The post was originally published on The Centsible Life.

With the holidays approaching and winter right around the corner, I’ve been letting my imagination run away from me. The idea of taking a vacation, or at least leaving my living room, is making me drool over each and every sunset-on-the-beach photo I come across. Yet, traveling on a budget calls for creativity, research, and gumption. Lately I’ve been scoping out the best modes of transportation for quick weekend get-aways, longer holidays, and family vacations that are frugal and can fit within any budget.

Quick Weekend Get-Aways….on the rail

A couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to travel to a nearby city on Amtrak. It was my first experience on a train and I absolutely loved it. The roomy seats, the ability to walk around the cars, and the experience as a whole was incredibly comfortable compared to driving the short distance in a car. I decided from that point on that I would travel by train to cities within a couple hundred miles of me, as long as there was a direct Amtrak route.

Here is a breakdown of some sample excursions for west coast, mid-west, and east coast residents including prices via Amtrak:

• Los Angeles (Union Station) to Santa Barbara – Pacific Surfliner: $24 each way, travel time 2 hours and 48 minutes. Santa Barbara is known for its temperate, coastal climate, charming State Street, and expensive properties. It’s a beautiful beach-side city to visit for the day.

• Milwaukee to Chicago (Union Station) – Hiawatha: $22 each way, travel time 1 hour and 42 minutes. I’ve never spent time in Chicago, but would like to some day. Their waterfront and downtown area look like a fun and exciting city to visit for the day or weekend (summer, preferably for me!)

• New Haven, CT to New York (Penn Station) – Acela Express: starts at $35 each way, travel time 1 hour and 32 minutes. Ahhh! New York, it’s my town! There’s so much to do that one day won’t cut it. From Time Square to Central Park, Manhattan is a great place to visit.

Finding Great Last Minute Airfares

Depending on if my travel plans are flexible, there are some terrific last minute deals to grab from sites such as Expedia and Travelocity. I’ll use Travelocity as an example; they have a Last Minute Packages feature that allows me to select trips for about $250 including flight and hotel. (Wow!) One of their current deals includes a trip to Washington D.C. as a destination. Departing from Los Angeles and traveling to Washington, the trip averages about $375 per person for 3 days including airfare and hotel. East coast departure cities come closer to the $250 price tag. Not too shabby!

Another method I use when searching for the best airfare deals online is Kayak.com. Kayak searches multiple online travel engines simultaneously, saving me time searching each of them myself. Multiple browser windows pop-up and I can effortlessly compare their airfare deals side-by-side.

Once I’ve found the best flight price, I check to see if they are part of the MyPoints.com program. Purchasing through a My Points vendor builds up my points, which I then use towards gas and gift cards. I have to admit that I don’t fly often enough to rack up enough frequent flyer points on any one particular airline, so the My Points program allows me to earn points through various vendors. It’s a great alternative for me.

Making traveling by car comfortable

Sometimes, the least expensive travel option is driving to your destination, especially for families of three or more. Though driving to your vacation spot can be trying, verging on grueling, there are some ways to make it more comfortable and pleasant.

One of the best ways I’ve found, relieving the intensity of driving long distances, is to break up the drive time. Plan to stop along the way, whether it’s a 30-minute rest stop or spending the night at an inexpensive motel, stretching out my legs and getting out of the car helps alleviate the discomfort of sitting for hours on end.

Another option to make driving comfortable is to bring along a neck rest or pillows. Of course, this only comforts the passengers of the vehicle, not the driver him/herself. As a child on family road trips, I remember crashing in the back of the conversion van and sleeping for hours while my parents drove across state. (This was during the days of no seatbelts. I don’t recommend this!)

Bringing along my own fresh snacks also helps during the scheduled, frequent stops. It saves time and money by not having to eat at a restaurant every few hours, and it’s healthier than most fast food options, a standard on almost every road trip.

And finally, to help restless kids pass the time (without staring at a monitor the entire trip) there are a few good, old-fashioned travel games you can play to keep them engaged and entertained. Here is a short list:

• The traditional I-Spy game is always fun (for about 10 minutes, that is).

• Scavenger Hunt: before your trip, print out a list of items you might see while traveling. Then try to predict who might win the game first. Each kid and adult can scratch off their list as they view their item.

• License Plate Game: See who can find all 50 state plates first. Print out a list of the states before you go, give each person a list.

• Portable travel games: There are many portable, printable games available, like bingo and scrabble. A great site I came across that has printable versions of many of these games is www.momsminivan.com. A great resource for activities.

• Card Games: Some games I remember enjoying as a kid were Uno, Go Fish, and War. All you need is a deck of cards.

As the cooler weather trickles in, I’m itching to hop on the rail and zip up to Santa Barbara with my bike. With the convenience and low cost of Amtrak, and their luggage cars that store my bike throughout the trip, I might just have to take an excursion this weekend!

