It's All About the Points

When I went to Toronto earlier this year, I stayed downtown in a four star Hilton for free. Yep, you heard me, free. How did I get my hotel room for free you ask. I used a little thing I like to call points.

When I first got to college, my parents decided that I needed a credit card. My parents look all over for the best card for me. What they found was a credit card from CitiBank. What is great about my credit card is that every time I purchase something, I receive Thankyou points for the purchase.


Whats even better is that for all the times that I go to the bar and restaurants, I receive double the points. So over my four years of college, in which I purchased all of my text books on my card, plus all of my late night runs to McDonald's and Papa Johns, I was adding up the points that I could use on anything that I wanted.

While I could use my points on gift cards to Best Buy and Sunglass Hut, along with a lot of other places, I chose to use my points on a vacation. By the time I was ready to book my trip to Toronto, I had over 130,000 points. These points were all mine and I could choose where I wanted to use them. When I went to the website to book my trip, two nights at the Hilton in downtown Toronto was 80,000 points. Which means I had 50,000 points left over to use on another trip or a purchase that I really wanted to make.

Getting a credit card that gives you points back in exchange for all of your purchases is great because the accumulation of all of your points opens you up to a whole new world. If you save enough points up, you can stay in that one hotel you have always wanted to stay in for free. I got to stay in a Ritz Carlton for free because my mom had a bunch of points saved up.

College students are going to spend money on food, books, clothes and alcohol at bars. Well, why not receive something in return for all that you spend. Invest in a credit card that gives you points back and you will not be sorry. One day, you may be laying by the pool at a five star hotel in Miami for free, all because you purchased some textbooks for class.

When you are on a road trip, how do you save money when it comes to eating? Have you developed any tips to saving money while eating out?

Oh, the Places to Stay

Alot of people said that they believe the most expensive aspect of a vacation is the hotel room. People want to stay in a nice hotel but would prefer that the room was not so outrageously priced. Hotel prices can range from $50 a night to upwards of $500 a night. Now if you are like me, you would love to stay in the $500 a night hotel, but you know that that is just not possible.


Like most people, when I travel to a new city, I like to stay smack dab in the middle of downtown. Normally, I will research the city that I am traveling to and figure out which part of downtown is the fun entertainment district. Normally, the entertainment district of downtown cities has the most to offer. There are shops, restaurants, bars and clubs, everything a young college student would want.

Once I have found the area of town that I want to stay in, I visit my favorite websites which include Hotwire, Hotels.com, Priceline, Expedia, Kayak, Orbitz and Travelzoo. Each and everyone of these websites is great because they offer discount prices for hotels. The hotels on these websites range from one star Red Roof Inns to five star Ritz Carlton. When using these websites you get to compare the prices of the hotels, while looking a what the hotels offer when it comes to amenities.

My biggest advice when using these websites is to also look at the price on the hotels website. Sometimes on the hotel website you can get great packages that will help cut the costs. You can get a package that includes wifi and free parking. This can cut between $10 and $60. Alot of nice expensive hotels do not offer free internet and can charge $11 for 24 hours. There are also packages that include free breakfast. This is great because it will save you having to find a place to eat and possibly having to get a cab. Hotel breakfasts can be expensive, so having the option to get it free is one that you shouldn't pass up.

There are many other ways to go about getting a cheaper hotel room. In my next post I will explain how I get hotel rooms for free because I use my credit card to buy my school books.

The More the Merrier

Nobody likes to travel alone! Trips are much more fun when you invite your friends along. This is why when you are planning a vacation, the more the merrier is a motto I like to follow.

There are so many reasons traveling with a group of people is a great idea. Number 1 is the great time you will have. When traveling with a group of people, the things you do become more exciting. You get to see things through a different set of eyes. While you may not like the attraction your at, you learn to appreciate it because your friends are having a good time. The trip also produces alot more memories. When traveling alone, you get to do things that you want to do but the memories wont be as pronounced as when you are with a group of friends. When traveling with friends, everything can turn into a good time. The jokes you tell at dinner and the long conversations you have on the road make the trip so much more memorable. One of my favorite memories of a trip with my friends was when we went to Toronto and got dressed up to go out to dinner. While I could have done this by myself, being with my friends was so much more fun because we got to talk and joke all through dinner. This night will stay in my memory for a very long time. 

