One of the summer bucket list goals was to go on a trip with my best friend in August as long as it came in under $500. We waffled quite a bit on this vacation and at the last minute, our other best friend decided she would join us, so about one week before leaving, we found ourselves planning a vacation.

Rule #1 of Money Saving Vacations – try not to plan them at the last minute. While there are some great last minute deals out there, for the most part you don’t save as much when rushing to get things booked.

Rule #2 of Money Saving Vacations – double check the prices on any sort of bundles versus the individual prices of items.

We wound up in Niagara Falls and I feel like I noticed this more there than anywhere else I’ve been, but everything seemed to be bundles and when I first started researching attraction prices they seemed like okay deals.

For example, the Niagara USA Discovery Pass was $38 per adult and admits you to Maid of the Mist, Cave of the Winds, Niagara: Legends of Adventure Movie, Niagara Gorge Discovery Center, and Niagara Aquarium.

We really wanted to do Maid of the Mist and Cave of the Winds and off the bat, $38 for just those two activities seemed reasonable to me and then you get these other options thrown in too. Well, quite honestly, we didn’t care about the other three options and had no interest in seeing them. Maid of the Mist was $17 and Cave of the Winds was $14, a total of $31, so we actually saved $7 by not bundling. If we had bought the pass, we probably would’ve felt like we should see the other things, which would’ve then distracted us from what we really did want to see.

Rule #3 of Money Saving Vacations – while big guided tours will save you a lot of time planning out your day and make getting from Point A to Point B much easier, they might not be the most cost effective way to travel.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve taken some day trips that I thought were incredible and worth every penny before, in part because of their ease to get to further away spots, tour guides that made the trip 100% more interesting and the insurance of having someone who knows where we are getting us there and back safely.

However, in the case of Niagara Falls, I pulled up a day trip that would’ve hit the Maid of the Mist, Cave of the Winds and given you some time on the American and Canadian sides of the Falls, as well as a few additional stops for $130. I almost booked it because our planning time was so short and it would’ve taken care of everything for us.

At the last minute, I decided to double check the prices on some of the stops instead and found it was way, way cheaper to just do the day ourselves. Instead, I set $130 as a price guide for our sightseeing for the day and looked at what I could build:

• 9:15 AM Stop at Whirlpool Aero Car – $14 (Free Parking)
• 9:45 AM Cross to American side of Falls
• 10:15 AM Parking on American side of Falls – $3.33
• 10:30 AM Maid of the Mist – $17
• 11:15 AM Walk Around American Side of Falls – FREE
• 11:45 AM Cave of the Winds – $14 (You get free sandals!!)
• 1:00 PM Lunch – $15 (Not included in other tour either)
• 1:30 PM Cross back to Canada Toll – $3.25
• 2:00 PM – Parking in Canada side of Falls – $5.84
• 2:30 PM – Reserved tickets for 8 PM Journey Behind the Falls
• 3:00 PM – Walk Around Canadian Side of Falls – FREE
• 5:00 PM – Skylon Tower Early Bird Dinner in Revolving Restaurant – $43 (Dinner not included in other tour either)
• 6:45 PM – Skylon Tower Observation Deck – FREE with Dinner
• 8:00 PM – Journey Behind the Falls – $17
• 9:30 PM – Clifton Hills Fun Pass – $26 (included Niagara Skywheel, Movieland Wax Museum, Ghost Blasters Dark Ride, Wild West Coaster, Dinosaur Adventure Golf)

Total – $145.91 (without meals = $87.91)

I turned a 6 hour tour into 12 hours, was able to customize it to exactly what we wanted to see and found us food for both meals, one of which was a fancy revolving dinner at the top of the Skylon Tower, for an additional $16 and some of that is Canadian dollars, so it’s actually even less. It took about an hour of my time.

Another big feature on all the tour stops was the Floral Clock, which none of us particularly cared about, but as we drove around town the first night, we went right past it, it was near deserted and we were able to stop and look at it leisurely anyway… you really only need to devote about 3 minutes of your life to that clock.

Rule #4 of Money Saving Vacations – Don’t pick the cheapest hotel, even if it does have a decent Trip Advisor rating.

The first hotel we stayed in had bed bugs, which was just awesome. I’d read the reviews, which all said it was a no frills, but clean place to stay. It was definitely not clean and the bed bugs were the final straw. We wound up leaving and getting a room at the Ramada for the last night there. This was an extra $40ish dollar expense. Overall, we would’ve saved about $15 if I’d just booked us there from the get-go.

On the flip side, booking at the last minute through Priceline actually did get us a small deal on the Ramada room.

P.S. Don’t ever, EVER stay at the Niagara Inn. Just don’t do it. 

So while it may have been a quick trip across the border, we actually managed to cram quite a bit into our 40 hours in Niagara Falls for a reasonable price.

Have you ever put together a vacation that made you feel like you nailed it?