Summer travel is in full swing, and there’s no better time to save money on travel. More money in your pocket means more adventures, souvenirs, and fun experiences with your family. If you’re planning a trip to end the summer in style, then make the most of your dollars with these tips!
1. Book Your Flight at The Best Prices
The best prices on flights usually come when you book long in advance or right before your departure date. However, if you haven’t booked your ticket yet and your dates aren’t that flexible, don’t worry! You can still save.
One of the best ways to find cheap tickets is through a price notifier. Sites like Airfare Watchdog let you receive notifications by email when your preferred flights drop in price. It’s a low-effort way to find affordable flights.
Sometimes, though, you need more advance warning. If so, consider a tool like Skyscanner. Skyscanner aggregates tickets across hundreds of airlines and let you search entire months at a time. For example, you can find the cheapest tickets for the entire month of July and then narrow down at your convenience. Aggregators are one of the most efficient ways to seek out cheap tickets.
Don’t forget about local airlines, though! Aggregators and price notifiers usually don’t include small foreign airlines. Those airlines are often the most affordable if you’re traveling within a foreign country. A simple Google search for airlines in your destination country will yield lists of options.
2. Make Sure You’re Traveling at the Cheapest Time for Your Desired Destination
Whether you’re going to a different state or a different country, every area has times when it is more expensive to travel there than others. Whether it is a national holiday, a local festival or other kind of celebration, or an annual convention that attracts a lot of people, prices for everything in that location will be higher at that time. You will pay more for hotels, local transportation, and even food.
As an example, if you decide you want to go to San Diego, California at the end of July in any given year, you will be lucky to get a hotel at all, and if you can book a room, it will be much more highly priced than at other times of the year. Why? This is the time of year when thousands of people descend on San Diego to attend the internationally famous Comic Con. Not only will everything be more expensive, it will be more crowded. Before you book travel anywhere, check the local calendar to make sure you aren’t going at a time when hordes of others will be descending on that place along with you.
3. Pack Light!
One thing that will increase the price of even the cheapest flights is checking your baggage. It is inconvenient, too. You have to wait to locate it after you get off the plane, and there is a chance it may get lost and leave you without your belongings for a while until it arrives. This will cause you to have to go out and buy some of the things you need while you’re waiting on your luggage….money that could be spent better elsewhere. Because airlines charge extra for checking baggage, you are better off packing lightly, with only the things you truly need, and bringing your bags on the plane as carry-on.
