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- Hey everyone, I'm Melea,
as promised I told you guys I would put together
a travel tip video for Mexico.
It includes travel tips and money saving tips
cuz that's what I'm all about.
So, instead of talking about the ultimate life for less,
this video is going to talk about
the ultimate vacation for less,
so let's get started.
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Alright, tip number one is to go to TripAdvisor.com.
This is one of my favorite sites to actually see what hotels
are the best in every single city in the entire world.
They're kind ranked based off of just top hotels in general.
They have best for families, best for kids,
best for all inclusive, best luxury;
plus, they have comments
from people who have actually traveled their,
it shows their travel date,
what they thought,
they give you details as far as
the food, the rooms, the location,
so it really gives you an idea of what the hotels are like
before you go.
And especially when you are traveling internationally,
the information is really, really, important
so you know if you are picking the right hotel.
Oyster.com, if you haven't heard of this site,
it is freaking awesome.
Basically, what they do is they travel to all of the resorts
and they go and take real pictures,
that have not been edited,
that have not had any work done to them.
Because when you go to a hotel website, what do you see?
Gorgeous beautiful pictures with blue skies and oceans,
and wonderful sand beaches.
Well a lot of the times those are edited,
and then you get to the resort,
and you are kind of disappointed.
So Oyster takes real pics,
which is really great you can see what the hotels look like,
but you can actually see what the rooms really look like.
They also break things down into best all inclusive list,
popular destinations lists,
or even best kid friendly lists.
It's super, super, helpful.
Now that we've got all of our accommodations out of the way,
we need to talk about exchanging money
because if you don't do this the right way,
you will lose a lot of money
and a lot of people don't realize
that they're losing money when they exchange money.
Traveling to Mexico you're obviously going to change
your dollars into pesos,
so there is an exchange rate percentage
based off of what the money is worth in American dollars
and what the same money is worth in pesos,
But there's also a service fee that's usually tied to that
and that service fee can go up and down,
it can be anything the establishment wants
when they're trading your money,
so we need to talk about that.
Your best bet when it comes to exchanging money,
is actually getting a credit card or having a credit card
that has a zero percent foreign transaction fee.
If you don't know if your has this or not,
your can call them and ask them,
or you can go online and check.
There are other options if you don't have
a zero percent foreign transaction fee credit card,
so the best thing to do
is actually exchange your money ahead of time
so you can be ready to go,
so your paying in pesos
and you're getting money back in pesos.
I would never, ever, ever pay with American dollars
and have them pay you back in pesos
because your lose a lot of money that way
and a lot of people don't realize that.
You're best way to do this
is actually to do it before your trip, to go to your bank
call them up, do it online.
Say hey, I want this much money in pesos.
They can order that money for you,
and you can head to the bank and pick it up.
If that's not an option for you,
or you've forgotten,
your second best bet
is actually to head to a bank inside Mexico
and do the same thing.
Now I know you guys have all seen
the exchange rate places inside an airport.
It's only a good idea to use the services inside the airport
if the money you would have spent to get to a bank
inside of Mexico would've been more money.
If it is out of your way,
then obviously doing the exchange right there inside the
airport is going to save you money in the long run
versus renting a taxi
or something like that,
and traveling to a bank in order to get the money exchanged.
However, there is one thing you would need to know
if you are going to exchange your money at the airport,
There is typically more than one place
to exchange your money
and they all have a different service fee.
A service fee is totally different then an exchange rate,
so if you are opting to exchange your money at the airport
double check and make sure and see
who has the lower service fee for changing your money.
Tip number four, if you have never traveled to Mexico before
the best thing you can do is always haggle, barter
and negotiate your price when you are buying anything
at a shop, at a store, from a vendor.
Because the first price they give you,
is not the price they will sell it for
and you'd be surprised how far they will go down on price,
so make sure you're always negotiating your prices.
Another tip would be, to shop around for excursions.
So if you're gonna go on a catamaran cruise,
if you're gonna go swim with dolphins,
if you're gonna go
on a hike
to a waterfall
or whatever it is,
I would shop around
because there are so many different places
that do the same excursions
and they're priced differently,
so instead of going with the first one you find,
shop around and see
which place has the best price for the best excursion.
Always, always, make sure you keep your valuable items
inside your in room safe.
This is really important
because a lot of people in Mexico do not get paid
a very high wage, so leaving valuable things out
makes it a little bit easier or enticing to steal something.
So that includes: laptops, cameras, money, passports,
all of that goes inside your in room safe,
anything you can not live without being stolen,
goes in there.
For most places in Mexico,
you will not need any sort of power converter
or power adapter,
which will automatically save you $30 to $100 dollars
which is great,
so as long as you are from the US
and those are the types of plugs you normally use
you will not need a power converter.
Now it is time to talk about transportation.
There are a lot of different ways you
can get around in Mexico,
but some of them are more expensive than others,
so let's go over those really fast.
If you have a hotel that has a transportation system
or some sort of shuttle, I would check with them first.
It can be one of the cheaper options for you
and if you have a big group of people
that would obviously save you a lot of money
to all be in one shuttle.
If that's not an option for you,
you might want to consider taking the bus.
We've done that a number of times on our trips to Mexico,
I've taking the whole family on the bus system.
And if you are in a more popular area,
a lot of the tourist take the bus system as well,
so you are not alone.
One of the things you might not want to do
is actually rent a car
because insurance in another country
is usually really, really, expensive,
so, it is probably not your best bet.
And if you guys do decided to take a taxi,
I would highly recommend that you double check
that it is a real taxi and it's not just a yellow car,
trying to get your luggage or take your stuff,
so, double check that and make sure that you stay safe.
Make sure that your bank knows
that you are traveling out of the country.
If they don't know
or your credit card company does't know
they can put a block on your card
and you won't have access to those funds,
so that's a really important tip
to remember before you travel.
Make sure that you call your cellphone company
before you leave and see what kind of deal
they have for texting, emails, and phone calls
when you head out of the country.
I know for us, we paid two dollars a day
to have access to all of those things.
So, it pays to check because a lot of times
they have those short term international plans
that you can trade too
just for the days you are on vacation.
And the very, very, last tip, tip number eleven
is to bring your own chocolate and sweets with you.
It might sound like a really weird tip,
but in Mexico a lot of their desserts are very bitter,
more cocoa tasting and they don't use
a lot of sugar in their desserts,
so if you start craving a lot of sugar or chocolate
while you are there, your not going to get that fix
unless you go to a gas station.
They have a place called Oxxo,
I think that's how you say it.
It's O-X-X-O, you see them all over the place,
kind of like our 7-Eleven's,
but they have American made snacks like
Hostess cupcakes and chocolate bars,
and things like that,
but they cost a lot of money.
So, I actually brought my own bag
of Hershey chocolate nuggets with me that had
toffee and milk chocolate, and they were so yummy.
And the very last night,
I ended up passing them out to everyone
that was on our trip with us
because they were dying at the lack of chocolate,
so I shared, it was super nice.
There's one more thing
I actually wanted to talk to you guys about,
it's about duty free in the airport,
and how you can save a lot of money on that,
but we don't have enough time in this video,
so that's going to be one of my upcoming videos,
talking about duty free
and how you can save a lot of money shopping there
with some tips and tricks of mine, I wanted to share.
So, if you are not already subscribed to my channel,
don't forget to do that so when ever they do pop up,
you will be ready for it.
And I will talk to you guys next time.
Don't forget to give me a thumbs up,
if you like this video and if any of my tips helped you.
Alright, bye guys.