Saving Money While Travelling | Graphics and Innovation

Save Money While Traveling: Portable, Electricity-Free Washing Machine

Written by The3dtechnologies Team · 4 Comments

Summary: A must for every travelers and campers: A portable that enables you to travel clean, free and light.

If someone is not addicted to old technology and want to save money on electricity, this is something to try. It was an idea of Ashley Newland who has thought of this solution while climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro.

The Scrubba Wash Bag, provides a portable, hand-powered and completely sealed solution for washing clothes on the go. It might be ideal when it comes to get by with just a few t-shirts and undies rather than a week’s worth of different outfits.

How To Use The Scrubba Wash Bag

The Scrubba wash bag works quickly and effectively. First at all, you put your tee shirts and undies in the bag. Add 2-4 liters of water, and a few drops of detergent and/or body wash/shampoo. Seal the Scrubba wash bag.

Push out any air through the valve. Close the bag, place it on a table or the floor and rub the clothes from the outside of the Scrubba was bag for 30 seconds.

Ok, it’s time to remove the clothes and lay them out to dry. Surely with so few clothes to take care of, indoor drying of clothes becomes more fast than ever.

The Scrubba wash bag will allow you travel clean, light and free.

Clean – As shown in the video below, the bag let you have more time to spend, enjoying your travels while do you smell, and look clean.

Light – The Scrubba wash bag will not be the straw that broke the camel’s back. It only weighs around 140g and because it provides you with the freedom to wash your clothes whenever you want, you simply don’t need to carry as many clothes, allowing you travel lighter.

Free - The best part is that you no longer need to find a laundry as to spend money for it as well. This can save you a lot of money, particularly if you are travelling through Europe where it not uncommon to pay €5-€10(about $6.50-$13) per load in a hostel.

If you want one, the Scrubba is not in production yet. It will be commercially available in April for $40 a piece, but you can buy a prototype, though. If you do, please let me know how it goes.

Here’s the IndieGoGo pitch from one of Scrubba’s founders, Ash:

It is not the first time I’ve seen products like this. If I find anything negative I can say - look at how much water you’re using to wash 3 t-shirts. For the rest I think is a very useful product that any traveler should have.

Categories: Go Green, Saving Money While Travelling, Savings

Where Does My Money Go? Simple Tips To Stop Being An Energy-Hog

Written by The3dtechnologies Team · Leave a Comment

My first encounter with the energy hog was when I received a electric bill, one year ago.

I really was shocked when I seen a $812 bill.

I was thinking to make a drastic thing. I was consider downgrading my cell phone. Yes, I was thinking to get rid of my Samsung phone, and just keep my Nokia with me. Yes, fortunatly I own two cell phones.

However, being a big saver and having some money on my pocket I managed to avoid facing problem.

The chart below(energystar.gov) is a breakdown of the average American home’s energy consumption. The annual energy bill for a typical single home is approximately $2,200.

Heating and Cooling – 46%

Heating and cooling put togheter consumes half of your home’s electric bill, almost $85 per month, if we consider that the average American family spends $2200 on electricity per year.

If you want to save money on heating and cooling costs I’ll suggest to following these simple tips:

Check up your A/C – When it comes to improve the efficiency of your heating and cooling system, first and foremost you have to upgrade your old central air-conditioning. Modern central air conditioners can work at a range of speeds and consume far less electricity.

Install a programmable thermostat - There are a range of options to choose from, from ultra-cheap ones to a bit more expensive. After reading a few “How-to” articles online I found some great tips that helped me take the next step, I summoned the courage to check out a few models of thermostats.

Water Heating – 14% (about $26 per month)

Amount of hot water is used at home, in particular for showering, washing dishes, and getting dirt and grime out of your clothes.

We all know that solar heaters harness heat energy from the sun, and use this energy to warm enough water for your home.

Also, numerous tax incentives exist to help families pay(some expire at the end of this year) solar panels and solar water heaters that drastically bring down the cost of energy to your home.

For more Energy Home Tips I’ll suggest to follow this interesting video created by Tom Kraeutler for ENERGY STAR.

Categories: Saving Money While Travelling, Savings - Tags: Energy-Hog, money

40 Best Travel Websites That Help You Save Money While Traveling

Written by The3dtechnologies Team · Leave a Comment

There are plenty of places that let you find the cheapest travel deals on cheap flights, give you travel tips that not only help you save money but also make your trip enjoyable.

1. CouchSurfing – The term “Couch Surfing” mean “getting a good sleep on the couch of someone” and is the last frontier of travel “low cost”. They have a huge community of amazing adventurous travelers who like to travelat low cost.

2. Farecast – It ‘s a database that collects all the data associated with the best offers in circulation on the internet. In particular, will tell you if the ticket is on the rise or fall within a week.

