5 Tips on Traveling Cheaper: Lessons I Learned From a Trip to Germany

The first time I traveled to Europe, it was to London and completely planned out and scheduled by someone else. My daughter and I traveled with a large group of All-American cheerleaders. This meant all we had to do was fill out paperwork, obtain passports, raise funds for the trip, and show up for our flight. Easy peasy. From the moment I stepped foot into Heathrow, I was bitten by the travel bug. I found myself thinking of the next time I would travel several times a day. Searching travels pins on Pinterest was almost an obsession as my mind and soul were in a constant state of wanderlust.

About 4 months after the trip, my best friend called me and said, "Come to Germany with me!". Obviously, my reaction was a definite and enthusiastic yes. But once the high wore off, reality hit. I had a job, three children, and no money tree in my backyard. I looked at roundtrip flights costing around $1300+, then added in splitting a hotel, food, public transportation costs, admission to sights, souvenirs, and other extras. I couldn't afford that. The trip was 5 months away. All "extra" money had been spent on Christmas, our daughter's London trip to cheer in the New Years Day parade, and an upcoming convention in Boston that summer. I would have to purchase tickets at least a month before the trip, even sooner if I could be on the same flight as my friend. Making this trip happen felt impossible. But it did happen, and here is how...

"If you really want something, you can figure out how to make it happen." ~ Cher

While being a mom taught me a thing or two about being frugal, being a single mom taught me how to make things happen and how to stretch a dollar. There had to be coupons, discounts, specials, and other monetary corners I could cut. After quite a bit of internet research and discussions with other travelers, I learned how to maneuver them.

Corner 1: Airfare

At the behest of my friend, I looked into credit card companies that offered airline miles on purchases. Again, I only had four months at the most to purchase the tickets. Luckily, there were a couple that I thought could make that deadline. I chose to go with an American Airlines card. At the time, I didn't even have a credit card. I had paid the balances, cut them up, and sworn them off. I do not like debt. At all. However, I felt that an exception could be made if I paid the full amount of every purchase.

At the time, the American Airlines Citi card had an offer of 50,000 air miles if you purchased $3,000 within the first three months. This seemed doable, as long as I wasn't using it without paying off the purchases each month. I applied, was approved, and received my card within a week. Once I received it, I also downloaded the Citi app onto my phone to pay off every purchase with my checking account as soon as the purchase was posted. I used the card for all groceries, gas, oil changes, a prom dress, summer clothes for a growing young one, takeout, movie theatre tickets, everything I could. I didn't care if it was $5 at Sonic for a couple of drinks or one coffee from Starbucks. I used that card. Between groceries for my family of 5, my husband commuting to work, and everything else, the reward goal was reached in 2 months, and I had a zero balance on the card. It took about 30 days for the reward points to show up on my account, and I had to purchase an additional 10,000 points as flights to Germany were 60,000 points roundtrip.

While using the card meant that I could not travel to Europe on the same airline as my friend (she used United), I could book a flight out of the same airport, leaving within 1.5 hours of each other and close arrival times to the same airport. After buying the extra miles and paying the taxes and fees for the airlines (British Airways has higher fees than American Airlines), the roundtrip tickets cost roughly $440, which I put on the card to begin racking up points for my next trip. This trip was in 2015, and I still use the card whenever possible, pay the total, and earn more points. Corner 2: Hotel Luckily for me, my best friend invited me to tag along on one of her business trips. She's a scientist and had a smart people conference to attend. Seriously, I have seen and read her work and published articles and am amazed at her brilliant mind. When I say smart people conference, I am underselling it.

For our first 6 days in Germany, we would be in the Freiburg im Breisgau area, and her hotel would be paid for, so I would bunk with her. For the last 3 days, we would be in Berlin. She extended her trip for personal time to visit a couple of other scientists she worked with in the past. For that part of the trip, we would split the hotel costs. Not knowing either area or how transportation would work, it took a couple of weeks to research the location and find a reasonably priced hotel to go to her conference every day. I could go into Freiburg to sightsee and take pictures. We discovered that public transportation in Germany went from cities to outlying villages. She found a little hotel with free breakfasts and a short bus ride from where we wanted to go. After a few emails, she booked our room at Hotel Tuniberg in the village of Tuniberg, about a 10-minute bus ride from the city. Next, it was my turn to find a reasonably priced hotel in a great location in Berlin. I am a big fan of Hotels.com easy to navigate website. They have links to the hotel websites, ratings, distance from the hotel to attractions and airports, and ever-changing prices on rooms. You have 12 months from your first stay to accumulate 10 nights hotel to receive one free night. The hardest part was figuring out the location of the hotel to the areas we knew would be must-sees for us. Ultimately I chose the Monbijou Hotel located in the Mitte area, the downtown area of Berlin. After splitting the hotel room for 3 nights, my cost was around $200.

