Travelling Cheap

A couple of years back I had a girlfriend in Manchester and, living in London, it was difficult for us to see each other very often. Booking train tickets 2 weeks in advance to get a decent deal is not always an option, as you never know when your weekend will suddenly free up, and booking on the day was incredibly expensive. There’s always the bus, but that means wasting 5 hours and your body being in knots when you arrive.

It was for one of these trips to Manchester that I discovered that you could get tickets much cheaper or even for free from online recycling communities, such as Gumtree. I was looking through the various sections and saw the ticket section. After sorting through the Travel Tickets subsection I was amazed to find someone selling 2 return train tickets for Manchester dated for that weekend. So I emailed the guy, met up in Central London in a crowded area (seeing as I am Mr. Paranoia) and he turned up gave me the tickets, I paid the man and set off for Manchester that evening.

Now I’ve been looking through the same section on the same site, and there are tickets to various other destinations all over the UK and Europe. You can find anything from a bus to Oxford to a plane ticket to Australia.

However, you must take care as there are scam artists everywhere. Make sure you meet up with whomever is selling the ticket and make sure you know how the names and dates on the tickets are to be changed. Thankfully, Gumtree has a whole guide to avoiding scams, so take a look at that before you pay anyone anything. Also, check out their freebie section, you never know what you might find. I like the added bonus of sorting through tickets and having a surprise holiday to a destination I would not normally think of travelling to.

Related Posts: