I love to travel and I love to eat good food all over the world. In fact, I really believe that food is one of the best ways to experience the culture in another country. Eating breakfast in Ireland is quite different than eating breakfast in India. And these experiences teach us about the pace of life, values, and preferences among its inhabitants. But it’s important for me to make the most my travel funds so I’m always trying to eat cheap meals when I’m traveling.
This doesn’t mean that I’m missing out. I love and value food. It just means that I’m a bit more intentional. Interested in knowing what I do to to save money while still experiencing the best of everything? Read on!
Tip 1: Start the Day with a FREE Breakfast
Whenever possible, I try to stick to hostels and hotels that offer a free breakfast. If you are a travel hacker (traveling cheaply primarily through award points and miles) it’s especially easy as free breakfast is often a perk that comes with hotel status.
We’ve found that most international hostels will offer some sort of breakfast, as will most hotels in Europe and Asia. When you’re searching for accommodations using a site like Booking, you always have the option to add “free breakfast” to your search terms. Make sure you fill up at breakfast so you’re not wasting precious time and energy to search for snacks.
When you’re trying to eat cheap, it’s good to be strategic. If your hotel offers a large breakfast spread, skip the sugary pastries and cereals and head for the protein, fresh fruit and veggies. Apples and peanut butter or scrambled eggs with veggies and cheese will stick to your ribs a lot longer than the make-your-own-waffle-bar.
Travel tip: Before you check out, take a quick walk around. Are there granola bars or coffee being offered in the lobby? Grab a bar for the road and fill up your thermos with fresh coffee. If your hotel has a spa or a gym, take a quick peek to see if there are any bottles of water or fresh fruit on display.
Hotels and hostels do this because they WANT their guests to enjoy this stuff.
But, PLEASE be respectful and avoid grabbing 15 granola bars….
Tips 2: Plan Ahead.
If you’re having a hard time finding accommodations that offer free breakfast, bring something from home. Oatmeal packets, granola bars, dry cereal packs, crackers, tea bags, trail mix, small cups of peanut butter, etc are usually cheaper at home and GREAT to have on hand to tide you over in the morning or if you need a snack.
I always pack a double walled thermos that I can fill with either cold water or hot coffee and stick in my backpack. This saves me money AND helps the environment. Double score!
Tip 3: Limit Yourself to One Splurge Daily
When my husband and I travel, we have one “splurge” meal and one “eat cheap” meal rule. This is a great way to stick to your budget without missing out on anything.
Another way to look at it is to try to stick to one “sit-down” meal a day. Usually, we stick to lunch as our big splurge because it’s easier to eat cheap during the day than in the evening.
In Paris, you can easily spend 20 euros on a prixe fixe lunch while a prixe fixe dinner will run you closer to 50 euros! Over a 10 day trip, this rule alone can save you over 300 euros! (Wouldn’t you rather save that for your next trip?) It’s really fun to sit in a fancy cafe in France and drink wine and people watch. Who cares if you do it for lunch or dinner? Just because you’re trying to save money doesn’t mean that you can’t experience all the fun parts – it just means you choose a more affordable option.
Tip 4: Scout Around for Cheap Options
A seasoned traveler knows where to go to eat cheap. And it’s not anywhere near the touristy things. When we were in Milan, anything around the Duomo had an automatic upcharge. Even a bottle of water was double the cost of one sold a few streets away.
Rule # 1, carry your own refillable water bottle, and rule # 2, don’t even think about eating anywhere within 6 blocks of the touristy sites.
A good way to tell if you’re paying this “tourist tax” is to take a quick look at the menu posted outside. If you see the menu translated into a few different languages, it’s usually a good sign that this is a tourist trap. Slowly back away. Turn around. Keep going. Not only are these restaurants more expensive than the ones down the street, but our experience has shown us that as they are trying to appeal to the tourist masses, the food they serve is bland and boring.
Other places to look for to eat cheap include areas around Universities, street food, and my personal favorite, mall food courts!
Universities = college kids. College kids = poor.
The restaurants and bars around the schools cater appropriately. You’ll always find food specials, happy hours, and quick options for affordable meals. One of my favorites are the bar mleczny (translated into “milk bar”) in Poland. These cute cafeterias are found near colleges and often serve 3 course meals for as little as 3 euro. What a steal!
I also love street food! It’s a great way to eat cheap AND learn about the culture. The creperies in France are drastically different from the the sausage stands in Germany or the noodle carts in Singapore.
And lastly, a secret oasis of delicious food can be found in the food court of a mall. On our recent trip to Italy, our 3 year old begged to eat at the food court every night. Salads, pizzas, sandwiches, baked goods for her and glasses of beer and wine for mom and dad. These places are usually filled at lunch with business men and woman who work nearby. I usually look for the place with the longest lines and hop right over.
Tip 5: Eat Like A Local
Remember how I said our rule was one “splurge meal” and one “eat cheap” meal? So for our non-splurge meal, we love to eat like a local. This involves going to farmer markets, grocery stores, and specialty shops.
Besides being a good way to eat cheap meals, it’s also fun. We love the adventure of going into a foreign grocery store where we don’t speak the language and can’t tell 100% what we’re getting. Is it cheese? Is it tofu? Who knows!? Is it a fruit or a vegetable? One way to find out! For the less adventurous among us, stick to familiar things you can find pretty much everywhere like sandwiches, hardboiled eggs, loaves of bread, jam, crackers, or ready-made entrees. Grab a few goodies and find a scenic spot to have a picnic.
Some of our most memorable meals have been self-catered picnics. In Florence, we drank red wine and nibbled on focaccia, meat and cheese. In Ireland we ate freshly picked strawberries, soda bread and hard-boiled eggs. In Hong Kong, we at cold sesame noodles and prawn crackers with Chrysanthemum tea.
