How to Make a Travel Budget

It’s official, you can start planning your next trip and I am here to show you how to make a travel budget to fund your next vacation or city escape. As a frequent traveller, I have had to learn how to save money for all my trips including spontaneous trips and I am able to do this because I have a travel budget which I fund every single month as well as add into from my passive incomes. Often, people rely heavily on their salary to fund their vacations and whilst there is nothing wrong with that, it restricts how much you can spend.

Most of us have roughly 3-months before our next trip and I think its a good enough time for your to save up some money in order to fund your upcoming vacation. When I increased the frequency of my travels from once every 3-months to monthly, I knew that I needed to up my game and I needed to learn how to make a travel budget. At the moment, I allocate about £200-£500 a month towards my savings. I like nice things and things includes travelling in-style, staying in posh hotels near city attractions and this costs money.

So, how does one make a travel budget, how do you fund it and what is the right amount to allocate? I hope to answer all these questions in this post.

HOW TO MAKE A TRAVEL BUDGET

So many things have changed in travel over the last 12 months and most of us are learning how to cope with the new norm. I remember a time when all I needed to think about was ‘how much vacation time do I still have to use up’ but now there are so many things I need to consider from ‘is this country accepting tourists’ too ‘how much does a covid test cost’. And whilst a lot of things have changed, I am excited to get back into travelling and I recently shared all the silly but fun things I miss about travelling abroad.

But, before we can get booking for our next city escapes or longer vacations, I am here to share tips on how to make a travel budget as well as tips on how much I allocate towards my travels. As most readers of this blog know, I use 60% of my blog earnings to fund my trips but I also have a savings account for my trips and I allocate about £200 a month to that fund. Whilst I appreciate not everyone is able to put that amount of money towards a holiday fund, I have some tips you can implore for your next vacation whether solo or travelling as a family.

I will use my recent trip to Venice as an example of how I saved for this trip, how much money I spent and what was left over (if any).

SAVE MONEY FOR TRANSPORTATION

Unless you intend to drive to the destination, you will most likely need to save you for air faire or train ticket and depending on where you are travelling to and when this can be costly. For my trip to Venice, I travel at the end of August which is still the height of summer meaning plane tickets are often more expensive. Because I earn points for every flight I take with British Airways and One alliance members, I often use those points for shorter trips and save them during longer trips where I earn more points.

For my flight to Venice, I paid £205 return (business class with British Airways) during summer the flights can be expensive but for business class tickets this is fairly cheap. Since I booked 3-months in advance, I was able to save about £70 a month roughly £18 a week which isn’t too bad. For longer flights I often attack my savings account to pay for it instantly because I save monthly for trips so I have the money readily available for my travels.

SAVE MONEY FOR ACCOMMODATION

When you are saving for a trip, you need to know how much the accommodation you want to stay in will cost you. For my Venice trip, I wanted to stay in the heart of the city and I would be spending approximately 3-4 nights. Staying in the heart of the city can cost a lot of money and you need to truly budget for it. Venice like more European cities can be quite expensive, my hotel cost me £305 for 3 nights 4 days and this included breakfast. For a 4* hotel located behind the cities most popular attractions, this is a good price.

So, how did I save up for this hotel? Well, I knew that I wanted to stay in a 4*-5* hotel, I looked at the prices, read the reviews and choose one. Then. I looked at the dates I wanted to stay and played around checking various websites until I got a good price. Once I found a good price, I checked if I needed to pay the full amount or just need a deposit. Often I prefer to pay upfront for the accommodation but most places offer flexible pay which allows you time to save money. I booked the trip 3-months in advance which meant I had 3 months to save. £305/3 = £102 a month, £26 per week.

SAVE MONEY FOR FOOD

Food is one of the things that can be hard to save for but it is doable, via research you can get to understand the average cost of a meal at your destination. In Venice, you can get a good dish for 30 euros and since I want to enjoy 2 meals a day (not including breakfast) and budget for a minimum of 30euros for each meal and I would be visiting for 3 nights and 4 days, this means I would save ~£210 for food alone and this would be my biggest expenditure.

Whilst most trips I have spent around £300 on food along, there are trips where I spent £50 for 3-day trip and had an amazing time. There are trips where I find it easier to just have lunch and for dinner I go to a convenience store and buy snacks that I can munch on until I fall asleep. Budgeting for food is all about personal choice, if you are a big eater or a foodie then allocate more money to eating out as you travel. If however the type of accommodation you book allows for you to cook at there then budget accordingly.

SAVE FOR ACTIVITIES

Now, I have a confession to make, I don’t always save for activities because more often than not, I book them in advance and other times I just wing it, search for free things to do at the destination and do those. But most times I schedule about £50-100 for activities like getting on a a bus tour, boat rides or an activities pass. Often I find you can more for your money if you buy a tourist pass which allows you either free entry to the city’s attractions or a discounted rate.

For some tourist passes, they also offer free shuttle bus ride to the airport or discount on tickets to the airport. I love checking out websites like TripAdvisor to learn about some of the city offerings, what I can enjoy for free and what is worth paying for. But if you are unsure of what activities you want to do during your trip them just research the tourist pass and start from there.

SAVE FOR MISCELLANEOUS

This is one of the most important travel budgets you need to remember but somehow is forgotten by most people. Have you ever turned up at a location and it looks nothing like the reviews you read or the pictures? Well, I have and we decided to leave there and then and this was only possible because we had the ‘miscellaneous’ money for the unexpected things that might happen.

Miscellaneous money can be anything between £100-£500, if you use the money sure but if not this is great that it means more money for the next trip. For my Venice trip, I saved up about £600 as my miscellaneous money I even spent about 300 euros on a sculpture (I know I didn’t need to but I loved it). There are times when I travel, find things that I don’t buy and really regret it but having miscellaneous money means if I truly want to, I can buy that item.

And there you have it, this is how to make a travel budget. You need to think about the trip you are going on or planning to go on. If its all inclusive then you just need miscellaneous money because everything else you would have paid for already or doing monthly payments until you go on your trip. For spontaneous trip, save weekly, monthly and make sure your travel money is separately from your other savings and make sure you don’t dip in it often.

How do you save for your upcoming trips?