5 ways so you dont need to break your bank to travel

Travel especially is a journey into yourself. There’s so much to learn and it exposes you to authentic experiences, memories, diverse ways of living and culture. It’s a fallacy that travelling and vacations are only for those with giant budgets. For those with small ‘excesses’ budget, or who are scrimping and saving to get by, it can seem like the other half jets around the world to exotic locations without a care in the world, while everyone else is left toiling at work and only taking weekend trips to see nearby family. But with a few smart tips and some planning, you are set to be quite an Ibn Batuta!

Here are some interesting ideas to be able to travel without having to bust your bank account:

Plan your budget

Putting aside an excel sheet or doing a back of the envelope calculation always helps giving you an idea of how much you need to save for the trip. This will help you cut down unnecessary expenditure of day-to-day nature and gives you a saving goal to look forward to. Depending upon the place to be travelled to and the duration of the stay, you can put down costs for major expenses- like stay, food, sight-seeing, travel. Travel includes flights for your return trip as well as internal transfers and travelling inter-city. Planning an itinerary before this after some basic research and reviews read online is always a good idea.

Put aside some money every month in a Recurring deposit (RD) or just keep some aside in your account.

This is specially to meet your yearly travel expenses. This helps you save for your trip in a disciplined and organised way. ICICI Bank offers iWish deposit- a type of flexible RD scheme that helps you save online & fulfil your wishes. Benefits of this deposit include- same interest rates as of FD, with no penalty for not depositing in any month, multiple deposits can be done every month, etc. Set a goal amount and a completion time to save it, start saving and investing every month or whenever you have extra funds. Even if you don’t want to commit to a RD, simply save and keep aside the money for travel.

Sign up for a loyalty programme

This could be a very good idea and a valuable tip. Whether you travel regularly or not, whatever your reason for spends maybe - travel, lifestyle or daily essentials you will benefit by signing up with a loyalty programme that truly rewards you. For instance, InterMiles rewards its members with InterMiles not only on flights taken but also for all their spends across various categories like e-commerce, dining, fuel, hotel bookings, car rentals to name a few spread across its 150+ programme partners.

Affordable Hotel stays

Considering that most of the day you will be busy exploring the city and shopping as well as dining out, there is very little time you would be spending at the hotel. In this case you could choose a lower budget hotel which is centrally located in the city centre, saving you travel costs as well. InterMiles partners on hotels.intermiles.com include Agoda, Booking.com, Expedia, Hotels.com, Homestay.com to name a few. With 15 Lac+ hotel options to choose from you can get yourself a deal of your choice and earn InterMiles too. To add post your completed hotel stay, share your experience by writing a review on TripAdvisor & earn more InterMiles. Just remember to quote your InterMiles membership name for all your activities to ensure you earn InterMiles. Explore Now.

Co-brand credit cards

Look for airline co-branded credit/debit cards. Owning a travel centric co-brand card will help you earn air miles for every rupee you spend.

Insurance

When you are abroad, you must provide for exigencies like emergency medical cover, losses due to unforeseen cancellation, flight delays, personal liabilities etc. These can be very taxing on your resources without adequate cover. Knowing that you have travel insurance that guarantees the safety of yourself, your belongings and in general you can feel relaxed and be more at ease. Before you choose the best travel insurance, you might want to check out tailor made plans here as per your exact needs.

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