Planning a vacation these days can be a challenge. Everything from gasoline to restaurant meals to entertainment seems to be soaring almost out of reach for the average family.

One solution many people are opting for this year is the vacation that happens close to home. This is a great idea in many ways especially because, by better exploring the local area, families have the opportunity to enrich their lives on a year-round basis.

While many of us assume that the benefits of local travel have only to do with driving fewer miles, there are many more money-saving opportunities if one looks hard enough.

Here are a few tips for using resources on the internet to help anyone enjoy a more luxurious vacation close to home:

1) Save on gas regardless of how far you plan to drive. By visiting Gasprices.Mapquest.com, and typing in your own area code and that of your destination or projected waystop, you can find the gas stations currently offering the lowest prices and can get detailed driving directions to those stations.

2)Save on meals by visiting Restaurant.com. Type in the cities or towns you plan to visit, and you will be given the opportunity to purchase certificates for discounts at restaurants in the area. While Restaurant.com discount coupons typically sell for $10 for a $25 certificate or $3 for a $10 certificate, it is easy to save even more by first visiting CouponCabin.com from which you can obtain coupon codes that will allow you to purchase the certiciates at even less than restaurant.com's already deeply discounted prices. You may find that you have paid only $1.50 to take a full $10 off you family's restaurant bill.

It is important, when shopping Restaurant.com to pay attention to restrictions some restaurants place on the use of the discount certificates. For example, using a $25 dinner certificate often requires a total expenditure of $35. Still, though, assuming your total bill for food is $35, before tip you will have spent only $5.00 for the certificate and an additional $10.00 to cover the whole bill before tip. That results in an overall $20 savings on your family's meal. Not bad at all. Just remember to heed the reminder that your tip should reflect the original cost of the meal and not just the discounted bill.

Restaurant.com provides full menus and descriptions of the restaurants that participate, but it is always fun to search out further reveiws and to browse the restaurants' own websites in order to decide

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