Tips to save on local transport from Airport to City

Your first local transport needs start at the airport. You have newly arrived in the city. You are fatigued with the long journey. You have heavy backpacks or suitcases on you. As your travel has just started, you are having enough cash to splurge. Overall, you are more inclined to take a taxi to the city. But this could go heavy on your budget. The first hole in you pocket at the start of the journey itself. The charges of the first journey are quite large as most of the airports are located far off from the city. In this post, we have compiled a few tips for you to save money on the local transport.

Local Transport puts a hole in your pocket as soon as you land on Airport

Most of the airports offer convenient and cheaper ways of local transport to the city like Metros, rail and Airport buses to the city. If you have researched well on the Internet before your arrival at the airport, you are most likely to make good savings. In most of our travels, we were able to find cheaper and convenient ways to travel from Airport to the City.

In the never ending quest to find the cheapest flights, most of the travelers including us tend to book early morning / late night International Flights . We forget to consider the inconvenience and safety prospects of catching up these flights. Also, there is additional costs of taxis to the airport at night hours. Also, the metro/ trains stop working at most of the airports at night. Before making those cheap flight bookings, you must consider “How are you going to travel to the airport?”, “What will be the costs?” or are you simply “Okay with sleeping on Airport benches?”. If the difference of fare in ticket is justified enough, then only you should make such bookings. In case late night / early morning flight are still justified, here’s what you should do.

Five ways you can save money on local transport

1. It would be wise to look for Night Buses, which are cheap and convenient. We have used night buses on most occasions while travelling in Europe.
2. Ask hotels for a complimentary pick-up from Airport – A lot of hotels offer complimentary pick up from Airports for more than 3 night bookings. Even if they are not offering directly on website, you may try your luck by dropping them an email.
3. Look for Flights which offer pick-up/ drop to the city – There are lot of flights which offer complimentary pick-up/ drop from the city. For example, Atlasjet airlines in Turkey offers pick-up and drop from destinations which are even 120Kms away from the airport.
4. Plan you itinerary carefully – If you are taking a circuitous route around a country, you should carefully plan your itinerary. For example, when I landed at Istanbul for my Turkey trip, I didn’t check out of the airport. Instead, I took a domestic flight to Izmir and started my circuitous route from there and visited Istanbul later on my way back. This way I didn’t have to travel to Istanbul City twice.
5. You can install local taxi app in your mobile phone  like Uber, Radio Taxi. These apps offer Taxis at much cheaper rates than Airport taxis. In some the apps, you can share the ride too with fellow passengers.

Did you find this post informative one? We would love to know tips from your side too? How do you save money on local transport from Airport to City? Waiting to read your views.

This post is part of Travel Planning series – Do it yourself guide.