WordPress has apparently mistaken me for a travel expert.
“What’s your best tip for budget travel?”
I assume they’re expecting something useful about booking airfare on Tuesdays, finding hidden hostels in Prague, traveling Europe by rail, or somehow getting from Jacksonville to Paris for $137 and a handful of airline miles.
I don’t even have a passport.
So, no, I am probably not the person to ask. My version of budget travel is considerably less glamorous.
Highlands, North Carolina? Stay with my stepmother.
Nashville? Stay with my best friend, Scott.
Chattanooga? Find a cheap(ish) hotel.
St. Augustine? Drive down, walk around, eat something, come home.
Atlanta? Stay with Daryl’s best friend or find a motel cheap enough that I don’t spend our nights wondering what else I could have done with the money.
That’s about the extent of my travel expertise.
I don’t know how to backpack across Europe. I don’t know which airline has the best hidden fares. I don’t know whether you should buy your ticket six weeks ahead, six months ahead, or at 2:17 on a Wednesday morning during a lunar eclipse.
I barely travel enough to know where my suitcase is. My travel rewards program is knowing people with spare bedrooms.
So my best budget-travel advice is painfully simple: Go someplace you can afford, stay with people who like you enough to let you use their guest room, and don’t confuse “vacation” with “financial emergency.”
There are probably people who can tell you how to see Rome on $40 a day.
I can tell you how to see Atlanta for the cost of gas and whatever I spend taking my grandchildren out to eat.
And frankly, I’m probably happier with that trip anyway.
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Copyright © 2026 Doug DeBolt.
