Imagine a regular weekend in your local town or city. You decide to go out with friends for the night. You all meet up, go to the pub, get taxis to town, then inevitably buy more drinks in town followed by food, more taxis and probably some extras chucked in between.

Almost none of us would think twice about spending 100+ on a regular night like that. £20 taxi here, some £10 rounds there. It stings, sure, but its worth it for the fun of going. Plus, its only once or twice a week, right?

Thing is, for that kind of money you could instead go abroad for a few days. So why doesn’t anyone ever seem to do that?

I think the issue is two fold. One, because when we think of going, we think of the ‘usual’ types of trips abroad (i.e. spending thousands on resorts in peak season) and two, because most trips seem to get booked months or even years in advance.

But nowadays, its genuinely possible to go on a full trip away over a weekend for the same price as a night out you’d not think twice about paying for, and they can even be booked up to the day before.

A trip I recently built for Shoestring members had £35 return flights, beachfront accom for £55pp, flew out Sat morning and back Monday afternoon. So all in, £90 return for a 3 day weekend somewhere hot.

Better still, I found this trip 4 days before it flew, so you could literally say to some friends on monday “lets go away this weekend”, and do it!

Also, drinks (and even food) tend to be much cheaper abroad. So the question is: why spend a night paying €7+ for a pint when you can get a full case of beer and a bottle of wine for that in Spain, on the beach, in the sunshine?

I know which one I'd rather do!