This past week here at Mixonic, we posted the first two parts of our How to Travel Hack a Tour series. Part I covered air miles and flight hacking – those travel hacking basics that can certainly be applied to most bands at some point – even if you’re mostly a van tour type band, while part II covered the all important accommodation section, everything from using the right sites to find cheap hotels, to hotel chain rewards clubs to hostels, house-sitting, couch surfing and more. Today’s instalment, ‘How to Travel Hack a Tour Part III’ covers everything else – dining, gas cards, sponsorships and other top notch travel hacks to make your tour just that little bit easier and cheaper.
Gas cards
Gas is a major expense of touring, probably the biggest cost for most bands, therefore tracking gas usage and cutting costs in the arena makes a huge difference to a tour budget – and makes these some of the most important hacks of all. Gas credit cards are a great way to save money on gas and track your gas usage. There are many types of gas cards that are gas company specific such as Mobil cards, and then there are major credit cards such as Discover that offer generous gas rebates/ rewards. If you can qualify for one of these cards they are a great way to save $$$ on your gas, but you want to look into the different cards to find out which one is the right option for you, visit creditcardwatcher.com to see a breakdown of all the different cards. You also want to shop around for gas, sometimes a quick google search will find you the locations of a different, and cheaper gas station. For many other gas saving tips, this article at Gas Buddy has some good advice as well as this one at ABC News
Route Hacks
Plan your route using google maps to find out mileage estimates so you know exactly what you’re dealing with. Tolls are another money eater on the road, google them up and plan for them or plan around them– it may be cheaper to take an alternate route and avoid a toll, or it may cost exactly the same – or even more, in gas to do this. If you have an experienced tour manager/ bus/van driver he or she may know already about these, definitely look up any tolls and plan for them, or plan around them. You also want to budget an extra 10-15% for gas, tolls and other related expenses than you think you could possibly need. If you have a tyre blow out, you’re going to be glad you did!
Sponsorships and Endorsements
Whether your band drinks Jagermeister or green juice every night, chances are you can find a company that will sponsor your or at least give you wholesale or artist pricing for what you need – whether that’s musical equipment, or the staple food and drink items you have on the bus. It can be worth sending out a few emails, or having your manager or PR person do it on your behalf if you have one, to see what happens. You might get a case of your favorite beer to throw in the van with you. A dollar saved is a dollar earned in this case – and is a motto to keep in mind during any good travel hack.
Dining
Work out a deal with the venue to feed you. Most of the time you’ll have a rider if you’re playing at big enough venues – even smaller venues will usually throw you a few drinks and a couple of hot dogs. Try to negotiate it with the venues (or preferably have your booking agent do it for you if you have one) so that you have at least one of your meals covered by them per show day. This will help keep your food costs down.
Sometimes fans will also be willing to bring you/ take you to dinner and you can put them on the guest list for your show/ give them free merch/ take pictures/ sign autographs/ shout them out on your Facebook/ twitter pages etc, don’t count on it happening all the time but it can be great when it does. Be nice and don’t make anybody feel like they are being used.
Set a budget – you can eat on $10 a day, you might not eat well on $10 a day but you can do it, particularly if most days, at least one of your meals is covered. It’s highly recommended that you bring vitamins with you on tour and take them every day, since you might not be eating properly, and that combined with drinking, can mean all kinds of nutritional deficiencies which can lead to you not quite feeling your best on tour – or worse, getting sick. Bring a cooler or mini fridge with you if you can to store leftovers, milk for your coffee/ cereal etc in. If you make stops at Walmart or discount grocery stores such as Costco etc, you can stock up on cheap supplies to help you get fed on this budget. If you keep an eye out for coupons and eat what’s seasonal and on sale you can really stretch your food dollars.
If you can fit it on your bus/ in your van or other vehicle bring a grill or small hotplate so you can grill your own hotdogs/ tofu burgers etc thereby saving the few dollars more it costs to get them at a restaurant. Of course if you have a tour bus you probably (though not necessarily) have all the great amenities of a microwave, fridge, power outlets etc which greatly makes things easier. If not you can still get a little electric hotplate to cook up some food on when you can. Hotel/ motel rooms will sometimes have kitchen/ cooking facilities you can use – as do hostels and other such places -just make sure to pack a few utensils, plates, cups and other cooking implements to bring with you, or buy them on the road from stores like Walmart. Paper plates are also good because they save on cleaning dishes – you just throw the mess away with them, same with cups. This is very important if you don’t know if you’ll have a sink to clean things in. You don’t want dirty dishes travelling around the country with you.
If you have power you could always bring a cheap rice cooker with you (target has one for around $20) and white/ brown rice, throw some of that in there with some water, and some frozen veggies and/ or seafood/tofu/ meat etc in the steaming tray and then you have a cheap and complete meal waiting for you after your show.
And as always, remember that ramen is your friend.
Further Travel Hacking Resources:
- Man vs Debt: Travel Hacking for Noobs
- Nomadic Matt: The Ultimate Travel Hacking Guide
- Chris Guillebeau’s The Art of Non-Conformity: Beginner’s Guide to Travel Hacking
- Chris Guillebeau: Travel Hacking Cartel*
**(Note: the Travel Hacking Cartel is a paid membership site but you can get a 14 day trial for $1 that will give you a LOT of info if you are interested in travel hacking, consider it a graduation from the Art of Non Conformity’s Beginner’s Guide)
