Monday’s Money Saving Tips: Don’t Forget Your FREE Breakfasts! Scoffing my way through this.
Today is all about taking advantage of FREE breakfasts in my series of Monday’s Money Saving Tips. I try to make a habit of booking into hostels that include FREE breakfast. This is a really good way to save money as a traveller. But it’s not just about breakfast, it’s also about lunch…read on.
My free breakfast in Gaborone, Botswana. This was only the starter!
You may have read how I always carry tea and coffee with me in order to get free cups everywhere you go (all you need is hot water).
Enjoying a FREE tea on the Labuan to Kota Kinabalu ferry this week! I just asked them for hot water and added my own tea bag…
Well here are my tips for taking advantage of FREE breakfasts in hostels:
1. When booking a hostel check if it has free breakfast. Book that hostel with free breakfast!! Even if it works out slightly dearer, you will save money on food. Two hostels in the same street but one is $1 more and offers FREE breakfast. It’s the FREE breakfast one for me everytime.
Yet another FREE breakfast. Here at Limehouse Hostel, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
2. Check what time the FREE breakfast is served and go early. The more selection the better and more chance to eat more.
3. If the breakfast is served from 7am – 12 noon then go twice. Go at 7am for your FREE breakfast. Then after a morning of sightseeing, turn up at 11.50 am for your FREE lunch. Loki Hostel in La Paz, Bolivia offers this.
Enjoying my FREE breakfast this week in Malaysia at the Masada Backpackers in Kota Kinabalu.
4. If the FREE breakfast contains fruit, bread and yoghurts, then take them with you for a FREE lunch. Apples, bananas and oranges often sit untouched in fruit bowls. I grab them and don’t pay for lunch. Same with bread. Pack some of the FREE bread in your lunch box.
Free breakfast in Loki La Paz, Bolivia – yes I took advantage of it.
5. Eat as much as you can at FREE breakfast. This way you’ll not need as big a lunch and in some cases may not need to eat much more that day (I don’t have a particularly big appetite so this works well for me).
6. Don’t go out and get drunk the night before and miss it. Thankfully I’ve only missed my FREE breakfast once.
Enjoying my breakfast early morning with a big hike ahead!
7. If you need to get up early to go hiking or out on a tour or to check out to head somewhere else, ask the hostel staff for a free breakfast to take away with you. You’ve paid price as everyone else so you don’t want to miss out. In most cases they will give you some bread, or at least some free tea and coffee.
8. If you feel too tired, DON’T miss your free breakfasts. Get up, eat it and then head back to sleep!
A special mention to:
Masada Backpackers, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia – FREE all day breakfast, 24 hours (includes tea, coffee, water, toast and biscuits)
Loki Hostel, La Paz, Bolivia – FREE Coca Tea all day and FREE breakfast even lasts until lunch time
Monday’s Money Saving Tips is a regular feature on Don’t Stop Living – a lifestyle of travel. I want to inspire the rest of you to get out there and see the world!
I started reading with the thought… WHO would pass up a free breakfast? WHO would forget?
Then I read tip #3
” If the breakfast is served from 7am – 12 noon then go twice. Go at 7am for your FREE breakfast. Then after a morning of sightseeing, turn up at 11.50 am for your FREE lunch”
I laughed, out loud, but damn, you are absolutely right. Hostel or Hotel – you’re paying for it and as long as you’re being fair to other guests (not wiping out the supply) it does make sense and I’m disappointed I hadn’t thought of the double visit myself.
Maria – people DO FORGET free breakfasts in hostels and hotels – I’ve seen them – mostly drunks that get home in the early hours then waste their full next day of travel. I wouldn’t take anything from other travellers if there is a shortage of food, but gladly get my money’s worth from hostels and hotels!