3. Home Exchange – Is the easiest way to make home exchange. You can use their search engine to find an house and contact the member to see if they want to exchange their home with yours. Through their exchange system you can avoid to pay for an expensive hotel room.

4. Hostel Bookers – One of best site to book hostels from any place in the world. You can find prices, amenities (including pictures), and get a amazing breadth of reviews of each location so you know what you’re getting before you land. You can also book directly from the site.

5. iStopOver – IStopOver connects Travelers with hosts across the world. They are expanding as hosts from more countries. Currently they come from United States, Canada, France, London, Brazil, and South Africa.

6. Hotwire – Hotwire is a well-known site that offers great travel deals and big savings. It also includes tips for a smooth trip as planning tools as well.

7. Kayak – A great place where you can search for discounted airfare. They includes over 140+ airlines and travel agencies. They aggregate the best flight deals all in one place and includes top airfare search engines like Travelocity, Orbitz.com, and Hotwire.com.

8. Last Minute – Find the best prices on last minute deals on flights, holidays, hotels, theatre, restaurants, and travel. If you want to grab a vacation or flight for this weekend this is a great place.

9. Orbitz – Orbitz is a global online travel company that guaranteed the lowest rate. If another customer books the same flight on Orbitz at a lower price, you’ll get a refund for the difference.

10. Priceline – Priceline allows you to specifies what price you willing to pay, for hotels and pay no booking fees for flights, cars, or vacation packages. You can even find reviews by travelers to help you make the right decision.

11. Roomorama – Roomorama is an online marketplace for short term rentals. Guests can search rental listings, or post a Shout Out on the homepage.

12. SeatGuru - Online service to find seats on the plane if they are comfortable or not.

13. Travelocity – Travelocity is one of most known travel website to book your Airline tickets with ease. This is the first stop for vacation planners.

14. TripAdvisor - Is a huge online community of travellers. You can book flights, car rentals, hotels, but you also have a lot of reviews and tips from real travellers.

15. Wegolo – Wegolo let you show the total cost for all passengers together as charged by the airlines, so you get no fees tacked on the last minute.

Throught their search tool you’re able to combine your out and inbound flights with 2 different airlines and select the optimum departure/arriving schedules or airports.

16. WikiTravel – Similaer to Wikipedia, this site is a free and complete travel guide written by actual travelers. If you’re planning a trip, then this is a great resource.

17. Virtual Tourist – VirtualTourist is a great resource for travelers where you can find reviews, tips and photos from real travelers who have actually been there and done that.

18. Viator – Viator is a place where you can plan daytrips, buy tickets, book tours, and discover other things to do and attractions to see.

19. UpTake - Similar to TripAdvisor, it is a place that pulls information from from 5,000 websites some 20 million opinions.

20. IgoUgo – IgoUgo is a great community with hundreds of thousands of reviews. It is a travel review with more than 500,000 travelers that sharing their honest opinions, tips, experiences stories, and pictures.

21. The Backpacker – It’s a community that provides reviews(All reviews are user-submitted) about local bars, restaurants, accommodations, attractions, and tours. You can even post your vacation stories through their travel wiki (destination guides).

22. Frommer’s – It let you explore your travel destinations by delivering the most candid and reliable information. Whether you’re venturing close to home or across the globe, whether your budget is limited or limitless, they strive to delivering the best information on this Web site and in their guidebooks and products.

23. Lonely Planet – Lonely Planet providing the best information for travelers. They have professional writers and journalists , which provide up-to-date and accurate information, best-value tips, and impartial recommendations.

24. Timeout City Guides – Time Out provide accurate information to help readers remain at the cutting edge of culture. Reviews are completely independent and Listings are generated in-house.

25. Yapta – Yapta notifies you when prices for flights drop. It can do it even after you purchase your tickets, giving you a chance to get a refund of the difference from the airline.

26. Trek Hound – They provides information on travel literature, chronicles of past trips, food and lodging reviews, movies, budget saving ideas, travel tips, information on pet travel and much more.

27. Song of the Open Road - Wade traveled for 9 year around the world, In particular he ventured through over 30 countries on 5 continents and wants to share their experiences through this site.

28. Travelvice – In December 2005, Craig Heimburger sold most of his possessions and is travelling around the world. You can read his tales, and exploring the Snapshots gallery.

29. Perceptive Travel – Perceptive Travel is an online travel magazine, written by some of the best travel writers out there. If you’re looking for authentic travel reviews about interesting places this is the right site to you.

30. Frugal Traveler – Follow Matt advices and as he uncovers cheap eats, affordable hotels, and other budget tips.

Other travel sites I recommends:

BootsnAll Travel

Wanderlust and Lipstick

Viator Travel Blog

Write Away!

Song of the Open Road

Cool Travel Guide

The Art of Nonconformity

About.com Budget Travel

Expedia

Sta Travel