If you follow me on instagram and snapchat you'll know that I recently enjoyed 7 wonderful days in Barbados. Crazy part is I did it for less than $1,000. You think I'm kidding? I am about to school you on how you can do the same, so grab a cuppa, a pen and notepad and let's get started!
$0.00
This trip was a lastminute.com trip. It happened out of the blue. My roommate sent me a text message about a $230 round trip ticket from New York to Barbados she found on SecretFlying. You need to check out this website. They upload new flight deals on the daily. I wouldn't even call them deals. So the website basically shows you the trip days that you can book for the price advertised. So, in some way, you don't have as much flexibility. For us, we had to book the trip for 7 specific days. Ordinarily, we would not have chosen 7 days for this trip but hey, I paid precisely $232. I had planned to go on a trip with my best friend this year already, so I pulled her into this deal and once she said yes, we started to make plans!
$232.00
Ticket was bought and the next thing we needed was to find a place to stay while we were in Barbados. A resort was out of the question because when I travel I like to experience my vacation through the eyes of locals. The other reason was that Barbados is a small island and I knew that 90% of our time was going to be spent on the beach, anyway, so there's no need to shell out all that money for a resort. This brings us to Airbnb. We found a house for $549 for 7 days. Split 3 ways, that came to $183 per person! Ain't God good?! We stayed in Christ Church Parish, Barbados, in a two bedroom, one bath lower level duplex. I do have to say that the TV was a little old school (everything on TV was like 10 years old) but to be honest, we were barely home to watch TV anyway.
$415.00
As a true Ijebu girl, I told myself that I was only going to spend $500 for the entire trip. I don't know if this works for everyone but I've found that if I travel and want to stay somewhat true to my budget, I need to take cash and leave all the credit cards at home. I would take one just in case but never resort to using it. Another way I've found helpful to stay true to budget is to actually plan out the activities way ahead of time - go on Pinterest, Instagram, travel blogs and the likes. Look for the kind of activities you would love to participate in and if possible book them before you actually get on that plane.
We were determined to do some touristy activities which took the bulk of our spending money. There was a Catamaran cruise ($90), a banana boat ride ($30), a trip to St. Nicholas Abbey ($20), Harrisons cave ($60), and a full day tour of the Island ($100). I'll go into details of things to do in Barbados on another post coming soon.
$715.00
Remember that there were three of us on this trip? Something that was extremely helpful in keeping our budget in check was doing accounts at the end of every day. There were times when one person paid for all our food or our cab rides or bus rides. At the end of the day, we used the old fashioned pen and paper and figured out who paid for what and who owed what. The reggae buses in Barbados cost $1 per ride. Once you get a hang of it, there is absolutely no need to spend more money on cab rides. For us, the cab rides were not an issue since we split these three ways. The most money that we spent on a cab ride was $80 and that was the day we went all the way to the North of the island for St. Nicholas Abbey. The cabbie waited for us and then drove us back into town, to the beach. Besides that, cab rides typically cost $12.50.
With the busyness of touring around, we probably only had time to eat a meal per day. On our first day, we found a grocery store and bought small nibbles for breakfasting.
All in all, for food, drinks, transportation, and even some souvenirs, I spent $198
Which brings us to a whopping...
$913.00!!!
And that, people, is how it's done!
Do you have any tips on how to cut cost when you plan travel and when you actually travel? please leave a comment below and let me know!
Check this spot again for a detailed post on things to do in Barbados!
TTYL!
Tribe Love.
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