One of my life goals is to give my kids the world via travel. So in pursuit of that dream the BargainSwag family traveled to Portugal and over the next couple of weeks we'll be posting about our experiences, deals and tips we used to make travel more affordable for our family.
Learning About Our Destination:
As soon as we decided on Portugal I picked up a book on Lisbon and one on Portugal to educate myself about our destination and plan as much of the trip as I could in advance. The books also came with maps, which came in handy during the trip as well.
Flight Deal:
Portugal was on my short list of places to visit since friends of ours moved their a few years ago. I looked at flights for August last year and was shocked to see prices around $1,400. Well, with the way my travel budget is set up, that was a quick NO. We found a great deal to St. Kitts instead, but fast forward to fall. I started looking ahead toward possible spring break trip destinations. I plugged in Lisbon, Portugal and found direct flights out of JFK for around $490 in the main cabin, which includes one free checked bag and seat selection. This was a big score in my opinion, even though it wasn't my best flight find ever, but I thought it was pretty good, so we jumped on it. To help soften the blow a bit I used some of our Delta Skymiles to cover the cost of one of the tickets. For all 5 flights our final total was just under $2,000.
Getting Around Town:
We heard that driving in Lisbon could be hectic and we really didn't want to deal with driving if we didn't have to. Additionally, a family member would be joining us during our trip, bringing our group total to six.Vehicles are generally smaller in Europe, but our group size would require a van rental, which would be costly and fuel prices are much higher there then in the US. All of this sounded like a budget buster and a headache, so we decided to forego a vehicle.
We learned that Lisbon is a great city for walking and has many transit options such as metro (subway), buses, trams, trains, taxis and they are all inexpensive. We were very happy with our decision to forego the rental, as my husband didn't have to stress about driving in an unfamiliar country, deal with parking headaches or fight through traffic issues.
Location, Location, Location:
Between reading and getting advice from our friends, we decided it would be best to stay near the city center of Lisbon. Our apartment was located just down the street from Avenida da Liberdade (Liberty Ave.) one of the main avenues in central Lisbon known for expensive shops, hotels, restaurant, monuments and beautiful fountains. We were in a great location, within walking distance to everything we needed.
Deals on Lodging:
Originally we were going to stay at a hotel in Lisbon because we had some rewards points we could've used to keep cost down. Unfortunately, we would have needed to use an insane amount of points for two rooms for seven nights and the redemption value for those points wouldn't have been great and the cash amount would have cost us way more than we wanted to spend.
Airbnb quickly became a smarter decision, even though I often prefer the luxury of a hotel where I can call down for room service, more towels, and house keeping. In this case it was nice to have an apartment with a full kitchen, living room, three bedrooms and two bathrooms, conveniently located to downtown Lisbon all for around $250 a night. We stayed seven nights for around $1,800.
Saved on Meals Buying Groceries and Eating Some Meals at Home:
Our apartment had a small grocery store right next door, a cool vintage shop across the street that we shopped at, a nail salon, a tattoo parlor as well as many other cute shops and restaurants that we visited during our stay. The grocery store was convenient and we visited frequently.
I so enjoyed all the different amazing olives offered at the bar and my family loved all the fresh fruit juice options such as pear, passion fruit, Pineapple, and mango.
Having a store so close was a saving grace and there was a large selection of offerings that saved us a lot of money allowing us to stock up on fruit, snacks, juice, cheese, bread, prosciutto, ham, olives and water. Also, the kids got hooked on the crackers pictured above, so yummy and great with cheese and prosciutto too.
We definitely indulged in our fair share of fresh fruit, the oranges were our favorites, so sweet, juicy and delicious. Honestly, the oranges were addictive and I guess they are plentiful because we noticed lots of orange trees around Lisbon while sightseeing around town.
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