When your Partner Wants to Travel But you Cannot Afford it

Who does not dream about traveling – seeing new places, exploring new cultures and cuisines, all these hold a thrill that can be matched by few other experiences. And yet travel is becoming expensive with rising fuel prices and hotel charges. Indeed the stress created by differing aspirations around travel can even pose a threat to the stability of relationships. So if your partner wants to travel but you are cash-strapped, here are few things you can do.

A weekend getaway

If you cannot afford a ten-day vacation, explore the possibility of getting away for just a weekend. Look up what places are within an approximately two hundred kilometer-radius from your city or town. If you are living near the sea, perhaps there is a quiet beach town that you haven’t yet visited. Or if your city is located in the valley of a mountain range, maybe you can spend a couple of nights on the hills. Even if no remarkable geographical features exist nearby, perhaps a town with historical significance or hosting a large fair or music concert is accessible by a journey of two hours. A nearby destination would be just right for a weekend vacation – on one hand it would cut down on boarding and lodging costs and on the other it would offer you and your partner some quality time with each other.

Go out in a group

If you are lucky to have like-minded friends, it could be a great way of cutting down on travel costs. You and two other couples could set out for a vacation in a large van or a trailer in order to avoid expensive airline tickets. In fact many motels, hotels and lodges also offer healthy discounts for group bookings. Apart from sharing fuel and lodging costs, you and your friends could get together and take turns cooking so as to save on buying food from restaurants. Besides the fact that you will be saving money, going out with your gang will mean a lot of fun and ensure safety in numbers.



Take advantage of off-season discounts

Many popular vacationing destinations which depend upon seasonal crowds often find business thin during off-season periods. For instance tropical beaches which are teeming with tourists in winter might be running on empty hotels during the humid summers; likewise mountain slopes which draw skiing enthusiasts might not be so popular in summer when the snow has melted. Thus find out about such places where seasonal changes affect business; if you happen to arrive there during the lax season, you may be able to negotiate healthy discounts not only for boarding and lodging but also local sight-seeing. Also a destination stripped away of unsightly crowds might reveal a beauty and serenity which you will be one of the lucky few to experience.

Look up relatives

If you have relatives or extended family members staying around famous vacation spots, you could spend a few days as their guests. This way you will be saving on lodging and boarding costs which form a major chunk of travel expenses. The problem with this option is that you may not feel comfortable on imposing on someone else’s hospitality and that is the reason this works only if you are close to the host and hostess. However as token of your gratitude you can arrive with a nice gift for your host or help them with some household chores for the time you are staying at their place. If you are spending all your leisure time taking in the sights, perhaps you can treat your host’s family to a grand dinner before you and your partner say goodbye to them.

Out on your own

If you want to save on inflated travel and lodging costs, how about taking your partner along and leaving for a cycling tour or a hiking trip? For this though you and your partner need to be in perfect health since it could get quite physically strenuous lugging around your own stuff and depending upon your own legs to take you from one place to another. In return however you will not only be cutting down on travel costs but experiencing the place in such an intimate way that is just not possible by a sanitized kind of travel in a tourist coach or hired car. So bring out the maps and look for a well-known cycling or hiking trail. Pack up your sleeping bag and essentials for the trip and mark the places you will be halting for the night. There are sure to be hostels or hikers’ lodges along the route which will put up travelers for only a fraction of the cost charged by the bigger hotels. However if you and your partner decide to go backpacking in a foreign country, stick to routes which are safe and well-frequented by tourists.

Look up the internet

The internet is a great travel resource for pockets of all shapes and sizes. Look up social networking sites and reputed travel forums in order to get to know other travelers who might be interested in doing the same routes as you and splitting the costs. Alternately you can seek travelers from other regions who might be interested in an exchange deal – you offer them your pad as a lodging option while you shack up at their place when visiting their city or country. Needless to say it is again important that you take enough safety precautions before agreeing on any sort of house-sitting arrangement.

Let your partner enjoy

However if there is no way you can afford to spare money for travel, you can suggest that your partner can go ahead and take a break without you. He/she can leave for a trip with friends, co-workers or even family members. Then there are hobby clubs devoted to interests as varied as wine-tasting, art appreciation and mountaineering which organize tours for its members from time to time. Other than that he/she can also sign up with a travel club which these days cater to particular interests – for instance there are clubs organized around culinary travel or those based on adventure sports. While it would have been much better if you and your partner could have gone out together, still it is better that at least one of you have a good time rather than both staying put and making each other miserable.