How Social Media Can Help You Save Money While Traveling

What would you do if you had a million dollars? Most of the people would quit their job and travel around the world because it is arguably the best experience one can have. If you have found this article, you share this position as well. Welcome, a fellow fan of travel, we are going to share some good tips on how to travel cheaper in this article.

Perhaps the most significant barrier to traveling is the cost. A trip around a home country might cost at least a thousand dollars. According to BudgetYourTrip.com, an average daily cost for traveling in the United States is around $225, with an average price of food being $41. The rates for a trip abroad would be even higher.

However, this should not stop you from finally making your dream come true. An unexpected help may come from social media. If you want to know how sites like Facebook and Instagram can help to save money while traveling, read on.

Follow Budget Travel Bloggers

Most of the travel bloggers travel on limited budgets. Budget Traveller and Nomadic Matt are good examples of blogs you can use to get some helpful tips from experienced travelers. For example, this article from Budget Traveller describes 19 things you can do in Lisbon on a budget. It would be a huge help for first-time travelers to Lisbon who want to do some cool things in the city on a budget.

The website also contains guides to many other countries and cities for budget travelers. By using the tips in the guides, you can save money and still have a fantastic experience.

If you want to find out the most popular budget travel blogs, visit USA Today's top ten list. FlipKey by TripAdvisor also has a good list. Most of these bloggers have profiles on social media, so you can follow them there to get the latest tips on your smartphone.

Find Discounts on Facebook

Facebook is an endless source of deals for travelers. "If you follow the right pages and check out their updates on a regular basis, you may get some amazing deals," says Stan Philip, a travel and writer at Assignmenthelper. "For example, hotels often inform their audience about discounts and other news through social media."

You won't spend a lot of time to find them. Just use the Facebook search button and proper keywords.

If you don't follow any official pages of hotels, you can still find their offers. Just type "discounts + hotels (restaurants, etc.) + city or country you're interested in" in the search and click enter. To improve the quality of the results, select Posts in the bar just below the search (you can check other options as well). Here are some examples of search results we received.

In this post, a popular website Hotels.com offers the followers to get a $15 discount off a booking of $100 or more through their official mobile app. It's a nice reward for installing an app, agree? Moreover, you will save money on the next booking.

This post is another example of good deals. A Holiday Inn in London gives away information about discounts in its restaurant Twenty Twelve, which, by the way, has very good reviews on TripAdvisor. For example, you can get a 50 percent discount every Monday and a 30 percent discount on all food and drinks from Tuesday to Sunday. Sweet!

Businesses can also reward the followers of their social media pages for liking and commenting on their posts. It is a popular marketing method that has advantages for both companies and their followers. For example, check out this one from the Hyatt Capital Gate Abu Dhabi:

 They are willing to give away a voucher for 2 persons for a very simple action: liking the post and naming the person you want to bring along. Not too shabby, agree?

So the bottom line here is that you need to use "Like" button very often. To save money on travel using social media, you have to follow hotels, airlines, rental car companies, and other businesses you might use.

Find Discounts on Twitter

The next major source of discounts for travelers is Twitter. There are two primary ways in which you can get good deals: by following accounts of companies or aggregators that tweet out the latest offers.

For example, one of the most popular aggregators is @airfarewatchdog. By following it, you will get airfare deals selected by experts in your feed.

Also, you can follow the accounts of companies you're interested in. For example, if you want to get a good price for an airline ticket, follow airlines. All major airlines have Twitter accounts that regularly post good deals and discounts.

Also, you can follow hotels. For example, if you're planning a trip to Aruba, you can check out the most popular hotels there, such as @ArubaMarriott, @HolidayInnAruba, and @RadissonAruba. Other popular destinations also have separate Twitter pages.

If you cannot decide on the destination for your next trip, you can always use #traveldeals and #flightdiscounts to expand your search. Here is an example post found using these hashtags:

Time to Hunt!

Now, it's time to hit those "like" and "follow" buttons to find that discounted prices and read blogs to get some useful tips. Remember, social media have an endless supply of deals for you, so check out your feed more often.

Happy and cheap traveling to you!