In case you’re planning to visit a big (US) city without a lot of money, this might be for you:
- accommodation
If you want to stay near a downtown area, look at the Hosteling International homepage to see if there’s a hostel near it (I can recommend all the hostels of this organisation i’ve been to so far). They’re cheap, they’re central.
Maybe, you’re lucky and will find a cheap hotel room on hotwire. There, you can filter the offers by area, price and star rating – the clew is: you won’t see the name of your hotel until it’s booked. Because of that, the deals often are a lot better than on the hotel’s page (the hotels don’t want to give away their rooms so cheap officially).
I haven’t tried this, but there seems to be a large community called couchsurfing. Basically, you offer your couch (or spare bed) at home to others and in return, you can sleep over at someone else’s place. It’s all trust based and you get reviewed by those you sleep at. If you get a lot of good reviews you rather find a place to sleep. - sightseeing
Often, there are a lot of tours offered by various companys. You’ll be driven around in a bus or alike and you’ll see a lot of famous stuff in a very short time. This can be really expensive. I would recommend buying a city guide book, like the Lonely Planet series. You’ll find everything you need in there: sights, museums, restaurants, shops, groceries etc. And they don’t cost as much. It’s more interesting anyway if you take more time to visit a single thing – without a personal guide who hurries through all the interesting stuff.
All you’ll need apart from a guide book is a unlimited ride subscription for public transport. It adds a lot of flexibility; you don’t want to pay for every single time you to take the bus or the subway. They’re not too expensive in most cities since you’ll only need it for a week or two (New York: 29$ for 7 days, San Francisco: 27$ for 7 days, including cable cars). - meals
I’ve made the experience that unfortunately, fast food is a really cheap option to eat in the US (I really fell in love with Subway sandwiches, 5$ for a footlong sandwich). They’re cheap, and they’re everywhere. You can still buy fruits and other healthy food in groceries, but if you want to cook something at the hostel, you often end up spending more than you would if you went to a fast food chain. It’s up to you to decide how healthy you want to subsist on your trip (and remember: you could still get a salad at Mc Do for 99cents
)
If you have a guide book, there often is a section that’s dedicated to food. Mine had $ symbols next to each entry ($ – $$$$), so if you want to eat at a restaurant, at least make sure it’s a “$”
When I was in San Francisco, I discovered FourSquare. It’s an app that searches restaurants, hotels and other stuff around you and presents it on a map. People can leave comments (tips) about the places they’re at, like “try the chicken breast salad!”; this was a fun way to find some nice places in the city. - coffee
A lot of people need coffee. Other than in europe, Starbucks cafés are everywhere, and cheap (if you know how). They’re all pretty convenient and silent.
So, what I did is to buy one of their gift cards. You can restock your balance as often as you want. If you register said card online, you join the “Starbucks rewards” programme. You gain benefits after a certain amount of purchases. Most important is one feature you get after 5 purchases: Free refills of Regular coffee, Tee and Iced Coffee (as long as you stay in that Starbucks café). I ended up buying small Iced Coffees (1.75$ I think), reading a book while being in the café – and drinking the refill on the go. Like this, you get 2x 12 US fl oz (2x 3.5dl) of delicious iced coffee at a reasonable price.
I hope some of the information I provided is useful to you. If you have any questions, just ask!
