How to Afford Your Summer Getaway

This article has been graciously contributed by one of our favorite websites, LearnVest.com,

Travel presents a unique mix of stress and relaxation:

Lazing on a beach with a margarita? Relaxation.
Spending hours researching the best airfare? Stress.
Hiking through perfect, misty mountains? Relaxation.
Tying up loose ends at work, then picking them back up again upon our return? Stress.

Sadly, tons of Americans don’t use their full annual vacation—and as many as 25% of them check into work every hour when they’re away. But studies have shown that time off can make us more positive about our workplaces and our personal lives, and that it can even make us physically healthier.

So, whether you’re planning an easy weekend getaway this summer or saving up for an epic voyage, we have combed the earth (at least, the internet!) to create the ultimate travel checklist to make your trip pure relaxation.

We’ve covered every step of the process, from figuring out your vacation budget, to finding a shockingly affordable place to crash, to planning ahead so you won’t be stressed when you get back home.

Not to mention, we’ve found 27 different free websites, apps and resources to help you find the absolute cheapest hotel and rental car rates, stay on top of your flight status and even keep yourself occupied at the gate.

1. Decide Your Vacation Budget -- Vacations are key for our health, our wellbeing and even our careers. At the same time, you should never go into credit card debt for the sake of funding a getaway. Start by figuring out how much you can afford to spend on everything, altogether. One of the easiest ways to do that is to build your budget in the LearnVest My Money Center. And the best part is that you can get as specific as you want when you name your vacation folder: Two weeks in Tahiti? Road trip to Yellowstone? Knock yourself out—and know you can afford it, too. Ah, bliss.

2. Figure Out a Location -- If you only have a certain amount you can spend on plane tickets but no particular destination in mind, try the Kayak “Explore” tool, which will show fares within your price range around the country and world. For example, we browsed fares available for someone flying out of New York City for under $400, and got over 1,000 results.

3. Book a Flight -- Doesn’t it suck when you buy a plane ticket andthen the price goes down? Yapta helps you recoup those costs if that happens to you, by tracking the price of your booked flight and alerting you to any fare drops. Note: Many airlines charge a fee to reschedule a flight, so this will be most handy if the price has gone down more than the cost of the change fee. And you’re in luck if you’ve booked with a smaller carrier like JetBlue, which doesn’t charge any fees if you change your ticket more than a week before your departure date. Wondering where to start when you’re looking for a flight? Is Expedia better, or Kayak? Check out our chart comparing the travel search engines, and our game plan with when to buy plane tickets for every occasion.

4. Find Somewhere to Crash -- When five of us on the LearnVest editorial team took a trip to Iceland last year (and shared our photos!), we stayed in Reykjavik throughAirbnb, which allows regular people to rent out their homes. In addition to being incredibly cost-effective, we had rooms of our own and didn't deal with the who-will-buddy-up-with-whom issue you face at hotels. Airbnb offerings range from private houses to humble couches in people’s apartments. Definitely look at user reviews to avoid sketchiness. For a similar service based in Europe, we’ve heard good things about Wimdu. If you’re traveling with a family or large group, you could rent a house through resources like HomeAway and VRBO, and, if you’re looking for something higher-end,Jetsetter Homes. We’ve laid out some pros and cons of renting houses. (That story appeared in LV Moms—to sign up for the LV Moms daily newsletter, click here.)

5. Take a Chance on Your Accommodations -- If you know you want to stay at an actual hotel, consider opaque travel deals. You’re told a hotel’s location, amenities and how many stars it has, just not its name. In exchange for “booking blind,” you’re offered extra cheap deals. According to Kellie Pelletier, an executive at Jetsetter, hotels require anonymity when offering their best deals because they don’t want everyone to know how cheaply they’re giving away rooms. All the same, if they’re under-booked, they’re willing to offer huge discounts.  Opaque deals used to be the province of budget sites like Priceline and Hotwire. (We found a great blog post on how to play Priceline and Hotwire off each other for the best deal, here.) Now higher-end sites have been getting in on the act:

Luxury Link allows users to bid like on Priceline, but for more luxurious vacation packages (think wine tastings and massages).

Guestmob lets you choose a “collection” of four hotels in the budget, city and neighborhood of your choice, and gives you discounts of 30% to 50% if you forgo the ability to choose which of those four hotels you’ll stay at.

Delta offers Mystery Deals for destinations in Mexico and the Caribbean. There are two variants: 1) users know the name of the hotel but not the exact branch; 2) users know the destination and hotel rating, but not the specific part of town or hotel.

Every one of Jetsetter’s Mystery Monday deals is vetted by an editor. We recently saw a deal for a Boston hotel reduced from $385 per night to $209.

By the way, if the deal page offers enough details and you do some keen Googling, you can sometimes guess the hotel.

6. Make Sure You Have the Cheapest Rate -- Even if you book a hotel the good old fashioned way, Tingo helps you figure out if your hotel rate has dropped since booking, and helps you rebook the same room at the lower rate (kind of like Yapta for hotels). Orbitz offers a similar feature, called Orbitz Price Assurance, which refunds you the difference on plane tickets and hotels rooms (up to $250 per ticket for airfare and $500 per room). Tingo doesn’t have an upper limit, though we don’t generally expect our hotel rooms to drop $500 apiece after booking!

7. Rent a Car -- A great way to save: AutoSlash is an online booking engine for car rentals. If you book free on its site, it will search for coupons or lower rates a few times a day until the day of your trip. If the system finds a better rate for your car rental, it will automatically rebook you. For now, most auto rental companies don’t penalize customers who change or cancel their reservations, even at the last minute. That means AutoSlash can change your car reservation constantly, straight till you’re ready to pick up your car, without penalty. According to Ron Lieber in The New York Times, his own experience supported AutoSlash’s claim that it’s successful at finding customers better rates 85% of the time.

8. Tie Up Loose Ends at Work -- Even if your boss gives you grief about using your rightful vacation days, keep the faith—time off is crucial for regenerating. Of course, returning from vacation to a pile of work makes us feel like we need a vacation from our post-vacation workload. Remember to set a vacation notice on your email, figure out who will deal with pressing issues when you’re away and even tidy up your room so you’re returning to a clean, peaceful home. We’ve got more tips on how to reduce post-vacation stress, in advance, here.

9. Pack Up -- Make sure you get the most from your hard-earned and long-awaited vacation by ensuring you don’t, say, leave your passport behind. We made a packing list for domestic trips, and another for international vacations. Baggage fees are crazy nowadays (Spirit Air might soon charge $100 for carry-on bags!) but you can dodge fees on most airlines by avoiding checked luggage. And, you guessed it: We’ve got you covered with that, too. Check out our diagram for perfect carry-on packing.

10. Make the Most of Your Gate Time -- Many major airports offer flight status notifications online. (For example, New York’s La Guardia Airport has an easy flight status search feature on its site.) Otherwise, check for flight delays before you head out of the house with FlightView. If you do get stuck at the gate, try GateGuru, which will tell you where to go within the airport to find the best, and best-priced amenities, like food or souvenirs. The app is available on iPhone and Android.

This article originally appeared on LearnVest.com.