Good practices

Plan your “biggest” trips during shoulder seasons.
Try a micro adventure, you don’t need to go far to feel far. Trying a farm stay near you for instance will bring some refreshing experiences to your family routine.
Consider traveling with 1 child instead of the entire tribe!
Have a yearly vacation budget so you know exactly how you will finance your dream trip. Little efforts pay back!
Choose an off the beaten track destination like Montenegro or Guatemala.
Avoid city trips, food, accommodations and activities are always more expensive in cities than in the country side.
Adopt slow travel, the less you do, the less expenses you will have! (and the more relaxing your trip will be).
Travel light, less bags to check in and to fit in a rental car.
Prefer rentals than hotels to be able to reduce meal costs by cooking your own food.
Hire a travel planner to optimize your trip and find the best accommodation to suit your budget.

Accommodation

Think about hostels. A new generation of modern hostels with private room have emerged world wide (like the Freehand in the the US)
Use a tracker like Pruvo to be informed of the price changes of the hotel you booked. If you see a drop, cancel your reservation and rebook it with the cheaper newer price.
Try house swaping with platforms like Home Exchange
Consider renting your house on airbnb.
Try camping or “glamping” in place slike Huttopia or Wecamp

If you can’t avoid it here are little tricks that will make a big difference.

Never by ANYTHING at the airport, it is always at least twice the price as anywhere else.
Sign up for a travel credit card that will give you points you can use as miles to buy tickets (we do that all the time) .
Use Google flight to find the cheapest destinations near you.
Use the price charts on booking plaftorm to see when it is cheaper to get to your selected destination (there is even a site that will regularly check the price changes for you and inform you of the cheapest option - it called « going » )
Don’t pay for seats, instead set up an alarm for the opening of the online check in to your flight and choose your seats for free then.
Use the layover technique to make 2 trips out of 1. These companies will let you stay for free up to a week in their city hub : Icelandair, Play, Tap Portugal, turkish Airline, Saudia, Qatar airways, Iberia, Etihad, Copa, Emirates.
Before buying a ticket, check the price on the airline’s website, sometimes prices can be more competitive.
Create miles accounts for all your kids as soon as they start paying for flights to accumulate points. Some companies let you combine all your family members points to get free flights..
Sign up to the newsletter of all the airline companies & booking platform to be informed of deals.

Check my family travel planning service here