Alert yourself for special deals on plane tickets and hotel accommodations as these items definitely hold the bulk of your vacation cost. But keep in mind that there are many items including land transportation, tours and dining costs that must be taken in consideration and which you can actually save on. Here are some ways to be keen on vacation costs and hopefully help you to finally make that dream holiday a reality.

1. Check out Places of Interest Directly

Many tourist spots are now online and offer discounted tickets when purchases are made directly from their website. Often they even offer special packages and admission rates, discounted days and parallel savings on similar or nearby attractions which is a bonus for you.

Some even have special deals with transportation providers to make it more convenient and affordable for tourists to come and visit these places. So list down precisely the places you like to go to, find time to visit their websites, check out their partners and sign up to their newsletters and special promo notices to take advantage of.

2. Seek Advice from Those Who Have Been There and Done That

Ask friends or co-workers who may have visited the place you plan to holiday on as there is no doubt they have plenty to suggest on where to go and how to save. This way you can avoid those tourist traps and avoid spending on things that are not worth your cent.

Thanks to the Internet, many people who blog their travels can also provide you a wealth of information complete with photographs so you have more or less an idea of what you will be faced with. Find out what the dodgy places, hotels, or tours to avoid and discover which ones offer the best services at reasonable prices. It also helps to read the comments on travel websites where people relate their good or bad experiences.

3. Check out Upcoming Events on the Area

Festivals and big conferences can affect the cost of your holiday, or if you are willing and wanting to join in – they may add extra fun to your trip. You may not want to miss out on special events by a day or two so it is best to check out any festivities on the month.

There are also likely to be open houses to museums, better tours and even free guided ones provided when a certain celebration is happening in the town.

4. Advise Providers of Your Special Occasion

People at the reception desk may be a closeted romantic at heart, so try to ask if there is anything that can be done at no cost to make your lodging extra special like a good room with a view to celebrate your marriage anniversary.

Dining venues are also likely to give you complimentary drinks or desserts when they find out it is a customer’s birthday. It may not save you money per se but the added bonus on offer will surely stretch what amount you are paying in the first place.

5. Pack Wisely

One of the expenses associated with any vacation is the cost of buying things that you could have brought with you such as toothbrushes and socks.

Be aware of the weather of your destination so you can bring what you need with you instead of having no choice but to buy them there where you are more likely to pay more just because you will be too lazy to shop around to find a better price. So pack those sunscreens and pain medications. Better yet make a list to tick off.

Jessy is a budget traveler and lifestyle writer for for Credit Card Finder, the free tool for credit card comparison. Follow the author at Twitter as @JessyTroy

I think I will buy a new Netbook soon, so instead of a new laptop I thought I would just get a new phone with Wfi. I had been wanting one for a while now, but kept putting it off. Then I saw the Nokia E63 here in Indonesia for 3 million rupiah. I read some reviews of the phone and it sounded just like what I wanted.

So far everything is working great on it. I installed a free application Fring which serves as Skype client and connects with the popular messaging programs.

I spoke to my mum on Skype in Australia from my hotel with free wifi and the quality was pretty good and I only got disconnected once. It really saves the hassle of opening up your laptop and waiting for windows to load.

I spent a couple of months in the Indonesia’s third largest city Medan and it does have some advantages as a place to live being cheap and not touristy, but I started feeling a little frustrated after a while as it doesn’t even have a decent English bookstore. I do use Amazon, but I love just browsing through book stores and making selections by picking random books off the shelves.

I also like making websites about where I am living, but there just isn’t a lot of interest in Medan. There is also a great site already on Medan – Medanku.com which does a great job of covering the city.

So now I am doing some more travel in Indonesia, but I am leaning towards living in Bali. I know Bali has its problems and is a very touristy place, but I think I can utilize the huge interest people have in Bali. The site I am planning to develop is Bali Expat. Of course there are lots of sites on Bali, but I think I can approach it from a slightly different angle.

The property market in Bali is also very strong right now. My other eventual goal is to develop an offline business and although it will be very competitive in Bali, I still want to give it a try.

There aren’t really any apartments here, so you have the option of renting a whole house or a room in a house, kind of like a boarding house. I checked out a room yesterday and it was about $150 a month. It was furnished simply and had a television and attached bathroom. The house was in a sub-division in a really nice area with security gates. They even do your laundry for free and the rent includes all bills.

Only problem is that they don’t have internet. Another place I want to check out today is $220 a month and includes Wifi and cable tv. Food is also really cheap here, so Indonesia can be a great place to travel if you want to reduce your living costs.

I had a lot of expectations of the country and was even thinking of staying there semi-permanently. I bought the domain thephilippines.net for $1,100 last year with the intention of developing a travel website. My brief trip made me realize, it just wasn’t my cup of tea and much prefer anywhere else in south-east Asia. You can read about my impressions of the Philippines here. Today, I resold the domain for the same price I paid for it. At least I have a bit of extra money in the bank, even though I didn’t make any money from the sale.

On Wednesday I am going back to Medan, Indonesia. I am planning to try and rent an apartment there and settle down there for a while. Why Medan? Well, I will just have to let you guess why.

The visa problem I had was never resolved. Worse still, the agent I was dealing with disappeared and I never got my passport back. I then had to explain to Chinese immigration why I had lost my passport and overstayed my visa. It was a little nerve racking, but fortunately I got away with just paying a fine.

I spent so much time on the Olympics site, I am now at a bit of a lose end. Fortunately, my other sites don’t require too much maintenance, but continue to earn passive income from Adsense and affiliate programs.

I have been doing some thinking since the Olympics and I want to change the focus of how I make money on the internet. I learned some good lessons blogging the Olympics. I used to think building hundreds of niche websites was the way to make money, but now I believe it is better to have one or just a few solid sites that you spend 90 per cent of your time working on.

So now I am brainstorming my next project and deciding on which sites I want to keep working on and which ones I want to cull.

The Wall Street Journal linked to the blog today and Problogger published an article I wrote on Facebook.

Traffic from Google still isn’t great, but I am expecting that to change when the Olympics are on and in the next thirty days as media networks go into Olympic coverage overdrive.

I still have no idea as to how the site will fare, but I am fairly confident I have done enough to at least get it to a point where it should do well.

I keep thinking of the analogy of someone publishing a book or releasing a movie – no matter how much work you put into something you have no idea as to how successful it will be until it is actually released. The site is live of course, but the start of the Olympics is going to be our “premiere”.

Worst still the agent has my passport and my previous visa has long expired. The Chinese government is getting very strict now as to who can stay here while the Olympics are on. People who have been here for years are having to leave the country.

The agent who is getting my visa assures me there is no problem and it will be ready soon. Problem is he has been saying the same thing for the past few weeks. Sometimes it gets me really worried as to might or could happen and other times, usually after a couple of beers I just think it will be a fun story to tell people in a few years.

It makes me feel pretty uncomfortable not having my passport, living in a communist country. It is also the longest I have stayed in the one place for quite some time. Even though I am planning to stay here for a few more months yet, I am dying to travel somewhere else.

I had a bit of a panic last week when I started reading about the visa clampdowns and how China was basically trying to do what it could to make it difficult to both enter and stay in the country. I have applied for a six month visa and will know next week if my application has been successful.

This of course has made it a huge headache for anyone wanting to travel to the country either for business or pleasure. Tibet is totally off limits for now. Many festivals and events have been postponed until after the Olympics. So there is not a lot of Olympic stuff happening now.

The new design for my Beijing site is now up. There is still a bit of work to do on it, but it’s a big improvement on the old design.