain. Thanks, cookiefan! I think no matter where each of us ends up at vacation time, what's important is being together as a family and having a good time. A tent in the back yard can be fun if you put effort into making it so in the same way that an expensive vacation can be miserable if no one does. You get out of vacations what you put into them. It's not always about the money.
Very true. My best childhood memories are of camping in my great uncle's backyard that we went to see every summer, digging up his home grown potatoes and picking his strawberries from under the netting. :) Those were fun times and I didn't have two pennies in my pocket.
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Very true. My best childhood memories are of camping in my great uncle's backyard that we went to see every summer, digging up his home grown potatoes and picking his strawberries from under the netting. :) Those were fun times and I didn't have two pennies in my pocket.
Thanks for illustrating my point there, pennywise. :) That's what I meant exactly. I remember freezing my butt off on a beach because my parents took us off-season to vacation places at cheaper and quieter times. My teeth were chattering with the cold wind coming off the water LOL. It was fun. :)
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There's also the home swap option where you stay in someone's house and they stay in yours. I'm too paranoid about whether they would be raking through all my cupboards to do that. :D
That TripAdvisor is superb!
I'd feel the same, purplerain and yet I wouldn't dream of doing anything like that in someone else's house. I don't trust people to be like me LOL. There must be ground rules involved in those schemes because they're popular. I don't think I could enjoy my own vacation in their house worrying about what was going on in mine.
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I wouldn't have strangers in my house either.
Want some free travel guides? Here's a whole site devoted to that. If I can't get away I can at least look at the pretty pictures! LOL. You download them or request they be sent by snail mail.
http://www.travelguidesfree.com/
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I wouldn't have strangers in my house either.
Want some free travel guides? Here's a whole site devoted to that. If I can't get away I can at least look at the pretty pictures! LOL. You download them or request they be sent by snail mail.
http://www.travelguidesfree.com/
That's cool, thanks frazzledmom! I was looking at a reference book all about vacation spots in the US. I didn't have twenty bucks free to spend on a book though. Free's more budget friendly. :)
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Don't any of you want to try camping for a change? You can't get much cheaper than a campfire supper. Cheapncheerful, what you save on accomodation by camping could go towards your spending money. Campsites are modern now. You don't need to go potty in the bushes anymore like when I was a kid LOL. They have toilets and shower blocks.
This is a state by state Campgrounds Directory.
Link.
Sounds like a cool site :)
My family and i have "mini-vacations" where we got to a medium grade hotel in the downtown area of our town. We see the city like a tourist does, taking advantage of the free site seeing and historical sites.
Its amazing how much I didn't know about my own town!
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Sounds like a cool site :)
My family and i have "mini-vacations" where we got to a medium grade hotel in the downtown area of our town. We see the city like a tourist does, taking advantage of the free site seeing and historical sites.
Its amazing how much I didn't know about my own town!
MikeM, that is so true. I've picked up tourist brochures for my area and found places I didn't know existed. There's so much on our doorstep that we miss. That's a good idea what you're doing there. :)
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The New York Times has an article about making a frugal trip to Paris. It looks beautiful and is interesting. Frugal? I don't think so. Flights are from $900 this month before you start thinking about accommodation.
http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/travel/28frugalparis.html
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$900 and frugal don't go together LOL. Maybe you need to be a NYT contributor to think so. :)
Frugal is taking a leaf out on my book. Keep on the good side of family that live in nice places and wouldn't mind having houseguests for a week. :) When you can save on your digs, that makes a big difference. We visit my cousin in CA and what we spend in taking them for meals to show we appreciate it doesn't come close to what we would pay for a hotel. That's all they will accept from us. It's always nice to catch up too of course. I'm not a complete Scrooge LOL.
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My family and i have "mini-vacations" where we got to a medium grade hotel in the downtown area of our town. We see the city like a tourist does, taking advantage of the free site seeing and historical sites.
Its amazing how much I didn't know about my own town!
I bet! We get so used to seeing the roadsigns for local attractions and don't think about turning off and visiting the tourist spots ourselves. It's just another marker. Then we'll drive miles to see something equally as good. It's crazy. You could get a season ticket too for attractions and save. You're also supporting your local economy.
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Frugal travel for the risktakers http://www.couchsurfing.org/
Sticking to places within driving distance is cheap. The good thing is if you hate it you're only a stone's throw away from home. There's often nice parts of your state you haven't seen. Try getting hold of brochures from your closest tourist information office and you'll find places.