Brave Ways to Save on Your Next Vacation
A few extreme ideas.
by Ellie Kay
The Extreme Home Swap
This tip is definitely not for the faint of heart. If you want to save a bundle on rentals and hotel rooms this summer, you can exchange your house or apartment with someone in your desired vacation spot. If you live in base housing, then this would not be an option.
But if you don’t, you can contact services such as HomeExchange.com. This service charges $99.95 per year to list your home and other services, such as DiggsVille.com charge a $44.95 fee. These sites have online listings that include details, descriptions of homeowners, photos and lots of other information. The challenge is finding someone who wants to be in your home, in your part of the world at the same time that you want to be in their home, in their part of the world.
Economic Downs, Vacation Gains
Another adventurous approach to vacationing is to take advantage of the slow-down at some resorts and vacation areas due to the sluggish economy. Search the Web for rentals in the area where you want to visit and then contact the owners directly. Ask for a cheaper rate if you stay a full week and you can currently save anywhere from $50 to $90 per night. Vacation rentals by owners are especially hurting—go to VRBO.com to find some of the best deals. Try Kayak.com, BookingBuddies.com or Travelzoo.com to find the best values.
Dude Ranches, Dude.
Dude ranches combine excitement and fun and remain a family-friendly vacation as well. Modern dude ranches not only incorporate the horsemanship experience, but they can also offer Pilates, white-water rafting, and even spas. Rock climbing, wilderness experience and fly-fishing are all activities to look for when researching the dude ranch vacation. Ranchweb.com is a site that provides information about ranches like the HorseWorks in Wyoming or Elk Mountain Ranch in Colorado that offer cool programs for kids.
Extreme Memories
As we are currently down to two kids at home (out of seven), we realize that the most significant part of our vacations was not the money spent, sights seen or miles conquered. The best parts of our family times were the bonding experiences. Today, even our adult kids still talk about the family camping memories and they’re looking forward to carrying on the tradition with their own kids, too. Hopefully, they won’t encounter storms or bears—but if they do, I think they’ll just look at it as another extreme bonding experience.
Ellie’s Vacation Memory
I remember the when we went on our first extreme vacation. We had five kids under the age of seven and we went camping in a small pop-up trailer. We set up in the middle of a storm at a campground where there had been recent bear sightings. If it wasn’t the wind howling, we imagined it was a bear growling. They say that the more extreme the experience, the more significant the bonding experience for those involved. After that particular camping trip, I’d say we were more bonded than ever.