Travel Las Vegas On A Budget. Part 3

Ok, so you’ve got through a long day of shopping and wasting time at the outlets and downtown Freemont Street Las Vegas. Did i say wasting time, apologies, passing time, you’re traveling after all, living life to the fullest!

One of the smartest things you can do when traveling abroad, is financially plan in advance, so you’re not “cash strapped” on arrival. What i started out doing, which is really effective, is to open up a travel debit visa card, in the currency of the country i’m visiting. In this case, it’s US Dollars for America. The beauty with this is, you can make payments anytime you like and it locks in the currency at the rate on that day and fixes it for the lifetime of the usage of the card. Smart ha? Ingenious i think! When you consider how much the $AUD / Australian dollar is faring against the $USD, I’ve done quite well locking it in, now that it’s buying about 0.67 cents on the U.S Dollar, which is sickening, considering it was on par dollar for dollar about 2 years ago!

Fortunately i’ve run good on the poker tables (often seen frequenting the Treasure Island Las Vegas Poker Room) playing daily $750 – $1,000 guaranteed daily tournaments until closing time), I haven’t had to use my $US dollars on my card that much, so i just keep topping it up over the year and hardly notice the money leaving my savings account. You’ll save a lot of money on withdrawal fees. For example, a typical VISA card ATM withdrawal can incur fees of up to $50 on up to $1000 withdrawal at an ATM. Now when you consider that’s about p AUSTRALIAN Dollars, that’s insane, we’re on a budget remember!!! With the Visa debit card, you can only spend what’s yours, never a cent more.

So if you go nuts shopping or at the tables, you won;t go in debt, you might be broke, but the good news is, NO DEBT :/ The fees on a withdrawal are about $6-7 U.S per withdrawal, so it makes sense to take $100-200 at a time out, as you’ll incur the same fee for $20-$40, which is silly!

So now that you’re armed with all this cash for your Budget Las Vegas Vacation, what are you going to do for entertainment and meals, easy, sorted. You’ve probably heard of Groupon no doubt? If you haven’t start living, you’re missing out on a world of good deals in the palm of your hand 24/7, updated daily! Set your search at the top of the app to “current location” or manually type in “Las Vegas” and presto, up come all the local deals in Las Vegas, all within your budget. Dinners for 2 heavily discounted.

Chopper rides at half price, facials, massages, theme parks, ghost tours, everything you can think of. If you were to buy direct or online direct, you really would pay almost double for the same meal or service. A lot of things are for 2-4 or 6 people, chances are you won’t be travelling alone, so you’ll be fine. I purchased some great meals on the strip, like an all you can eat Brazilian BBQ meats with a drink and sweets for 2, all for under $80. Sounds expensive, but a cheap treat after a good day of poker for well under half the price if i rocked up unannounced off the street. The food was amazing and it was on the Las Vegas Strip, 5 minute walk from my hotel, no cab required.

I probably put on 2kgs and lost none on the walk back, since it was so close to my hotel 🙁 I did get solicited a few times though on the way, then i realized they wanted money for services rendered. So much for looking in the mirror before i went out.

You’ll even get chopper rides around the Las Vegas Strip for half the coupon price you’ll find in your hotel room coupon book of “things to do in Vegas”. Maybe you’ve had a good run in poker or blackjack and want to upgrade hotels, since you can stretch the budget a little? Do it, you only live once and you know what they say, “when in Rome”, well in this instance it’s “what happens in Las Vegas, stays in Las Vegas”.

Sorry to all the wives and girlfriends out there, boys will be boys. In your downtime, browse on powerful travel search engine sites like www.tophotelbargains.com for the best travel deals in real time. They compare a huge myriad of providers and up to 250,000 hotels in 50,000 locations with up to 75% off. They’ve got your Las Vegas on a budget vacation well and truly covered, even shop for the best flights.

We’ll go into more depth on your Las Vegas On A Budget Vacation in Part 4 of this blog. I’m off for a walk to get a coffee and to enjoy the Australian sun in Melbourne, 27 degrees , it doesn’t get any better #spring. Until next time 🙂