Interested in 37 newfangled apps that will save you 0.01 percent on travel for the coming year? I didn’t think so. At some point, you have to stop trying to find every new tool for and shortcut to bargains as they appear and just wait to see which ones stick. By now, you surely know some basics: You probably use meta-search sites to compare airfare and hotel prices; you’ve either tried or consciously avoided “sharing economy” services like Uber; you know that most domestic car rental reservations can be canceled with no penalty should you find a better rate even on the day of the trip.
在新的一年里，有37个新奇的app能给你省0.01%的旅费。你有兴趣吗？我觉得你不会。在某个时刻，你必须停止努力寻找每个新出现的工具和讲价捷径，等等看哪些app能存活下来。到目前为止，你肯定知道一些基本情况：你很可能使用元搜索网站来比较机票和酒店价格；你可能尝试过或有意避免Uber这样的“分享经济”服务；你知道如果找到了更便宜的租车价格，美国国内的大部分租车预约服务可以取消，且没有任何惩罚，即便是在旅行当天取消。

So instead of offering wacky tricks, here are eight ways to take strategies you already know and do them better — with, O.K., a few new appealing tools thrown in.
所以，我在这里提供的不是怪异的窍门，而是如何利用你已经知道的策略，以及如何更好使用它们的八个方法。好吧，里面也包括几个吸引人的新工具。
Uncomfortable with strangers living with you? Equally unexcited to bunk with strangers? Or simply hesitant about Airbnb’s legal struggles? Take a baby step into the sharing economy by renting out your car while you’re away and get free airport parking to boot. Or rent someone else’s car for less than most traditional companies and forget about monitoring the ebb and flow of daily rates as your trip approaches. FlightCar.com is now operating in Boston, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Washington and Los Angeles, among other cities. If you’re leaving your car at an airport, you will get between $0.05 and $0.20 per mile driven, plus that free parking if you are renting out your car. Savings can be significant: As of late December you could rent from FlightCar in Boston in January for as low as $19 a day (including tax and insurance), more than 40 percent less than the cheapest listing I found on Kayak (not including insurance).
和陌生人住在一起会让你觉得不安？也不想和陌生人睡上下铺？或者就是对Airbnb的法律纠纷心怀疑虑？你可以初步尝试一下分享经济，在外出旅行时把车租出去，这样还能免费在机场停车。或者试试租别人的汽车，价格比大多数传统公司都低，这样就不用在旅行临近时关注每日车价的涨跌。FlightCar.com现在在波士顿、旧金山、费城、华盛顿和洛杉矶等城市运营。如果你把车留在机场租出去，你的车每跑一英里，你就能赚0.05至0.20美元，另外还能省去机场停车费。你能省很多钱：在12月底，通过FlightCar你能以每天19美元的低价约到1月份波士顿的汽车（含税费和保险费），比我在Kayak上找到的最便宜的价格（不含保险费）还低40%多。
If even cars are a bit much for you, how about renting someone’s bike? Spinlister.com started in 2012 and has since spread across the world; last December it added skis and this past summer expanded to surfboards and standup paddle boards.
如果连租车你都嫌贵，那租自行车怎么样？Spinlister.com网站于2012年开创，后来扩展到全球。2013年12月它增加了租滑雪板业务，去年夏天扩展到冲浪板和站立式划桨板租赁。
Nothing on Airbnb says you can negotiate a better price when you book rooms or apartments or houses or yurts, but nothing says you can’t, either. Write the host a note that goes something like this: “Your place looks great but it’s a bit outside my price range. Would you consider $60 a night?” (It’s not as likely to work if the property is managed by a third party rather than directly by the owner.) You’ve also probably noticed Airbnb’s service fees of 6 to 12 percent when they ambush you before you finalize your reservation. A new start-up with a cute name, hovelstay.com, charges a lower 3 percent service fee and caps its (pre-fee) prices at $99 a night — no more browsing jealously through those gorgeous, unaffordable Airbnb digs. Instead, Hovelstay, which previously was available only to students, breaks things down into three groups: “survival hovels,” “good enough” and “clean & comfortable."
