A recent reader email was asking how we book our travel and I thought I would answer with a post.

Let me start by saying that I’m definitely not an expert on travel booking – I’m no frugal travel hacker.  Most of the time I go with what I know and that means using Expedia.

Booking holidays: I’ll often start by looking for cheap flight via search engines and then move on to hotels, but I always seem to end up at Expedia. I will start my search as early as possible though (you can look over ten months ahead), and do play around with the dates to find the cheapest option for around the time we want to travel.

Once I’ve found a trip I then always book it through a cash back site (I use Quidco here in the UK). The amount of cash back varies but anything is worth having. The same goes for airport parking.  I’ll search out the best deal and then book it through a cash back site too.  If I need to book a hotel overnight (and parking), because of flight times, I’ll book through Holiday Extras (again cash back), and take the cheapest, no name deal – in our experience this has always been a Holiday Inn. My philosophy with airport hotels before trips is: early flight = no traffic, so drive from home (about 2 hours to Heathrow). Lunchtime flight = M1 daytime nightmare, so stay at Heathrow the night before

That’s about it really. I use a one stop travel site and cash back sites.  If you have any questions please ask and I’ll do my best to answer

Breakdown of costs for 10 day trip to New York:

• £1,878.40 Hotel (Hampton Inn Soho)
• £888.96 Flights (BA there, AA back)
• £62.85 Car parking
• £19.08 Travel Insurance
• £1,000.00 Spending*

Total: £3,849.29

- Cash back

• £138.35 Holiday (5%)
• £9.43 Parking (15%)

Total cost: £3,701.51

*This is quite high for us but included clothes for hubby.

Things I never pay for: Luggage. You can (usually) check one large case for free on long haul flights, and on short haul flights we take a carry on.

How do you book your holidays? Do you book them all online or do you prefer another way?

Please note this is not a sponsored post

Travel Booking and New York Cost Breakdown is a post from: Move to Portugal

I will never ever get bored of this city!

New York, New York is a post from: Move to Portugal

Hello! Please excuse my absence. Life got a little busy before we headed out for our holidays.

So. New York. We arrived yesterday to be be greeted by the most amazing weather - bright sunshine and 80 degree + heat. Yay.

We didn’t have any set plans for today, we just headed out to explore (and walk). Which we did for 5 hours. We took in parts of Soho, Greenwich Village, Union Square, Chelsea, and walked the High Line for the first time.

Here are just a couple of photo’s (more here).

We have a few plans for the rest of the week, including a Yankees game, which should be fun!

Back soon with more pictures

New York – April 2012 is a post from: Move to Portugal

(Lisbon Design Museum – Life List goal completed)

Good morning!  We’re back from Lisbon and as always after a holiday I feel fired up and ready to go.  Our goals are at the forefront of our minds this morning and we can’t wait to continue taking small steps towards our ultimate goal of moving to the country that we love.

One of the steps is to keep working towards financial freedom, and for us that begins with mortgage freedom.  We want that mortgage debt gone.  With the current economic climate we can’t see ourselves buying in Portugal for a long time, so it makes sense to keep paying down our UK mortgage until eventually it’s gone and we own our home.

But we need to keep a balance.  We have to balance out being frugal with living our life.  So even though we’re stepping up the mortgage overpayments next year, we’re still going to travel and finish the house.  Finally!

Ok today which is all about cleaning and getting my son packed for university.  I can’t quite get used to having 3 adult children, which I have now.  I wonder how it happened.  And how it happened so quickly. Anyway my son leaving means we’ll be changing our budget again. All good as I love playing with spreadsheets

Have a great day!

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Saturday Miscellany is a post from: Move to Portugal

Tuesday we left Lisbon to spend the day in Cascais – Taking the coast line train from Cais De Sodre (4.40 Euros)

Wednesday we took a tram hill top tour – 18.00 Euros (25% discount if you’ve bought Santa Justa lift tickets).  The journey took about 100 minutes and takes you to areas you would perhaps miss on foot.  A great eye opener to how big the city is.  And beautiful.  The view from the top (you can hop off the tram) is wonderful.

The view from Parque Eduardo Vii looking down onto Marques Do Pombal Square.

We’re having fun, but these hills…..!!!

Lisbon – Cascais, Hill Tram Tours and Walking! is a post from: Move to Portugal