大衆旅遊的8個省錢之道

Interested in 37 newfangled apps that will save you 0.01 percent on travel for the coming year? I didn’t think so. At some point, you have to stop trying to find every new tool for and shortcut to bargains as they appear and just wait to see which ones stick. By now, you surely know some basics: You probably use meta-search sites to compare airfare and hotel prices; you’ve either tried or consciously avoided “sharing economy” services like Uber; you know that most domestic car rental reservations can be canceled with no penalty should you find a better rate even on the day of the trip.

在新的一年裏，有37個新奇的app能給你省0.01%的旅費。你有興趣嗎？我覺得你不會。在某個時刻，你必須停止努力尋找每個新出現的工具和講價捷徑，等等看哪些app能存活下來。到目前爲止，你肯定知道一些基本情況：你很可能使用元搜索網站來比較機票和酒店價格；你可能嘗試過或有意避免Uber這樣的“分享經濟”服務；你知道如果找到了更便宜的租車價格，美國國內的大部分租車預約服務可以取消，且沒有任何懲罰，即便是在旅行當天取消。

So instead of offering wacky tricks, here are eight ways to take strategies you already know and do them better — with, O.K., a few new appealing tools thrown in.

所以，我在這裏提供的不是怪異的竅門，而是如何利用你已經知道的策略，以及如何更好使用它們的八個方法。好吧，裏面也包括幾個吸引人的新工具。

Uncomfortable with strangers living with you? Equally unexcited to bunk with strangers? Or simply hesitant about Airbnb’s legal struggles? Take a baby step into the sharing economy by renting out your car while you’re away and get free airport parking to boot. Or rent someone else’s car for less than most traditional companies and forget about monitoring the ebb and flow of daily rates as your trip approaches. is now operating in Boston, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Washington and Los Angeles, among other cities. If you’re leaving your car at an airport, you will get between $0.05 and $0.20 per mile driven, plus that free parking if you are renting out your car. Savings can be significant: As of late December you could rent from FlightCar in Boston in January for as low as $19 a day (including tax and insurance), more than 40 percent less than the cheapest listing I found on Kayak (not including insurance).

和陌生人住在一起會讓你覺得不安？也不想和陌生人睡上下鋪？或者就是對Airbnb的法律糾紛心懷疑慮？你可以初步嘗試一下分享經濟，在外出旅行時把車租出去，這樣還能免費在機場停車。或者試試租別人的汽車，價格比大多數傳統公司都低，這樣就不用在旅行臨近時關注每日車價的漲跌。現在在波士頓、舊金山、費城、華盛頓和洛杉磯等城市運營。如果你把車留在機場租出去，你的車每跑一英里，你就能賺0.05至0.20美元，另外還能省去機場停車費。你能省很多錢：在12月底，通過FlightCar你能以每天19美元的低價約到1月份波士頓的汽車（含稅費和保險費），比我在Kayak上找到的最便宜的價格（不含保險費）還低40%多。

If even cars are a bit much for you, how about renting someone’s bike? started in 2012 and has since spread across the world; last December it added skis and this past summer expanded to surfboards and standup paddle boards.

如果連租車你都嫌貴，那租自行車怎麼樣？網站於2012年開創，後來擴展到全球。2013年12月它增加了租滑雪板業務，去年夏天擴展到衝浪板和站立式划槳板租賃。

Nothing on Airbnb says you can negotiate a better price when you book rooms or apartments or houses or yurts, but nothing says you can’t, either. Write the host a note that goes something like this: “Your place looks great but it’s a bit outside my price range. Would you consider $60 a night?” (It’s not as likely to work if the property is managed by a third party rather than directly by the owner.) You’ve also probably noticed Airbnb’s service fees of 6 to 12 percent when they ambush you before you finalize your reservation. A new start-up with a cute name, , charges a lower 3 percent service fee and caps its (pre-fee) prices at $99 a night — no more browsing jealously through those gorgeous, unaffordable Airbnb digs. Instead, Hovelstay, which previously was available only to students, breaks things down into three groups: “survival hovels,” “good enough” and “clean & comfortable."