Airbnb上没说预订房间、公寓、房子或帐篷时可以讲价，但也没说不能。你可以给主人写这样一封短信：“你的房子看起来很棒，但比我的预算高了一点。你看60美元一晚行吗？”（如果房产不是房主直接管，而是交由第三方管理，很可能讲不下价）。你可能也注意到，在你最终预订之前，Airbnb会宰你一刀，它的服务费是6%至12%。hovelstay.com是个新网站，名字很可爱，它的服务费不到3%，而且房价是每晚最高99美元（不含手续费）——不用再艳羡地浏览Airbnb上那些租不起的漂亮房子。Hovelstay之前仅面向学生，它包括“仅供生存”、“足够好”和“干净舒适”这三类房子。
Flying through an airline’s hub rather than going nonstop is the oldest savings trick in the book. But a stopover in Kiev? That’s new. Ukrainian International Airlines began flying out of New York in late April — tragically bad timing. Less than three months later, a Malaysia Airlines jet was shot down near the Ukraine-Russia border amid unrest in the southern and eastern parts of the country itself (far from Kiev). But the airline staged a comeback with almost absurd promotional rates from New York (Dubai for $453?), and although tickets are going fast, as of this writing you can still get from New York to Istanbul or Athens for $479 in February, for example; to Bangkok for $953 in May. All have very reasonable layovers. I couldn’t resist, and booked a flight from New York to Tbilisi, Georgia, and back from Yerevan, Armenia, for $493, with two checked bags (great!) and Ukrainian airplane food (hmmmm).
搭需要转机的航班而非直达航班是众所周知的最古老的省钱方法。但是在基辅转机？那可是新鲜事。去年4月底，乌克兰国际航空公司开通了很多从纽约起飞的航班——不幸的是，那个时机很糟糕。不到三个月后，由于乌克兰东南部（离基辅很远）的动乱，马来西亚航空公司的一架飞机在乌俄边境被击落。不过这家航空公司以近乎荒谬的促销价卷土重来（从纽约飞到迪拜只用453美元？）。虽然机票卖得很快，但就在我写这篇文章时，你仍能以479美元的价格买到2月份从纽约飞往伊斯坦布尔或雅典的机票，以953美元的价格买到5月份飞往曼谷的机票。这些航班的转机地点都很合理。我没忍住，花了493美元订了一个从纽约飞往格鲁吉亚第比利斯、再从从亚美尼亚耶烈万返程的航班，包含两件免费托运行李（太棒了！）以及乌克兰机餐（美味）。
To state the obvious, some countries are just more expensive than others. I found that out on a trip through Scandinavia, where I ran through cash maybe five times as quickly as I had in an earlier trip to Bolivia. But how cheap a country is can change from year to year, especially as its currency changes. I ran the currencies for most major (and some minor) tourist destinations from Jan. 1, 2014, to late December and found out which ones lost the most ground against the dollar. You probably have already heard that the Russian ruble is tanking (as of late December, a dollar will get you 94 percent more than it did a year ago), but here are some other countries where you would get at least 13 percent more cash for your cash if you arrived there right now: Argentina (31 percent), Chile (16 percent), Mongolia (15 percent), Israel (13 percent) and — yes — Sweden (16 percent) and Norway (21 percent). It was also a bad year for the euro, which means right now is a good time to go to Europe: You would receive about 10 percent more for your dollar in countries from Portugal to Slovakia. (Of course, not all goods and services will be exactly that much cheaper, including hotels that set rates based on the dollar.)
显而易见，有些国家的消费比较高。我发现在北欧旅行时的花钱速度大约比之前在玻利维亚快五倍。但一个国家的消费水平每年都不同，特别是在汇率发生变化时。我浏览了2014年1月至12月底大部分主要（有些是次要）旅游目的地的货币汇率变化情况，找出了与美元相比贬值最多的币种。你可能已经听说俄罗斯卢布在贬值（到12月底，一美元能兑换的卢布比一年前多了94%），不过还有其他一些国家，如果你现在去的话，能至少多兑换13%的当地货币：阿根廷(31%)、智利(16%)、蒙古(15%)和以色列(13%)，是的，还有瑞典(16%)和挪威(21%)。今年欧元的行情也不好，这意味着现在是去欧洲的好时机：从葡萄牙到斯洛伐克，美元能兑换的当地货币增加了约10%（当然，不是所有商品和服务都会便宜那么多，比如那些按美元定价的酒店）。
You spend a lot of time searching online travel agencies, but have you ever clicked the “Packages” tab? It’s not a match for every trip, but I found out this year that booking a hotel and flight together is the single fastest way to save. It’s not even that unusual to pay less for the plane fare and hotel together than you would have paid just for the flight. But it’s important to compare the price to the best deal you can find elsewhere. When a site tells you you’re saving 10 or 20 percent, that’s compared with the very same flight and hotel booked separately, which is probably not what you would have booked if you had done separate searches. Also note that flights booked through Priceline won’t always tell you your exact itinerary before you book a package, so you might end up with unsavory layovers.
