HOW WE WENT AROUND THE WORLD IN COMFORT ON $130 A DAY
By CATHERINE O'NEILL

(MONEY Magazine) – Last July my husband Richard and I, both writers, took our three children (Colin, 29, Conor, 26 and Fiona, 10) on a month-long trip around the world. We wanted to spend as little as possible--while still staying at nice hotels, eating well and seeing and doing whatever we pleased. Not counting a few splurges, we succeeded in holding the total cost to less than $20,000, or about $130 a person per day. If you want a major trip on our budget, here's how you too can wrestle your expenses down to size:

Buy a round-the-world plane ticket. We planned to go from our home in Los Angeles to a dozen cities in Asia, the Near East and Europe--but we wanted the freedom to change our minds en route. Because Richard and I had taken two world trips before, we knew that special round-the-world tickets were the best deal. Virtually every major airline offers such tickets, in partnership with one or more other airlines overseas. In general, you can stop in as many cities as you like, so long as you keep heading in the same direction and your total flying distance does not exceed the 24,902-mile circumference of the globe, plus 98 miles. Our round-the-world economy-class tickets, good on Delta, Singapore Airlines and SwissAir, cost $2,200 per adult and $1,500 for Fiona. I estimate those tickets saved us at least $5,000 off regular advance-purchase leisure fares for our itinerary.

Use discount hotel coupons. For a few years, we had hoarded coupons good for half off two nights at major hotel chains such as Hilton, Sheraton and Westin; we'd gotten one for every 25,000 miles flown under our United Airlines frequent-flier memberships. By the time we left home, we had six. We used the coupons in Tokyo, Hong Kong and Taipei, cities where hotels are very expensive. Total savings: $1,800. All told, we spent an average of $100 a room per night--one room for us, one for the kids--or $6,000 total.

Take public transportation. We held our local transportation costs to $600 with careful advance planning, which included reading travel books and grilling friends who had been to the cities on our itinerary. Among other tips, we learned never to take a taxi from Tokyo's Narita airport to the city center: it costs $200! Instead, after our 11-hour flight, we hopped a train (cost: about $20 per person).

Buy food at grocery stores. In Japan, where the dollar was at an all-time low during our visit, we bought juice and bread at local stores and ate in our rooms to avoid hotel restaurant breakfasts that cost $20 to $30 apiece. Our food bill averaged about $20 a person per day, or $3,000 total for the trip.

Scout out cheap entertainment. We each spent about $3 a day for entertainment, or a total of $450 for the five of us--mostly by taking full advantage of outstanding sights that were free or at least low cost. Those included an amusement park in Jakarta, the National Palace museum in Taipei, traditional dancing in Bali and the zoo in Berlin.

Collect an added bonus. At the end of our trip, Richard, Fiona and I bought three $360 round-trip tickets on United to fly from New York City to Los Angeles rather than finishing off our round-the-world tickets. That way, the three of us were able to use the last, unused leg of our round-the-world tickets to embark on a second 10-day vacation last Christmas to New York City, Orlando and Dallas at no additional cost. We got our money's worth--and some never-to-be-duplicated experiences.

--Catherine O'Neill