Great tips. My favorite is Tip#5. We always try to eat like locals on vacation. We abound chain places. Local places have the best food. Our favorite thing to do on vacation is eating the food!
Thank you for the tips! I love trying new food when I travel!
xx, The Makeup Feed
It is helpful indeed. I generally stick to bread and butter (carry butter from India) while traveling.
One must have to set a mindset to not to spend much outside to follow on these guidelines..
We use all of these and one more, be a hobbit and have second breakfast at home, then a late lunch no need for anything at dinner. Maybe a bottle of wine and some cheese from the local deli or grocer.
That’s awesome! We do a lot of fruit, cheese, bread and WINE dinners when we travel
Great Ideas, I will definitely try this.
Great advice and trying to plan a long weekend trip before summer ends for us here. So will keep your tips in mind now. Thanks 🙂
This is all great advice. I definitely agree with the planning part. My husband thinks I’m obsessed with food because all I talk about is where we’ll be eating but it’s really all about the budget…at least that is what I tell myself!
Great tips!
These are great ideas! Also, remember if you’ve got a dietary requirement to have it written down (or know how to say it fluently) so when you go to restaurants/cafes etc you can clearly indicate any issues. I have the phrase “I can’t eat raw tomatoes” in German ingrained in my mind!
That is awesome! Great advice!
Love this post. Street food is indeed the best option 😂🙌🏻
Great post! When traveling food can be one of the things we spend the most money on so tips like the ones you mentioned to combat the extra cost are terrific
Wonderful post. Loved the idea of one splurge meal and one small one. A useful post for any travel
Hi, some great tips. I have never heard of the free breakfast before. Due to food allergies I have to pack my own food to take with me so this always works out a cheaper deal for me anyway. I do grab fruit if uts available especially the bananas.
These are awesome tips definitely will try them when I travel next.
I love the idea of going to a local mall for a cheap meal. I never thought of that!
I so love this!! Thanks for the recommendation 🙂
Absolutely #1- Free is talking my language, and we always try and book with that in mind. That free breakfast often can really fill you up. And I love your idea of the 1 cheap meal, 1 splurge!
These are fantastic trips! I especially love the breakfast one! I always try to pick hotels with free breakfast because it really does save a lot of money
Great tips!! I always weigh the cost of a hotel against whether or not we’re getting a free breakfast! 😉
SUCH great tips! We always shoot for free breakfast whenever possible.
This is such a great list! I was a aware of some, but others were new. Thank you so much! As someone who loves to travel but doesn’t get to do it as often as I’d like….these money saving tips are really important!
Great tips! I 100% agree! I love that most hostels offer free breakfast
Great blog with tips! The best is go for local food!!!!!
If I travel I treat myself with the best of the best what I can get . You travel so far which means enjoy it with no limits. To know a country and the people living there you need to try their food
I think taking the trip IS the splurge. We do eat the local food – just don’t do a ton of the expensive sit-down restaurants.
I travel very less but this post has certainly inspired me .
Hi Mal,
Awesome post! We do #1 all the time. Free breakfast is a ‘must’ 🙂
For long family stays, we try to stay in hotels where there is a kitchen, so we can cook. So we do a bit of shopping (like the locals, as you say). We’ve done this in the US and also in Paris. We find that it works well.
Thanks for sharing these awesome tips.
Best regards,
Pedro
My favorite is always shopping at the local supermarket. It’s the most authentic you will get when experiencing a new country and their food. It’s also cheap too!
From one travel lover to another: this is legit advice! So many people miss out on the free breakfasts on vacations and it blows my mind! Good read!
Helpful! Great tips!
Love all your tips – especially to allow yourself a splurge! It’s important to budget, but also to actually experience all the food and opportunities that a place can offer. Great post!
Great tips! For us, alcohol is our weakness – even beer which is cheap often ends up bloating the budget. D’oh.
Hey, if that’s what you love, than you should totally go all out! Cut back on the things that aren’t as exciting for you instead 🙂 I’m not a huge fan of beer, but I love wine and loved how in Italy I found a glass of wine was CHEAPER than a glass of water. So awesome…
Great tips! I’m big on budgeting money on food- though I usually end up blowing my budget when it comes to sweets! I always find that soup is a great budget meal, anywhere I’ve gone. If I can find a soup place I know I am set!
That’s a great tip and I love that soup is both universal AND unique. A bowl of soup in France will be wildly different than a bowl of soup in Thailand or Mexico!
These are such great tips, and you are so right. There are so many ways to eat while still staying on a budget. We love to eat locally while traveling and always go for the free breakfast as well. I’m saving your post for future reference 🙂
Great tips! I’d not thought about eating at or near universities… it makes totally sense but just never thought of it myself!
My husband and I absolutely love going to supermarkets in different countries. It helps us save money on food but also is so much fun to look at all the different types of foods on offer. You can definitely learn a lot about a place from its supermarkets!
Great ideas! I’m a big fan of food courts, too – you can often find local foods as well as international fast food. And I love the idea of one splurge a day. Some great suggestions!
Really good tips! Next time I will pop in to the spa section and see if they have any complimentary fruits. One of my favourite hotels was in Hong Kong which offered free afternoon GT/snacks. It was a bit out of the way but the free snacks and even alcohol included so made up for the location.
Yes! Those perks are so nice! Especially in Hong Kong – hotels can be SO expensive so saving every little bit where you can definitely helps.
Great tips. I like your thinking about heading to the university area for cheap eats, that is something I hadn’t thought of.
Thank you! It’s also a great place to find other budget friendly things, too – we often come across student art shows, theater performances or cool workshops to check out!
I looooove eating and food. Definitely saving these tips! I’ve done a lot of them already and it’s a nice refresher.
Me too! Probably the best part of travel for me.