Sometimes keeping up with friends earning significantly more than you can be difficult. Maybe you have a professional job, but your best friend from high school is an entrepreneur or lawyer, earning more than double your salary. You still want to hang out, but you definitely can’t afford to do everything he/she does. People who have more spending power often choose to eat at expensive places, drink at pricey bars, and take fancy vacations.

We’ve all seen that episode of Friends when Joey, Rachel, and Phoebe have to confront the rest of the gang about their weaker financial status. If you haven’t seen the episode, there is a part where Rachel, Joey, and Phoebe order just soups/side salad because they can’t afford anything on the menu at a fancy restaurant. However, they don’t want to decline the dinner invitation because the dinner is meant to celebrate Monica’s recent promotion. It plays out pretty funny in the episode, but it may not be as comical if the situation involves your real- life. No one wants to say they can’t afford to go to a certain place, especially when it’s to one of your really good friends. Here are some tips to help you find ways to hang out with your ritzy friends without going bankrupt.

Potluck It

If your friends like to eat out relatively often, try to plan a pot luck or more intimate event at home! You can send out email invitations to a group of friends. Cook the main dish, and ask friends to bring sides–Or even split up the main dish items. You can suggest doing this monthly, so you won’t have to host each time. This could be a great way to save money! Plus, it can be more fun and intimate to have your friends over (rather than just going to a restaurant each time).

Traveling: The Early Bird Always Get the Worm (or the Deal)

If your friends like to take fancy vacations on a regular basis, it may be tough for you to keep up financially. Everyone deserves a bite of the good life, so try to plan trips early! Check websites for early deals on vacation packages. You may also find good last minute deals, so check those as well!

Groupon and Mailing Lists

We do all like to dine well, but you don’t have to feel guilty every time you do it. Look for deals in your city on a weekly basis. Groupon features deals by city. Also, if you sign up for restaurant mailing lists, they usually send you gift certificates for your birthday. If they are too stingy to do that, they’ll at least email you specials of the week/month. Emails about food can NEVER be spam, right?

By-line:

Alvina Lopez is a freelance writer and blog junkie, who blogs about accredited online colleges.  She welcomes your comments at her email Id: alvina.lopez @gmail.com.

Ever since I created my Bliss Box Quiz, my head has been a-buzz with quiz-show type questions. Maybe it’s a niche I’ll have to develop into it’s own page at some point. But what does this have to do with personal finance or buying a house? Well, determining if one is a homebody or wanderlust could affect their personal finances. For example, a homebody may be more prone to want to purchase a house closer to home, no matter what the price or real estate market looks like. Where as a wanderlust could spend their entire fortune trekking across the globe searching for their elusive El Dorado. So, I’ve decided to pose a few questions for determining if one if a homebody or wanderlust, or someone who falls in between. I’ve included a description of what the answers could mean financially at the end of the quiz:

1. You’ve been invited to your cousin’s last minute wedding in Aruba. You have a nice emergency fund set aside, so you:
A. Aruba? You don’t know anyone in Aruba. You’ll pass.
B. Decide to search for the best travel deals, and if there is one within what you’re willing to pay, book the trip. If not, you’ll send a nice gift.
C. Immediately begin to pack.

2. You’ve just been offered a promotion at work that includes having to travel a couple of times a week, you:
A. Decline the promotion. Explain that you’re claustrophobic and just don’t travel very well. You’re more than happy in your current position.
B. Negotiate a deal where you not only get a 2% adjustment on the raise they’ve already offered you, but a Platinum Business AMEX so you can rack up travel points for yourself. Might as well take advantage of the company paying for your travel.
C. It’s your dream job! You jump up, kiss your boss, and begin planning side excursions to all the exciting cities you’ll be visiting, even if that includes Milwaukee.

3. You’re spouse has been offered a job in another state. The job has amazing benefits and the salary is “to die for”, you:
A. Discourage your spouse from taking the job. The thought of moving makes you nauseous. Besides, you’re geographically challenged and really aren’t sure where Raleigh is anyway.
B. Have a lengthy discussion with your spouse and weigh the pros and cons of moving and relocating. After discussing it together, you make a financially sound decision.
C. Whoo, hoo! You’ve been dying to live on the east coast for years. You’re goal is to live in every corner of the US before retirement.

4. You’ve been hoping to purchase a home in the near future, however the area you live in is extremely expensive, you:
A. Keep plugging along, eventually you’ll have enough for the down payment. Even if that means you’ll be 80 years old.
B. Make a back-up plan; living in an expensive area is financial-sabotage. You’ll give it X amount of years, then you’re off to a less expensive locale.
C. Immediately plot your escape. There are hundreds of US cities just waiting for you to arrive.

