Beware: How Travel Can Eat Up Your Savings During the Holidays

A popular piece of advice that goes around the internet is that the best you can do for yourself is invest in your personal development, educate yourself, and travel. Today, we shall focus on the traveling part. 

Traveling allows you to enjoy the beauty and scenery of mother nature and admire the ingenuity of human creations and engineering while meeting with different people and experiencing different ways of living, which ultimately expands how you perceive life.

It is also a lot of fun. That is why people travel during the holiday season. To have fun. 

However, traveling during the holiday season can eat up your savings. Let us explore different ways where traveling during the holidays can eat up your savings so that you can avoid them.

Increased Transportation Costs

Many people travel during the holiday season. Hence, the demand for travel is higher during this season. The law of supply and demand dictates that when demand is high, the prices go up. Therefore, it might be a little more expensive when you are traveling during the holiday season.

When planning your holiday season travel budget, ensure that you factor in the holiday upswing of transport costs. This will prevent you from dipping into your savings to travel as you had planned.

Secondly, you can plan your routes in a way that you circumvent the most popular travel routes. Using the less popular routes can save you a pretty penny. You can also travel a little earlier or later to avoid the holiday premium costs.

Alternatively, you can travel to destinations that are not very far from where you are and plan for further destinations after the holidays. An amazing holiday travel experience does not have to be on the other side of the world. You can be a domestic tourist, for instance, and save on the abroad travel costs.

Traveling is important and fun, but it does not have to break your bank to make it happen. 

Accommodation Expenses

Accommodation expenses are a big part of your holiday expenditure. While these expenses can vary from location to location as you are transiting, if you are traveling during the holiday season, they will likely be costlier than the regular season.

One of the aspects that influences accommodation prices is the seasonality. Seasonality defines supply and demand. Holiday seasons are high-demand seasons; hence, accommodation tends to be costlier.

Nonetheless, you can manage your travel and accommodation costs by comparing different accommodation options from hotels, Airbnb, Motels, Holiday rentals, or Bed and Breakfast options. These options will be suitable for certain locations while others will not. 

Understandably, cost is not the only consideration when choosing accommodation, but it is a significant one. Consider the option that will save you from having to dip into your savings.

Thirdly, if you plan where you will be traveling ahead, you can book your accommodation way ahead of the holiday season. Businesses sometimes have offers for people who want to pre-book, as this guarantees them business during the holidays. You can take advantage of these offers and affordable prices to protect against accommodation eating up your savings.

Holiday Surcharge

A holiday surcharge is a fee that businesses might impose on various products and services during the holidays. This fee might compensate for increased operational costs and higher demand during peak season or incentivize their staff to work more during the off-season. The fees might be imposed on dining at restaurants, hotel stays, travel bookings, and other leisure activities.

As you are planning for your travel during the holidays, it is important to factor in the possible surcharges that you might incur. If you fail to plan, you might have to dip into your savings to pay up the surcharges.

However, you can be more proactive about it and book hotels that do not have such charges added to their services. You can opt to use services such as Airbnbs, whose hosts do not have such charges.

Remember, the goal is to make your travel during the holidays within your means to avoid eating into your savings. Therefore, avoid as many additional charges and costs as possible.

Eating Out

While traveling, dining out costs can accumulate to unmanageable amounts if not well planned. Before traveling, make sure you map out possible restaurants and eating-out options that are within your budget. 

Ensure that the budget is not very strict as you might want to indulge some more when you are on holiday travel. 

Nonetheless, you can also find other eating alternatives to eating out. For instance, if you stay at an Airbnb where you can cook for yourself, then making a meal at your place of residence can be more affordable. 

You can opt to go to places where the locals eat. These places tend to be more affordable since their business is targeted at the locals. This gives you an experience of the life of the local people but also saves your pocket.

While eating out can be fun and fancy, you must pay attention not to overspend during your travel and end up spending your savings.

Last-Minute Expenses

While planning your travel, you have to factor in unexpected expenses. Give your budget some breathing room because you can never tell what will happen during your travel. 

Some unexpected expenses during travel could include forgotten items, unplanned activities, unplanned diversions, unexpected delays, or emergencies.

All these could lead to increased expenditure during your travel, and if not planned for, you might have to dig into your savings to save the day.

Gifts and Souvenirs

Holiday seasons are marked with the giving of gifts and souvenirs. While traveling, you might come across products that would make perfect gifts and souvenirs for your loved ones. 

It is always a good idea to add this to your budget. Whereas you might or might not know what you want to buy, it is advisable always to have both the expected purchases and the unexpected purchases factored into your traveling budget. Failure to factor these in might lead to overspending and drawing from your savings.

Wrapping Up

Traveling during the holidays is exciting. Nonetheless, without proper planning, it can lead to overspending, which can eat up your savings. 

However, with proper planning and taking into consideration all the complexities that are added to the travel mix by the holidays, you can cushion yourself against overspending.