How To Holiday For Cheap: Part 1

It is a well known fact that holidaying in Kenya is very expensive, and a holiday a year is out of reach for most people here. Nairobi is known for its expensive hotels, and most of the holiday offerings are for the very rich. In a city like Bangkok, you will pay Kshs 7,000 a night in a 4-star hotel, whose equivalent costs twice or even thrice of that in Nairobi and Mombasa. This article by Bitange Ndemo compares holidaying in Kenya versus a city like Dubai, and his points are valid: the Kenya Tourism Board needs to do certain things to make it cheaper.

As we wait for KTB, I believe that with a bit of planning and frugality, one should be able to go on a decent holiday for as little as Kshs 20,000 for a 4 day holiday once a year or more. My friends and family know me for planning frugal holidays, and in this post, I will give you my 5 tips for frugal holiday planning. I will use examples of personal experience in the post and hopefully will write about these examples in more detail in a later post.

1. Define what holiday means to you: This sounds obvious, but it may not be. Most young people (myself included) are influenced by various factors in their perception of holiday. This could be the media (holiday in Hawaii, debauchery in Las Vegas), could be our friends, and even what we thought a holiday was as children. However you often find that the real life translation of some of these holiday impressions may not really translate to a time of rest and a time out. A good example of this are people who replicate Las Vegas by going to Mombasa and clubbing each day every day, drinking, overeating etc. It may fit the movie image of a holiday and may lead to acceptance among peers, but do those people come back to Nairobi rested and refreshed?I doubt it.

It is important that you have the right image of what consists a holiday for you, that way you will be getting value for money. For me, a holiday means time. Time to read, bond with my daughter, take walks, cook good food, look for good food and to just breathe. A holiday for me also means a break from the usual routine, and being away from Nairobi, doesn’t matter the destination.

2. Plan your holiday during off peak and to unique locations: I believe one of the reasons why it is so expensive to go on holiday in Kenya is because we all go on holiday at the same time; around December 20th – 26th. We also all go down to the Coast, and more specifically to the North Coast, hence scenes like the one here.

With proper planning, you can make off peak months like February, July, August and September your main holiday months, then the Christmas week can be spent at home with family or upcountry. One of the frugal holidays I have been on was with my elder sister. We stayed in Diani (200 metres from the beach), at Kshs 1,500 per night in a self catering cottage in September 2012. During peak times, the same cottage goes for Kshs 5,500 per night.

Secondly, it is possible to enjoy a holiday elsewhere but the Coast; the North Coast. I feel like we (Kenyans) need to explore other options. You can swim in the Bogoria hot springs, eat the wonderful fish they serve at the Kisumu lakeside, explore the beautiful scenery in Nanyuki, and if you must go to Mombasa, the South Coast is fantastic. It isn’t crowded, and if you look away from the tourist hotels, you can find great accommodation options at a steal. In January 2012, we stayed in a 3 bedroom cottage in Diani (near Lantana Galu beach apartments) for Kshs 7,000 a night in total (excluding food, which we bought and had the chefs prepare for us). Would I have wanted to stay in the luxury hotels in Diani? Definitely. But for Kshs 22,000 upwards a night, that would have meant postponing the holiday (and many other things) for another 12 months, and in return getting to say that I stayed in a luxury hotel. I paid what I could afford, and I still had a great restful time;I went for a morning jog at the beach, sat at a balcony and enjoyed reading my book, took a leisurely afternoon swim, an evening walk on the beach, and ate fantastic food.

3. Plan and make bookings early: Making last minute plans is costly all the way. You end up paying more, getting less value, and going on holiday while frazzled and annoyed especially if Murphy’s Law comes into play (what can go wrong always goes wrong). My rule of the thumb is to book accommodation at least 4 weeks before the travel date, and flight at least 1.5 to 2 months (or even more) before travel dates to take advantage of good prices.

For this, I will give an example of two trips I took last year for the Moshi and the Kampala marathons. For Moshi, we made last minute bookings ( I was in a group), and ended up staying in a fairly shabby hotel that had bad food, and sincerely I felt we paid too much for what we were getting. Learning from this, I made bookings for the Kampala marathon at least 3 weeks before the marathon, which gave me time to ask around, shop around and even negotiate. My sister and I ended up staying in a luxury 3 bedroom apartment a few metres from the marathon starting point, and at a price of a 2 bedroom aparment! We got a free upgrade for booking and paying early.

4. Choose the slower route: When traveling by air, it is often much cheaper to have longer layovers, than a non stop route. It is of course much cheaper to travel by bus than by plane. Taking the longer route can prove to me more scenic as you get to see more sights and have variety in your trip. I find that traveling to Mombasa by road for example is more fun than flying. The 5-6 hours of great scenery help you get into “holiday mode”, compared to a 45 minute flight which ends before it begins, and costs over 3 times more. Whenever I have the time, I always go by road (bus or driving).

Last year, I went to Bangkok with my mom, and I managed to get us return tickets for Kshs 128,000 (Kshs 64,000 per person), which is the price of a non stop flight to Bangkok for one person return. We opted to use Ethiopia Air instead of Kenya Airways which had a 5 hour stopover at Addis. We had never been to Addis, and even though we were going to spend the entire time inside the airport, the saving was worth it, and we got to people-watch, something that I enjoy. When looking at layovers, be careful not to book a flight that will cost you more in hotel expenses (if you have to book a hotel during the layover), or one that will be so exhausting that the saving isn’t worth it. For example, a 15 hour layover would be too much for me.

5. Take advantage of work trips to holiday: Whenever you’re traveling for work, take 3 or so days of leave, and use them to explore the city or even as a time out. Again, advance planning comes in handy because you have to not only apply for the leave days (and get them approved), you also have to get approval for a different return date for your flight. It is however not as hard as it sounds, as most business trips end on a Friday, meaning you can use the weekend days to have a mini-holiday.

However, don’t stay in the expensive business hotel your employer put you up in, downgrade for the extra days as you will be paying. Another tip here: if your company gives you per diem, eat cheap and use that money to explore the city.

In the next post, I give 5 more tips for going on holiday for cheap!

I am launching a newsletter that will contain content that is not on the blog, please sign up by clicking on this link. The first edition will contain a detailed example of a super frugal holiday I planned recently.