Airbnb上沒說預訂房間、公寓、房子或帳篷時可以講價，但也沒說不能。你可以給主人寫這樣一封短信：“你的房子看起來很棒，但比我的預算高了一點。你看60美元一晚行嗎？”（如果房產不是房主直接管，而是交由第三方管理，很可能講不下價）。你可能也注意到，在你最終預訂之前，Airbnb會宰你一刀，它的服務費是6%至12%。是個新網站，名字很可愛，它的服務費不到3%，而且房價是每晚最高99美元（不含手續費）——不用再豔羨地瀏覽Airbnb上那些租不起的漂亮房子。Hovelstay之前僅面向學生，它包括“僅供生存”、“足夠好”和“乾淨舒適”這三類房子。

Flying through an airline’s hub rather than going nonstop is the oldest savings trick in the book. But a stopover in Kiev? That’s new. Ukrainian International Airlines began flying out of New York in late April — tragically bad timing. Less than three months later, a Malaysia Airlines jet was shot down near the Ukraine-Russia border amid unrest in the southern and eastern parts of the country itself (far from Kiev). But the airline staged a comeback with almost absurd promotional rates from New York (Dubai for $453?), and although tickets are going fast, as of this writing you can still get from New York to Istanbul or Athens for $479 in February, for example; to Bangkok for $953 in May. All have very reasonable layovers. I couldn’t resist, and booked a flight from New York to Tbilisi, Georgia, and back from Yerevan, Armenia, for $493, with two checked bags (great!) and Ukrainian airplane food (hmmmm).

搭需要轉機的航班而非直達航班是衆所周知的最古老的省錢方法。但是在基輔轉機？那可是新鮮事。去年4月底，烏克蘭國際航空公司開通了很多從紐約起飛的航班——不幸的是，那個時機很糟糕。不到三個月後，由於烏克蘭東南部（離基輔很遠）的動亂，馬來西亞航空公司的一架飛機在烏俄邊境被擊落。不過這家航空公司以近乎荒謬的促銷價捲土重來（從紐約飛到迪拜只用453美元？）。雖然機票賣得很快，但就在我寫這篇文章時，你仍能以479美元的價格買到2月份從紐約飛往伊斯坦布爾或雅典的機票，以953美元的價格買到5月份飛往曼谷的機票。這些航班的轉機地點都很合理。我沒忍住，花了493美元訂了一個從紐約飛往格魯吉亞第比利斯、再從從亞美尼亞耶烈萬返程的航班，包含兩件免費托運行李（太棒了！）以及烏克蘭機餐（美味）。

To state the obvious, some countries are just more expensive than others. I found that out on a trip through Scandinavia, where I ran through cash maybe five times as quickly as I had in an earlier trip to Bolivia. But how cheap a country is can change from year to year, especially as its currency changes. I ran the currencies for most major (and some minor) tourist destinations from Jan. 1, 2014, to late December and found out which ones lost the most ground against the dollar. You probably have already heard that the Russian ruble is tanking (as of late December, a dollar will get you 94 percent more than it did a year ago), but here are some other countries where you would get at least 13 percent more cash for your cash if you arrived there right now: Argentina (31 percent), Chile (16 percent), Mongolia (15 percent), Israel (13 percent) and — yes — Sweden (16 percent) and Norway (21 percent). It was also a bad year for the euro, which means right now is a good time to go to Europe: You would receive about 10 percent more for your dollar in countries from Portugal to Slovakia. (Of course, not all goods and services will be exactly that much cheaper, including hotels that set rates based on the dollar.)

顯而易見，有些國家的消費比較高。我發現在北歐旅行時的花錢速度大約比之前在玻利維亞快五倍。但一個國家的消費水平每年都不同，特別是在匯率發生變化時。我瀏覽了2014年1月至12月底大部分主要（有些是次要）旅遊目的地的貨幣匯率變化情況，找出了與美元相比貶值最多的幣種。你可能已經聽說俄羅斯盧布在貶值（到12月底，一美元能兌換的盧布比一年前多了94%），不過還有其他一些國家，如果你現在去的話，能至少多兌換13%的當地貨幣：阿根廷(31%)、智利(16%)、蒙古(15%)和以色列(13%)，是的，還有瑞典(16%)和挪威(21%)。今年歐元的行情也不好，這意味着現在是去歐洲的好時機：從葡萄牙到斯洛伐克，美元能兌換的當地貨幣增加了約10%（當然，不是所有商品和服務都會便宜那麼多，比如那些按美元定價的酒店）。

You spend a lot of time searching online travel agencies, but have you ever clicked the “Packages” tab? It’s not a match for every trip, but I found out this year that booking a hotel and flight together is the single fastest way to save. It’s not even that unusual to pay less for the plane fare and hotel together than you would have paid just for the flight. But it’s important to compare the price to the best deal you can find elsewhere. When a site tells you you’re saving 10 or 20 percent, that’s compared with the very same flight and hotel booked separately, which is probably not what you would have booked if you had done separate searches. Also note that flights booked through Priceline won’t always tell you your exact itinerary before you book a package, so you might end up with unsavory layovers.

