Make America cheap again: The secrets to a cost-effective US holiday

The pound may be weak, but with these 25 expert money-saving secrets, a holiday to the US needn’t be off the table

On a road trip from Austin, Texas, to Los Angeles, California, we were lost along the old Route 66, now a scenic byway, somewhere in Arizona. We passed majestic red rock canyons as far as we could see, and then, unexpectedly, around dusk, we pulled into a bonafide ghost town. Not a soul traipsed the creaky boardwalks or frequented the saloon of Oatman; all that remained was a hoard of wild donkeys, ragtag survivors from the town’s gold mining days, who resolutely blocked our way. 

I later learned that by day Oatman is a tourist destination where staged wild west shootouts stop traffic. But, for all its quirk and spookiness, it became one of the most memorable experiences of our road trip. And it was completely free.     

According to the travel association Abta, one in three holidaymakers will cut back on holiday spending in the next year. It’s not hard to understand why with the pound rock bottom and the cost of travel abroad higher than ever – and nowhere more so than in the United States, with its unstoppably strong dollar. But with grocery bills soaring, the weather bleak and the price of a pint in the pub growing faster than inflation, if there’s ever a time that called for a holiday, it’s now – and tightening the purse strings needn’t mean that your US trip is off the table altogether.  

British visitors tend to approach the US excursions as dream “big trips” – long-haul, once-in-a-lifetime, bucket-list adventures that must tick all the boxes. Most associate it with big spending, too, with destinations like the notoriously expensive Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, or activities like whitewater rafting in the Grand Canyon, which can cost thousands of dollars per person.