Getting There

Hey gang! So when traveling on a budget it always helps to save money on plane tickets. If you save $500 on your flight then that’s $500 extra you have to enjoy yourself in you destination. Have a few more expensive meals, treat your loved ones back home (or yourself) to some gifts, see a show, whatever. Whenever I type in “cheap flights” or something like that into google, the search usually yields the same results: Travelocity, Orbitz, Travelzoo, ect. But through talking to friends I have found some other really cool sites that can help you save money when traveling. My friend recently showed me farecast.com. Like a forecast tries to predict what the weather will be, farecast tries to predict what the trends in plane tickets will be. When you search a flight it will tell you whether or not it thinks it’s a good idea to buy the ticket at that moment or to wait it out because the ticket prices should be falling soon. A very helpful tool in my opinion.

Another good one in my opinion is studentuniverse.com. The catch here is that you have to be a student or a teacher to get the discount. The site will let you know if there are discounted seats for students and teachers left on any particular flight. Great way to travel and save money when you’re a poor college student.

Virgin America is good airline to check out when traveling within the US. They will occasionally have day deals where if you purchase a ticket that day you get the deal. My friend who is always checking Virgin America was lucky enough to stumble upon it on a day where they had a 2 for 1 deal. So she got 2 tickets for the price of 1 and the next week we went to visit a mutual friend in D.C. So keep an eye out for deals on this one.

Another thing to keep in mind when traveling domestically is the bus. It might take a little longer but if you have the time it can be a refreshing change of pace. Or in some instances it could be so awful (I have experienced a few of those instances) that you will never complain about hassles at the airport, flight delays, or what have you ever again.

Now when it comes to traveling for cheap when abroad I can only speak from what I know. And since I’ve only really spent a great deal of time in Europe, Europe is all I can really speak of. But if you do happen to be in Europe and visiting multiple destinations, make sure you check out ryanair.com and easyjet.com. I’ve had friends who have gotten flights for as cheap as $20. I have not been that fortunate when using these sites but I have still found tickets traveling between different countries in Europe than I have found when just traveling between states here in the US. Sometimes the airports these airlines fly out of are a bit out of the way however. So take the time and money needed to get to and from the airport into consideration when planning your flight. When visiting my friends in London from Paris it made more sense to take the train since the cab fare from where easyjet or ryanair to my friends’ place would end up making the trip more expensive than spending more on the train, which would bring me to more of a centralized location where the tube would go to.

So those are all the tips I can think of for the moment. If anyone has any helpful advice for getting to desired destinations (and even how to get around when there) feel free to enlighten us.

Until next time, have a good one.