Where to Splurge On Your International Vacation

Can You Enjoy a Budget-Friendly Vacation And Still Splurge?

I will admit that I’m not the most frugal when it comes to travel. I do love saving money, but not at the expense of my enjoyment of seeing another country. I spend a little more than a budget traveler, but I don’t go bonkers on luxury everything everywhere.

There are always a few things on which I splurge when I travel, and I usually never feel guilty when I spend a little more than I should for certain purchases. They make the overall vacation just a little bit sweeter.

So, I’m not going to share with you here where you can save the most money on your vacation. Rather, I’m going to explain where I think it makes sense to spend a little more money, and where you might reduce your spending in another area to compensate.

With that said, let’s dive into the first area where I think it’s fine to spend a little more.

(note: some of the links here are to websites with which I am an affiliate, and your purchases help fund my website!)

Go For Private Guided Walking Tours Over Group Tours

I’m a huge fan of booking tours of all the cities and locales I visit. I figure the best way to experience the local culture is to find a local and get the inside scoop from them.

Over the years, I’ve taken all sorts of tours, from group tours in Vietnam to private tours in Colombia. The one thing I can say for certain is that a walking tour is almost always better as a private tour.

We’re talking you and the tour guide, and nobody else. Except for your family or your traveling partner, of course. Note that I’m referring to “walking tours” (or hiking or bicycling) here and not multi-stop tours where a tour bus might be involved and you’re visiting places where you don’t necessarily need a guide at your side the entire time.

A walking tour with one guide and a dozen people isn’t always easy to understand, especially when there are tons of people at a tourist location. Not only is the guide presenting their information to a large group, but they probably aren’t personalizing it for their audience.

In a group tour, the tour guide needs to speak as plainly and simply as possible, so that everyone can get the gist of what’s going on. When you have a private tour guide, you’ll often find that your guide treats you to information and experiences based on what you want to see, and your general attitude.

Let me share an example. When I visited Vietnam, one of the tours we went on was a bicycle ride through the rural areas outside of Hội An, which is a village south of Da Nang and along the coast. It was just our tour guide and me and my partner on bicycles, rolling through the countryside, seeing all sorts of amazing sights.

One of the cool aspects of the ride was that the guide was able to gauge our bicycling ability and led us on a longer ride than we would have gotten to enjoy if we’d been less athletically inclined. Now, if we were in a group, there’s a good chance we would have stopped riding much earlier and gotten into a tour bus before seeing more of the countryside.

That picture above of the buildings in the Mỹ Sơn Sanctuary in Vietnam was an actual picture I took while on that bicycling tour. The next picture of me and my traveling partner standing in front of a field is another bicycle tour we took with a group near Hanoi. That was a group tour that was excellent, too, but we did need to do some waiting around for the other folks on the tour.

If you’re able to secure a private tour instead of a group tour, you may want to consider it, even if the cost is a little more. In reality, you might only pay $20 or $30 more per person for the private tour, and the solo attention is totally worth it, especially on a tour that takes all day where you really get to interact with your tour guide.

Always Go for a Great Lunch

You’ll often eat out for much of your vacation unless you decide on a short-term rental that features a kitchen, or you stay in a suite that features some cooking appliances. If you’re trying to figure out which meal to eat out every day, always try to choose eating out for lunch.

There are a few reasons eating out for lunch is a great idea. The first is that if you eat a hearty meal for lunch, you can eat lighter meals for breakfast and dinner. On the other hand, if you choose breakfast as your main meal, you’ll probably need another hefty meal at dinnertime.

When you choose your large meal in the middle of the day, you may find yourself saving a little money over spending big on multiple meals a day. Sometimes, you can get away with a protein bar and a piece of fruit at the start and then enjoy a nice lunch in a restaurant in the middle of the day.

Beyond the helpful timing a hearty lunch provides, you may actually find yourself saving money on great food, too, because you’ll be getting access to dinner dishes at lunchtime rates. Many restaurants serve their dinner specialties at lunch in a smaller portion and at a much more affordable rate.

When we ate in an Indian restaurant in Colombia, we went for lunch and noticed that you could get Chicken Tikka Masala for lunch for around $15 (that’s US Dollars, not Colombian Pesos), but the dinner was almost twice as much! And that’s for two entrees, mind you, not the single dish.

One Night of Luxury in a Great Hotel

If you opt for traditional hotels rather than super-affordable hostels, your lodging throughout your vacation may represent one of the biggest expenses of your vacation, although it does depend on the country you’re visiting.

Like, when I visited England, everything was expensive, from the B&B near Stratford-Upon-Avon to the hotel in London. Lots and lots of pounds went out of my wallet for lodgings.

On the other hand, I stayed in some absolutely beautiful hotels and B&Bs in Vietnam that were around just $30 a night. Hanoi was a little more expensive than the rural areas, but the lodging there was mostly on the uber affordable side, too.

That said, I don’t always try to score the cheapest place when it comes to putting my head down on a pillow for the night. I take a few things into consideration when finding a great hotel, and it’s often one of the lengthiest parts of my research when designing an itinerary and booking a vacation.

If you’re particularly interested in saving the most money you can on lodging, so you can spend your money on activities and experiences instead, a hostel is a great option, though I’d suggest wearing a pair of ear plugs, just in case it’s noisy. I actually wear some earplugs all the time anyway, even if I’m not in a noisy place. I’ve used at least a hundred of those things over the years.

Now, if you’re pursing traditional hotels throughout your vacation, I recommend splurging a bit more on your final hotel. It’s tough to get through all the activities and adventures you’ll likely plan on your vacation without having a nice bed to sleep in each night. You can also choose to fly full economy rather than upgrading to premium economy, to save money on your overall vacation and allow you to allot more of your budget to lodging.

I adore having at least one nice place to stay during my vacation, even if it costs more than my other hotels or B&Bs or riads or whatever I might be staying in for the night.

I’ll share an example. When I traveled to Vietnam and Cambodia, I splurged on a place called Mane Village Suites, which was a spa hotel in Siem Reap, which the town you’ll stay in if you ever visit the famous Angkor Wat temple complex.

The price of our stay there was double per night of the other (admittedly beautiful but less expensive) hotels we stayed in for the previous nights of our travels. The room service we splurged on was INCREDIBLE, the people were DIVINE, and the room was so peaceful and sublime.

We stayed two nights there, and I could have easily saved about $200 if I’d chosen a less expensive option in town, but ending our Southeast Asia journey in such a welcoming and luxurious environment was a beautiful way to conclude our vacation. It was worth every penny, if only for the kindness and attentiveness of the staff there.

As you design your own itinerary, you’ll probably want to make the same decisions I did when arranging your activities, lodging, and travel. Maybe you’ll splurge a little on one hotel in exchange for staying in a less expensive option in another town.

You don’t even need to go to a separate town to move over to an upgraded room. When I went to Las Vegas a few years ago, I stayed for two nights at the Flamingo and then switched over to the Bellagio for a single night, just for the fun of it. It was a Sunday night, and the rate was half the normal cost.

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