Don't stay in hotels. Don't eat out (much). Rent a condo and cook small meals yourself. Pack lunches.
If you must stay in hotels, stay in hotels that offer breakfast for free. Or stayin Bed and Breakfasts. Some Bed and Breakfasts will allow you to use their kitchen to prepare other meals.
Stock up on restaurant coupons before you leave. Check with your hotel. A lot of hotels partner with restaurants in offering meal deals to patrons.
It's been mentioned, but priorities are key when traveling on a budget. For me, food is part of experiencing a new place so I make sacrifices to be able to eat well. Like staying at a cheaper chain hotel instead of the fancier boutique places. And if you can, stay somewhere that offers a free breakfast and take advantage of it - grab one of their apples for a snack later in the day.
On a trip to Vienna, a friend and I managed to only buy one meal a day - dinner. Eating the hostel's free breakfast (and lots of it!) and then snacking throughout the day on Luna bars brought from home, we could splurge on dinner. For someone with more of an appetite, I'd second the suggestion for a picnic: get some cheap eats from a farmer's market or grocery store and enjoy it in a park or while site-seeing.
Lastly, plan where you want to eat to avoid wasting money on the closest thing available while you're starving. I'm an uber-planner so I'd probably have each restaurant picked before leaving home, but you can leave room to be spontaneous. Say you have three nights to eat out, come up with six restaurants that look good to you and decide from them. Again, never end up at some expensive hotel restaurant just because you're too hungry to go anywhere else!
@Ash... please post your suggestions. Pumpkin will need them, but I'll use them too, as I'll be spending a little time in Birmingham on my next genealogy research trip, along with Orion, Troy, Montgomery, Greensboro, Demopolis, et al, back to Birmingham. If you know of anything in the Montgomery area, I'd love to see that too!
Roadfood is another great site for less expensive (and very local) dining around the country...check their boards!
This might be off topic, but I am from Birmingham, AL and would be more than willing to give you fantastic but cheaper food ideas if you would like!
I wondered the same thing.
Watching the Travel Channel makes me believe that only the rich and famous can afford to travel.
I like all the info here. My husband and I have a meager journalists' income and plan to travel out of the country every year. We've saved up for about a year for our trip to Ireland/London (leaving in a few weeks) and have paid for stuff for the trip throughout the year, rather than all at once. We're pretty much all set to go, and we've had emergencies to pay for such as an auto accident and vet bills for our dog. All we have to pay for is food and the remaining balance on our bed and breakfast stays (we're staying at a friend's house in London too). We already picked out some of the cheaper places in our Ireland and London travel books. The way we save: buying clothes only when we're desperate and rarely going out to dinner. It's been hard for me not to buy clothes! We bought clothes we needed for our Christmas gift to one another.
We're already looking forward to our next trip: Honduras. It will be nice to go where our dollar will buy more!
Post on here and egullet and around and find the off the main drag great places to eat. AB's Feasting on Asphalt was good for the cheaper better dining places. I always would rather go to a off the beaten path place to eat than a high dollar not as good place.
How we afford it is we worked hard and we planned for it. When I was young I bagged lunches for road trips. Not everyone gets to go epicurean wild in their young years. Plan for your future. Plan today is fun tomorrow.
i use priceline, and have literally gotten hotel rooms for 1/2 the price of their posted rate. the only catch is you won't know which hotel you're booked in, until you've confirmed the reservation.
39*7 = about 280 dollars a week! add 20 bucks for tax or a bit more thats 300 bucks a week rather than your 500!
Saving you 200 dollars....
I only charge a nominal fee of 10% of the money saved :)
so 20 bucks....(smile)
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Website: http://starwoodgal.wordpress.com
Location: Arkansas
About: Southern gal, southern traditions, southern cooking
Favorite foods: anything my mother cooks
Last bite on earth: Peach cobbler (hot) with vanilla ice cream