Corner 3: Ground Transportation Figuring out how to go from the airport to your hotel can be daunting. Especially when you are in a different country, the airport and city are around 55 kilometers apart, you do not speak the language, and your hotel does not have a shuttle service. Even with hours of research, not everything goes as planned, and details you find online are not always reliable. The information we found showed that a van was the only option. We would fly into Basel airport in Switzerland and read that cabs and buses were only an option on the French side. Basel is on Switzerland, France, and Germany borders. We had planned our flights to land within 30 minutes of one another, then we would share the van cost with her colleague to our hotel. As I said, things come up, and my flight out of Houston was running behind, and then my connecting flight from Heathrow to Basil was delayed for a couple of hours. Needless to say, my friend and her colleague headed to the city well before I did to get a lay of the land and figure out the best way to go from the city to the village we were staying in. She and her colleague ended up taking a cab (they were available on the German end) and split the cost of around 170 Euros. I had only so much money set aside for the trip, which would greatly cut into my funds. After arriving in Basil and waiting for bags, I struck up conversations with fellow passengers and discovered there was a bus that would take you straight to the city center and near the train station where you could purchase bus and tram tickets. This also happened to be where my friend was waiting for me. I hoped that it would be as easy as they said, and it was. The one-way bus fare only cost 20 Euros. That was a relief! Once in Freiburg, we spoke to a man at a ticket counter and discovered we would need to buy passes for the tram and bus to travel to the village. I needed those passes for each day we would be there to go back and forth. I purchased 6 days of passes for 23 Euros. Understanding the schedules of both was a small challenge, but we managed to learn it quickly. Using the trams inside of town and the buses from the city to the village was a great way to get around, not to mention cheap! For our journey from Freiburg im Breisgau to Berlin, we rented a car through Sixt, and the process was seamless. We decided that driving through the Black Forest would be an adventure, and it certainly was! Corner 4: Food Expenses To try as many new things as possible, we thought it would be best to order one meal and split it at restaurants. This way, if we were still hungry, we could share another at a different location. If we were no longer hungry, then we just saved 50% on food for that meal. Plus, it left more money for drink purchases. We quickly discovered that most places served dishes large enough to easily satisfy two people. Another way to save money was the food market at Munsterplatz in Freiburg. While our hotel room didn't have a refrigerator, we could buy fresh fruit. It was great to have that available to snack on when we were in for the night or pack in our backpacks while sightseeing.

Corner 5: Attractions While there is never a shortage of things to do and see that you must pay for, there are always a plethora of free things as well. In Freiburg, we paid a few Euros to tour the Minster in Munsterplatz, and it was absolutely worth it. For the most part, I walked around enjoying the architecture and people watching. Wandering into stores and cafes was very enjoyable. I am also a shutterbug and always taking pictures. On the drive to Berlin, we stopped to tour Hohenzollern Castle, which I recommend doing if you will be near. In Berlin, we enjoyed walking around Museum Island, finding historical areas like remnants of the Berlin Wall and toured the Holocaust Museum, and more. Berlin is home to over 150 museums, and you can walk almost anywhere. In 3 days of visiting Berlin, we only paid to go into one museum. The rest of the museums and landmarks on our path we simply admired, and it was gloriously relaxing.

The entire trip cost around $1,300 -- after figuring in the speeding ticket, I was emailed a couple of months later. By the way, the Autobahn DOES have speed limits in some areas. I would love to blame the woman with the Ph.D. in the passenger seat yelling at me to go faster, followed by "AUTOBAHN, BABY!" but alas, I cannot. Learning what road signs mean in a foreign country you will be driving in would be a smart thing to do. Because what looked like a highway sign to me was actually a speed limit. I mean, there are no 3-digit speed limits in Texas, so a highway number was a realistic deduction. However, realistic does not mean correct.