你花了很多時間搜尋在線旅行社，但你有沒有點擊過“套餐”選項？它並非適合每一次旅行，但是今年我發現一起預訂酒店和航班是最快的省錢方法。你爲航班和酒店一起付的錢比單買機票還便宜的情況也並非罕見。不過，重要的是，你要把這個價格與你在其他地方找到的最便宜的價格相比較。當一個網站說你能省10%或20%時，它是指與單獨預訂這個航班或這個酒店相比能省10%或20%，而你單獨搜索的話，很可能發現更便宜的航班和酒店。還要注意，通過Priceline訂購的航班並不總會在你訂購套餐之前把行程路線告訴你，所以你有可能遇到不喜歡的轉機地點。

Probably the most common question I get is where to sleep cheaply in New York. I used to hem and haw and mumble something about Priceline bidding, but now I have a new answer: Stay in Long Island ­City, Queens, just across the East River. When I checked what a week’s stay would cost in March at hotels one or two subway stops from Midtown, I was shocked to find that 18 of 20 hotels were $151 a night or less. (With taxes it’s $180 or less.) Do you know what Manhattan hotels cost? For that matter, do you know what Manhattan rents are? Even some city residents could save cash (and gain housekeeping service) just by moving in. The same idea can apply to other cities that have secondary clusters outside the main business district but near public transportation. Use Hipmunk’s great maps to scout out the city you’re visiting.

別人問我最多的問題可能要算是在紐約住哪兒最便宜。過去我總是支支吾吾，咕噥一些“Priceline網上競價”之類的話，但現在我有了一個新答案：住在東河對岸的皇后區長島市(Long Island ­City, Queens)。3月份，我查詢一處距離中城一兩站地鐵的酒店的一週費用，震驚地發現20家酒店裏有18家是每晚最多151美元（加上稅最多180美元）。你知道曼哈頓酒店的價格嗎？說到這個，你知道曼哈頓的租金有多貴嗎？甚至連市裏的一些居民搬到這裏也能省錢（還能獲得客房服務）。這個主意也適合其他在主要商務區之外有次聚集區的城市，但是這個地方要靠近公共交通。你可以用很棒的Hipmunk地圖巡視你要去的城市。

If you’re like me, you still like guidebooks, but have to admit it’s tempting just to search online for what to do wherever you’re headed. But if you search “Rome attractions” or “Paris tourism,” for example, you’ll get an avalanche of messy results. Making it through 11 $100 weekends around the world, I’ve learned that every city of any size or cultural importance has at least a half-dozen great activities that cost nothing, not to mention free museum days and the like. So search “London free” (without the quotation marks) and choose from the bounty that follows.

你可能像我一樣仍然喜歡旅遊指南，但必須承認，不管去哪兒，在網上找找有哪些活動也挺誘人的。但是，如果搜索“羅馬景點”或“巴黎旅遊”，你會得到一大堆亂七八糟的結果。在做完“在全球11個地點花100美元度週末”之後，我發現每個城市，不管大小，不管文化重要性如何，都至少會有幾項免費的重要活動，更別提那些免費博物館日。所以，你可以搜索“倫敦免費”（不要加問號），從搜出來的福利中選一些吧。

Budget travelers are quick to assume their credit card will make the collision damage waiver sold by car rental companies unnecessary, and that their health insurance will cover them fully while abroad. Those can be costly assumptions; credit cards normally don’t cover liability and may not cover collision in all countries, for example. Between now and your next trip, make a cup of coffee, take a deep breath, and plow through the small print of your favorite credit card’s benefit package and your health insurance’s international coverage. Everything’s online, of course, so “small print” is just a figure of speech. You might even find some benefits you didn’t know you had, like reimbursement for toiletries if your luggage is lost or for your camera lens if you drop it within 90 days of purchase — as I’ve done multiple times.

窮遊旅行者會想當然地認爲，有了信用卡就不必操心汽車租賃公司的碰撞免責條款，健康保險將負擔他們在國外的一切醫療費用。這些錯誤想法會讓他們付出很大代價。信用卡通常不能支付損害賠償，可能不能在所有國家支付碰撞責任賠償。從現在開始，到你下次旅行之前，煮一杯咖啡，深呼吸，仔細研讀你最喜歡的信用卡的福利待遇附屬細則以及你健康保險的國際覆蓋範圍。當然，現在什麼東西網上都有，所以我說“細則”其實是泛指。你甚至可能發現你之前不知道的一些福利，比方說，如果行李丟失，你能得到化妝品作爲賠償，或者如果你在購買後90天內把相機鏡頭摔壞了，也會得到賠償。我就摔壞過幾次。