Sherman's Travel

Tuesday and Wednesday are the best days of the week to book the cheapest plane tickets, a home exchange is a tidy way to save money on lodging, and a restaurant that serves the same entree at lunch and dinner often charges less for it at lunchtime.

These are among the “greatest hits” of money-saving travel tips, bits of advice that are repeated year after year in travel journalism because they’re (often) true and always manage to find new audiences.

The nice thing about such a tip is that it can help you if you hear it at the right time, even if you’ve heard it many times before. My problem, and I suppose it’s not a big one, is that, as a travel writer, I feel like I have heard them all before.

So to maintain my sanity, I regularly scour my sources to collect tips I’ve never heard before, or at least haven’t heard in a while. Five such money-saving tips that you may not know follow. And if they’re old hat to you, my apologies…but please do pass the “savings” on to a friend.

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What’s a good Father’s Day present for a dad who travels? At last night’s Traveling Mom Twitter party, a GPS device emerged as an easy answer – and perhaps a self serving one, since many present at the hour-long Tweetfest have endured creatively navigated car rides with their fathers and husbands.

And then there are those who just think the gadget makes a nice gift, like mother of four Christie Lombardo, who bought her dad a GPS system for Father’s Day last year “since he loves to travel, but he still uses his maps as backup.” Mom Tammy Sigond seconded the GPS idea and also suggested a AAA membership, which you can easily give as a first-time gift or renewal to the dads in your life.

Blogger and mom Mary Heston concurred that swell Father’s Day presents might include “AAA membership, GPS (handheld that coordinates with online maps)” as well as “corn nuts, beef jerky, and ChapStick.” And business owner and mom Karin Sheets says she bought her husband a “computer reader for car repairs last year,” which he thought was cool.

For a twist on the “help dad find his way” gift idea, consider giving dad a driver for Father’s Day, suggested Kerrie Gallagher, who developed the iPad car games app Road Trip: Family Fun.

As you might expect, the Twitter party-goers had Father’s Day gift ideas that went beyond the automotive. Read on for more.

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There will be more than 38 million auto travelers on the road this Thanksgiving weekend, predicts AAA, and if you and your kids plan to be among them, it’s not too late to change your mind and stay home.

Seriously, we both know that’s probably not an option this weekend. That being the case, let’s look on the bright side: Sure, a gallon of regular unleaded will average about $3.39 – 50 cents more than this time last year, confirm our friends at AAA – but that’s better than the nearly four bucks per gallon you paid in May. If you want to try your luck at gaming gas prices a little this weekend, the free GPS-driven AAA TripTik Mobile app for Droids and iPhones will let you compare gas prices, pull up maps, and hear verbal commands about when to turn, should you not already have a talking GPS device in your vehicle.

If it’s been a little while since you’ve hit the road with the brood during a holiday weekend, here are a few more things to keep in mind:

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