Hugh and Penny's Frugal Traveling Tips

• The Secret Weapon -- PBJ's! We have discovered the secret to saving money on meals with the family. In our minivan we bring along a cooler with bread, peanut butter and jelly, along with a huge bag of carrots and fruit and we eat them for dinner while on the road. For lunch we eat at a unique area restaurant when the prices are lower and the crowds smaller. Do you really want to eat out three meals a day, and do your children? In reality, I doubt it. It is more fun to splurge at lunch at the lower lunch prices and then eat PBJ's at the cheap motel for dinner. Our kids just want to watch the cool cable channels on the motel TV anyway since we do not have cable at home (remember, we're frugal!) So after a long day seeing the sites (like the local museums, we can rest at the motel and eat PBJ's, carrots and apples. It is a lot cheaper and healthier than most of the stuff you find on the road anyway.


• Compare Motel Prices Carefully Most times on the road we try to stay at a Best Western or Motel 6, but you have to compare the prices, including if they charge for children, and how much that "free continental breakfast" is truly worth. If a "free breakfast" costs you $10 more than the Motel 6, you could in fact buy a few boxes of PopTarts for that same extra $10. Your kids may well prefer to be eating PopTarts in the Motel 6 watching Cartoon Network as opposed to eating some donuts and bagels in a room with 4 wobbly tables and CNN anyway. One neat site that was brought to my attention is findcheapmotel.com.

Brochures make great Souvenirs When you visit most gift shops, the stuff is all the same old junk. Pens, shirts, caps, keychains with some place's name stamped on it. What a waste! Just get a fresh "mint" copy of the brochure for each museum, site or whatever you visit on the way out (as opposed to the folded, nasty copy you crammed into your pocket when you got there). Then at the end of the trip the brochures can be mounted in a notebook for a permanent "souvenir" with pictures, maps, and info on every site. In fact we have our kids write up a "travel journal" afterwards in a spiral notebook. We (okay, it is my wife, Penny, who does all the work) write up questions for them to answer about the trips to help them remember the highlights (and memorable "lowlights") for posterity.

• More to come as soon as we think of more...