你花了很多时间搜寻在线旅行社，但你有没有点击过“套餐”选项？它并非适合每一次旅行，但是今年我发现一起预订酒店和航班是最快的省钱方法。你为航班和酒店一起付的钱比单买机票还便宜的情况也并非罕见。不过，重要的是，你要把这个价格与你在其他地方找到的最便宜的价格相比较。当一个网站说你能省10%或20%时，它是指与单独预订这个航班或这个酒店相比能省10%或20%，而你单独搜索的话，很可能发现更便宜的航班和酒店。还要注意，通过Priceline订购的航班并不总会在你订购套餐之前把行程路线告诉你，所以你有可能遇到不喜欢的转机地点。
Probably the most common question I get is where to sleep cheaply in New York. I used to hem and haw and mumble something about Priceline bidding, but now I have a new answer: Stay in Long Island ­City, Queens, just across the East River. When I checked what a week’s stay would cost in March at hotels one or two subway stops from Midtown, I was shocked to find that 18 of 20 hotels were $151 a night or less. (With taxes it’s $180 or less.) Do you know what Manhattan hotels cost? For that matter, do you know what Manhattan rents are? Even some city residents could save cash (and gain housekeeping service) just by moving in. The same idea can apply to other cities that have secondary clusters outside the main business district but near public transportation. Use Hipmunk’s great maps to scout out the city you’re visiting.
别人问我最多的问题可能要算是在纽约住哪儿最便宜。过去我总是支支吾吾，咕哝一些“Priceline网上竞价”之类的话，但现在我有了一个新答案：住在东河对岸的皇后区长岛市(Long Island ­City, Queens)。3月份，我查询一处距离中城一两站地铁的酒店的一周费用，震惊地发现20家酒店里有18家是每晚最多151美元（加上税最多180美元）。你知道曼哈顿酒店的价格吗？说到这个，你知道曼哈顿的租金有多贵吗？甚至连市里的一些居民搬到这里也能省钱（还能获得客房服务）。这个主意也适合其他在主要商务区之外有次聚集区的城市，但是这个地方要靠近公共交通。你可以用很棒的Hipmunk地图巡视你要去的城市。
If you’re like me, you still like guidebooks, but have to admit it’s tempting just to search online for what to do wherever you’re headed. But if you search “Rome attractions” or “Paris tourism,” for example, you’ll get an avalanche of messy results. Making it through 11 $100 weekends around the world, I’ve learned that every city of any size or cultural importance has at least a half-dozen great activities that cost nothing, not to mention free museum days and the like. So search “London free” (without the quotation marks) and choose from the bounty that follows.
你可能像我一样仍然喜欢旅游指南，但必须承认，不管去哪儿，在网上找找有哪些活动也挺诱人的。但是，如果搜索“罗马景点”或“巴黎旅游”，你会得到一大堆乱七八糟的结果。在做完“在全球11个地点花100美元度周末”之后，我发现每个城市，不管大小，不管文化重要性如何，都至少会有几项免费的重要活动，更别提那些免费博物馆日。所以，你可以搜索“伦敦免费”（不要加问号），从搜出来的福利中选一些吧。
Budget travelers are quick to assume their credit card will make the collision damage waiver sold by car rental companies unnecessary, and that their health insurance will cover them fully while abroad. Those can be costly assumptions; credit cards normally don’t cover liability and may not cover collision in all countries, for example. Between now and your next trip, make a cup of coffee, take a deep breath, and plow through the small print of your favorite credit card’s benefit package and your health insurance’s international coverage. Everything’s online, of course, so “small print” is just a figure of speech. You might even find some benefits you didn’t know you had, like reimbursement for toiletries if your luggage is lost or for your camera lens if you drop it within 90 days of purchase — as I’ve done multiple times.
穷游旅行者会想当然地认为，有了信用卡就不必操心汽车租赁公司的碰撞免责条款，健康保险将负担他们在国外的一切医疗费用。这些错误想法会让他们付出很大代价。信用卡通常不能支付损害赔偿，可能不能在所有国家支付碰撞责任赔偿。从现在开始，到你下次旅行之前，煮一杯咖啡，深呼吸，仔细研读你最喜欢的信用卡的福利待遇附属细则以及你健康保险的国际覆盖范围。当然，现在什么东西网上都有，所以我说“细则”其实是泛指。你甚至可能发现你之前不知道的一些福利，比方说，如果行李丢失，你能得到化妆品作为赔偿，或者如果你在购买后90天内把相机镜头摔坏了，也会得到赔偿。我就摔坏过几次。