I was so excited about our Sardinia trip that I actually wanted to plan our next trip when we came home. I’m more excited about planning now as well because I realised you can safe allot of money doing it (so Dutch!). I wanted to share some of the mistakes I made and how I’m applying what I learned on our new trip to Porto, Portugal.
If you want to read about my trip to Sardinia you can find it here.
Our new destination:
Porto, Portugal
#1 Rent your car online
If you are in need of a car rent it online. It’s the cheapest way to rent. In Sardinia I ended up having to rent a luxury car because all the other cars were sold out. This costed allot of money (It of course also gave me a memory for a lifetime, but I can’t afford this every time, I wish). If I rented a small car online, I could have saved hundreds of euro’s.
In Porto we are going to use public transport. So a car doesn’t apply. I looked up the prices for a car anyway and you can rent a car for as little as 45 euro for 4 days online.
#2 The timing of your stay
Timing your stay can really safe money. You have to think about it before hand. It's best explained in a example:
Our flight to Amsterdam from Sardinia left at 10:00 in the morning. This meant we had to be at the airport around 9:00. We rented an Airbnb for the week about 60km from the airport. I paid a full extra day for the car just to drive to the airport in the morning and also paid an extra night of Airbnb.
What I should have done is bring the car back the night before and rent a hotel room near the airport. I also would have saved one extra day of Airbnb. This would have saved us around 100-euro total. It also would have taken away the stress of getting to the airport in time. I only thought of this solution when I was already there!
For our trip to Porto I researched how to get to the airport from our Airbnb. There is a metro in the airport so that will be easy. No stress.
#3 Book your flight way in advance
We booked the trip to Sardinia about 6 months in advance. We ended up paying 180 euro for a return flight for two people. I thought this to be cheap at the time but yesterday I spend only 77,56 euro for a return flight for two to Porto, Portugal with Ryanair. Wow! That’s cheap. I can’t believe they can take us there and make a profit. Look for good deals at Ryanair/Easyjet and you can safe allot of money.
#4 Rent an Airbnb
Airbnb is amazing. Between 15-40 euro a day it’s possible to rent a room or a whole apartment. In Sardinia we had an apartment with a big living room, kitchen, 2 bedrooms and a bathroom for just under 30 euro. This is not only much cheaper than a hotel room but also allot bigger! It also gives you a sense of ‘coming home’ after you been gone exploring for the day.
For Porto we have rented another Airbnb. It will cost us 132 euro for 4 days. The cheapest Airbnb is around 17 euro a day. We decided to spend the extra money because it will be winter when we go and we expect to spend some more time in the apartment. The apartment looks absolutely beautiful.
#5 Cook your own food
When you rent an Airbnb make sure you have access to a kitchen. Cooking your own food is a simple way to safe allot of money.
In Sardinia we went out for dinner and lunch a couple of times. Going out for dinner is of course a great way to experience the food of a country but it’s also expensive. We probably spend around 200 euro on food and drinks alone. We could also have used this money to pay for our flight and Airbnb in Porto! Cooking ourselfs will be a big money saver when we go to Porto.
I hope this was usefull. If you guys have any more tips to save money while traveling that would be great and appreciated.
Mark