The number 2 reason to travel with friends is that it makes the drive a lot easier. A long road trip can cause problems when you are traveling alone. Spending all day on the road and behind the wheel becomes exhausting. Thats why, when you plan a road trip, having friends along for the ride is great because everyone can take turns driving. Along with taking turns driving, you can make the trip go alot faster because you have people to talk too. My favorite part of my drive to Toronto with my friends was listening to a bunch of CDs from the 90's. I'm talking full on Brittany Spears, Backstreet Boys, N'Sync and 98 Degrees. Not only did this create great memories with my friends but it also brought back a bunch of memories from when I was younger. 

The final and most important reason I love to travel with a group of friends is it makes everything Cheaper. As a broke college student, my goal of all my trips is to make things as least expensive as possible. When traveling with a group of people you get to split the cost of so many things! So the gas, hotel, parking and cabs are all split. So say you spend $80 a night on a hotel, you stay three nights with four people in the room, well after all the math is done, you are only spending $60 total for the three nights. Right there you saved $180 on the room alone. With that being said, there are so many things that you can split with the people on the trip to make things less expensive. 

What do you find to be the most expensive aspect of traveling? What area do you need help saving money in when you travel?

Location, Location, Location

Every time I travel to Chicago, I return home to Cincinnati about 20 pounds lighter. No, thats not weight on my body but in my checkbook. Chicago, along with cities like New York and Los Angeles seem to be unfriendly to the money in my pocket. These cities have to ability to suck me dry when it comes to money.

Chicago Skyline

While I love to go to Chicago, traveling often to the Windy City is not an option. Everything in the city is expensive. From hotels to bars to cab rides, the amount of money spent in Chicago always seems to go up. One of the most important things I have learned from my trips to Chicago is, there are so many other fun cities I can travel too that will not make me broke. One of the reason Chicago is so expensive is because they have a high sales tax. The sales tax in Chicago is at 9.5%! This is high compared to Cincinnati 7% sales tax. This is a huge reason why traveling to Chicago can be so expensive. Anytime you want to purchase something, that 9.5% sales tax is added on.

When traveling on a budget, picking the location of your trip is very important. While so many people love to go to New York and Chicago, for someone on a limited budget, it is just not possible to go these cities and not spend a lot of money. I like to pick cities that are within driving distance that I know will be fun. Some cities that are close and alot of fun are Indianapolis, Ind., Pittsburgh, Pa., Louisville, Ky., St. Louis, Missouri, and Knoxville, Tenn. All of these cities are know for being really fun cities and they are alot cheaper to have fun in then places like Chicago and New York.

As you are deciding what city you want to travel too, make sure you look up their sales tax. While you might not spend alot of time thinking about sales tax, it is important to you budget and your trips. I like to make sure that the sales tax of the cities I travel too are below 8.5%. This is a good marker for me and hopefully for you. This kind of sales tax leaves you with more money to spend and does not give you the shock that the 9.5% sales tax of Chicago gives you.

 sales tax rates in the United States

What are some cities that you like to travel too? Are these cities within driving distance of where you live and do you look at things like sales tax?

Traveling: It's in My Blood Not My Bank Account

I love to travel. It’s in my blood. Growing up, all my mom ever wanted to do was travel to new places. As a kid, my winter and spring break from school was spent on the road traveling to places that would add excitement to my life and expand my mind. Over the years, my love of traveling has continued to grow exponentially. I always like to have a trip in the works. If I don’t have any sort of travels plans already in process of being made or already made, I just feel incomplete. Honestly, I blame my mom for this. She is always talking about going on trips, which leads me to feeling the urge to make plans to travel someplace exciting.

As a college student who has limited funds, my love of traveling makes things hard. Whenever I want to just up and leave on a trip, I have to take a step back and look at my bank account. I wish I had the ability to leave on a trip at the drop of a hat without thinking about money, but unfortunately I’m not that lucky. Lately, money has become a huge issue in preventing me from traveling. While I haven’t been able to go on as many trips as I would like, the trips I have been on have taught me how to spend as little money as possible when I do travel.

In today’s day in age, there are so many resources available to people whom like to travel. People used to have to visit a travel agent to book a trip. These visits would become expensive because not only are you paying for the trip; you also have to pay the agent for helping you. The resources available to travelers make life so much easier and cheaper. But to make these resources beneficial to you, you have to understand how to use them properly.

In this blog, I will help my fellow college students and other travel lovers, learn how to travel on a limited budget. I will explain all of the techniques that I have used over the years make traveling cheaper and even more fun. By following along with the blog, I will help you understand that you are able to lead a traveling life without having to break your bank account.