Balling on a Budget- Pt.1 Flights
Being the baby (and poorest) of the family, I have been blessed with family members who have helped me travel internationally and domestically by purchasing my plane tickets, covering my lodging, or taking care of the entire trip. However, since I'm technically a grown-up now, I need to start funding my own vacations (but if anyone would like to become my benefactor, I will not turn you away). Now having the travel bug and earning a salary comparable to teachers do not exactly go hand in hand, so I'm going to post a series of money saving tips that help ME. This article will focus more on getting there.
1. Where are we going?
The downside about living in the U.S. is you can't just hop on a train and visit another country in a matter of hours how Europeans have the luxury of doing. If we want to go somewhere exotic, we have to fly. For whatever reason, flight prices are crazy expensive and neither universal nor constant. I have bought plane tickets from Dallas, TX to New Orleans, LA for the same price as my ticket from Amsterdam back to the U.S., how stupid is that? If I'm flying domestically, Southwest Wanna Get Away is usually my go to, but we're trying to go overseas so that won't do. I know there are hundreds of travel comparison websites, but I'm going to tell you right now searching them all collectively is a waste of time. Scrolling through Kayak and Orbitz and Expedia and Booking and blah blah blah to see which has the cheapest hotel or flight is just going to waste your time and make you want to give up. I've done my fair share of comparison shopping, and 9/10 times (more so for hotels, sometimes flights are actually cheaper) the prices listed are maybe $1 off of what is listed on the actual brand's website; and all of the comparison websites show the same prices as each other. You really only need one comparison website.
My two go to sites when looking for flights are Google Flights and Skiplagged (Get $10 off your next flight & earn $25 travel credits with Skiplagged: https://skiplagged.com/r/adrienne ). I don't waste my time on any other website, and it really just depends on my mood which one I book from. I also don't bother with overnight layovers (stopover) flights; but if you would like to visit the international country in which your layover occurs and you have the extra day to spend, there are flight search engines for that (Air Wander). You can also book layover flights yourself (book a flight from A to B, then a new flight from B to C)which can sometimes be cheaper. But *WARNING*, doing so can run the risk of messing up your trip entirely and costing you more due to rebooking. One of your flights may be late for whatever reason and you miss your second flight, or you get stuck in baggage claim or customs, who knows. So I personally wouldn't want to risk that. If you live near more than one major airport, try searching flights departing both to your destination, ex. flights leaving DAL & DFW are generally cheaper than flights leaving OKC. Just make sure you factor in gas and parking cost to see if the flight difference is worth the trip to another airport.
Anyways, the nice thing about Google Flights and Skiplagged is you can leave the destination as "Anywhere" or an entire country eg. "Europe," and it will show you the cheapest flights going to those places in the timeframe you select. I like Google flights more because it gives you the option to open the calendar with prices listed for each day so you can see which days are the cheapest to fly. It also displays a pretty map of destinations to choose from. If there is a certain place you just really want to visit, I would suggest going on Google Flights and finding the cheapest dates for that location. If it doesn't really matter, just type in anywhere and find the cheapest flight. That's how I chose to leave my Greece trip from Amsterdam. I knew I wanted to see more than one country since I would be in Europe for 2 weeks, and flights out of Amsterdam were around $300. I also used the "Anywhere" destination to find ROUNDTRIP flights to Iceland for $280!! Now that particular flight is via Wow, an Icelandic budget airline (if flying budget airline, make sure you read their baggage policy). You won't find flights to Australia or Asia that cheap, and if you do, please get me a ticket and I'll Venmo you! After you found a flight and doable dates, buy it! Don't wait! I say this for two reasons: 1. you will probably spend your flight money on something else and 2. flight prices CAN change throughout the day. A flight may be $500 at 10AM, then when you check the exact same flight at 5PM it has gone up to $600, especially if you are constantly searching for that particular flight (browsers and cookies play a role in this). So if you find something you can afford, don't put it off too long.
Next Steps
Now that our tickets are booked, we need to figure out where we will stay and what we will do. Check back for the next blog in this series featuring lodging tips.