5. Your best friend from college was lucky enough to win an all expense paid vacation to Europe for two weeks. They invited you along since their spouse can’t go, you:
A. Decline; your suitcase is collecting dust in the attic and it’s just too much of a last minute, spur of the moment trip.
B. You call work and make sure you can escape for those two weeks, promising you’ll check in every other day. You also have enough extra cash set aside for spending money, so finances aren’t a problem.
C. Hop on the next plane and meet your friend in Europe, even if it means charging the extra expenses on a credit card, You’re definitely going!

Obviously, there’s a range on whether one defines themselves as a Homebody, a Wanderlust, or somewhere in the middle. So, to make scoring easy, the following applies:

Answers: A = 1, B = 2, C = 3 (If you range somewhere in the middle section, then you’re just a level-headed person!)

Homebody vs. Wanderlust

Now for some link love:

• Digging Out of Our Mess also celebrated her one-year blog anniversary. Happy Anniversary, Mysti!
• Everyday Tips and Thoughts with Retiring Before the Age of 40? How Realistic is That? I really love the tone of Kris’ blog. I think that’s because we are really close in age and may have a similar outlook on life. (Maybe I’m presuming too much, but I still like reading her posts!)
• Young and Thrifty with Ode to Promo Codes. She did a terrific job on her rhyming poem.
• Rainy Day Saver with Make Money Freelancing – Through Networking. She lists some terrific ideas to add to what you may already know about how to obtain freelance work.
• Financial Samurai with his ever spicy posts, Is It Better to Rent to Males or Females? Just be sure to have that 18-months of rent saved up!
• Car Insurance Comparison with Auto Insurance Reform, a humorous letter to a local congressmen. Very tongue-in-cheek, but funny.

Go Banking Rates

I have a guest post over at GoBankingRates.com about AMEX Travel Companion Ticket. The article describes how to obtain a companion ticket and if it’s worth the bother. If you’re interested, check it out!

Finding low cost options for traveling to a funeral.

Man, if you look at my last post and this one, you’re surely thinking I’m obsessed with death. Not so, I say. However, death is a certainty no one can escape. And with death, comes funeral services. And with funeral services, comes family members scrambling to make it to the burial service. With last minute travel arrangements underway, getting the best deal is imperative. This past week my husband’s grandfather passed away, it was his last remaining grandparent. (My last remaining grandparent died over 10 years ago and I attended his funeral.) He made the decision that he would travel to Nebraska for the services, and because it was financially too expensive for me to accompany him with missing work plus the additional cost of a flight, we decided I would stay home. I honestly only met his grandfather once 11 years ago, so I was okay with this arrangement. I’m sure you are now realizing why I’ve been focusing on death this week!

Since death is imminent, yet elusive, meaning you can’t pinpoint the exact date of death, booking travel arrangements last minute can become costly. I’m the financial accountant around here, so I’m usually the one in charge of searching for the most economical airfare. We had less than 4 days from the time of notice to the day of the funeral to book the flight. I immediately began searching multiple travel websites. Travelocity.com is always the first website I scope out since they were one of the first online travel sites, but one I’ve recently started using that searches multiple sites at once is Kayak.com. Not only does Kayak search their own database for the lowest fares, it gives you the option of searching an additional 5 sites (this helps me remember all of my options): Priceline, Hotwire, Travelocity, Expedia, and Airfare.com. Smaller browser windows pop up on your desktop so that you can literally compare their rates side by side. This is by far their best advantage compared to other online travel sites.

After glancing at all of the different sites plus the flights on Kayak, I found the best price and shortest flight time (very important since my husband hates traveling!) on Priceline.com. For under $600 we were able to book a round trip flight that would allow my husband to arrive the day before the funeral. Unfortunately, he had to say an additional day longer than he would have liked or pay twice the price for the flight. Funny how returning on a Saturday is half as much as returning on a Friday. Some tips if you’re ever in need of last minute flight arrangements:

• Search multiple sites, or use Kayak to do this for you, for the best price.
• Be a little flexible if you can. For instance, my husband made the choice to stay one day longer even though he really wanted to return a day earlier. Luckily he was staying with relatives, so the cost of a hotel didn’t have to be factored in here.
• If you know you have to book a flight for a funeral, do it as soon as you know the date of the funeral, don’t wait! My mother-in-law waited one additional day to book her flight and it cost her quite a bit more money.

Death is an uncomfortable topic for some, but it is an event that happens once in everyone’s life. Being able to attend a funeral of a loved one gives people closure, and being able to do that without going into debt relieves some of that stress.

On a side note, I didn’t contact the airlines directly and ask for a bereavement fare because in my experience, the online rates are usually less expensive.

Have you had to make last minute flight arrangements due to a death or emergency? What did you do to minimize the flight cost? Have you used Kayak for booking your travel needs?