Worthy Discounts & Money Saving Overseas Travel

Hey! With my RTW trip rapidly approaching, I am looking to you guys (the experienced ones) to find out the best ways of saving travel funds through quality discounts and tips that will allow me to be more frugal along the way.

Which major discounts are worth my time and in what ways in your experiences are the best to keep spending down in general (IE: flight and inner city transportation, Eurorail, hostels, etc.)?

Appreciate your time.


Chris

P.S. If there are already good existing threads on this subject, feel free to send me there!

I found taking night buses in Europe saved me money in two ways. 1)buses are normally quite a bit cheaper then a train. 2) saves you hostel accommodation for the night. Some of the bus line companies are actually really good. Orangeways was my favorite, allowed me to travel quite comfortably and on the cheap!! Of course other more obvious ways are to by your food and make it rather then eating in restaurants.

xelA wrote:I found taking night buses in Europe saved me money in two ways. 1)buses are normally quite a bit cheaper then a train. 2) saves you hostel accommodation for the night.

I'll pop in to directly counter this tip. Train v. Bus varies a lot by country. My experience is that buses are cheaper in the northwest of Europe, and more expensive in the southeast. I don't have enough info on the southwest and northeast to hazard a guess on those. As for saving on accomodation, if you - like me - sleep poorly in a sitting position, there's a lost day catching up on sleep after such a ride. On trains at least you can sometimes get a sleeper berth, but they run as much or more than a hostel room, so still not saving much.

As for other discounts, many cities offer a city card, which usually includes admission to most major attractions and acts as a transit pass. Whether it's worth it or not depends on the city, but I'd say that a cost of less than three site admissions per day will probably work out for you, unless there's places you specifically want to see that aren't included.

And finally, if you're young enough to pass as a student, bring an ISIC card if at all possible. You can get counterfeits in lots of places around the world, but if you can get one at home, it'll generally be your best bet. I got one with a forged university schedule and expired student ID card, but because it was issued in Canada, it went unchallenged everywhere i went, and saved a ton of money.

Eurail is probably the most finicky money saving plan. Whether it works out in your favour depends so much on which pass you get, how long your train rides are, how frequent, and in which countries. I've never bought one for this reason. Your mileage may vary.

@xelA: Will look into the bus options. Definitely plan on doing some of my own meals - seen this frequently as advice to keep costs down.

@2wanderers: Looks like there is a lot to consider. I just turned 26 which unfortunately pushes me out of what looks like most student discounts ranges - but I can still take a $25 class here where I'm at and get student ID card. Was trying to decide if it would be worth my time to get that student status + card since it would only take me a couple days of registration (though I am over age now - not sure if they are super careful about checking your age). What do you think? Thanks for the detailed post.