A Dozen Tips That Are Easy on Wallets

Countless books have been written about budget travel, supplying hundreds of tips and suggestions. The most important, in my view, are these:

1. Never make a phone call, change money or send out laundry from your hotel. Each of these activities is a hotel “profit center,” and hefty surcharges are added. Instead, change money at a bank, use a public booth for your calls and visit a laundry.

2. Also avoid changing money at commercial money-changing kiosks and other storefront establishments. Look instead for a bank; they pay the best rates. Better yet, search for a bank ATM that honors your card and you’ll get even better rates.

3. Pack the least amount of clothing your courage will allow. People who don’t pack light become money-squandering beasts of burden, needing expensive porters and taxis.

4. Eat one meal a day picnic style. Pick up bread, pate, cheese and wine from the foreign equivalent of a delicatessen or at the grocery section of a department store and consume them on a park bench, alongside a river or even in your hotel room. You’ll save money and eat well at the same time.

5. When eating at restaurants abroad, split, share and divide meals with your travel companion. When two of you dine, order one appetizer and one main course, and then split those dishes; you’ll save 50%.

6. Never judge a hotel by its facade. Some of the best values are in centuries-old buildings. Don’t be deterred by the lack of an impressive lobby. Go upstairs and inspect the rooms.

7. When visiting any large city, learn to use inexpensive public transportation: buses, subways, trolley cars. You’ll not only save money; you’ll discover how people there live.

8. Sightsee on your own two feet, without a plan, resisting the lures of city sightseeing motor coach tours. On your own strolls, you’ll eventually pass the same great monuments and museums visited by the buses, but you’ll see so much more and without cost. And you’ll get to look into the courtyards of schools and hospitals, visit groceries and shops and talk with local residents.

9. Buy your theater tickets as residents do--on the day of the performance, at half price. On arriving in any major theater city, ask for the location of the local discount-ticket booth.

10. In any English-speaking city abroad, or here at home, haunt the university bulletin boards--they contain the best possible calendar of events, a treasure trove of listings for free and almost nightly lectures, concerts, workshops and social gatherings, superior to most other forms of evening entertainment.

11. In your travels through America, use tourist office discount coupons, available at each city’s main tourist information center. These handy leaflets bring important reductions in price at places you already planned to visit or patronize.

12. And finally, though I’ll be accused of self-promotion, never visit any destination without first purchasing a budget guidebook to it. No matter how confident you may be of your own travel knowledge, you will discover in such books at least a few valuable suggestions for low-priced lodgings, meals or activities.