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WO RLD TR AVE L Everyone wants to travel and no one wants to pay for it. Doing a quick search for flights and finding only tickets upwards of $1,000 can be disheartening; many people stop right there and assume they’ll never be able to afford a trip, but following these tips can help make traveling possible for people who never ever thought they’d be able to afford it.
BE FLEXIBLE This is my #1 travel tip. No, not a tip, a rule. Be flexible. The very essence of travel certainly has a way of making us all more flexible, but starting out with no flexibility is the main, expensive travel mistake people make. The following tips all require some element of flexibility and could help seriously spare your bank account.
S C OT T ’S C H E A P F L I G H TS This AMAZING subscription service finds flights that are REALLY cheap and sends you an email with prices form airports near you and instructions on how to get the tickets at the cheapest price. The key is to either be flexible with dates and locations or to watch very closely to find your preferred dates and locations - and act fast! Because sometimes the S ON D ER · 35
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low prices will only last an hour or so. It is a paid subscription and $30 a year might seem tough to swing, but if you’re serious about traveling it could end up saving you hundreds of dollars.
G O O G L E F L I G H TS Google Flights is one of my favorite *free* features from Google. You can search for any flight anywhere at any time and Google Flights will show you all your options – times, airlines, and prices. The best part, though, are the Date Grid, Price Graph, and Nearby Airports features that I didn’t even know existed for a long time because they’re a little hard to find. The Date Grid lets you view any and all prices for dates around when you’re thinking of flying to help you pinpoint the cheapest days to fly. The Price Graph is a great way
to visually see when during the year the tickets you’re looking for will be the cheapest, and the Nearby Airports lets you compare prices for airports close to the one’s you’ve indicated you’d like to fly to and from. Spending a little time browsing these free features can save you unbelievable amounts of money!
E ASYJ E T & RYA N A I R Mostly flown around Europe, both of these companies offer super stripped down flights for super low prices. If you can fit all of your stuff in one bag, you can sometimes find flights across Europe for less than $20. If you can’t fit all your stuff in one bag, it’s no problem, you can pay a little extra. These are definitely worth looking into when exploring travel options, sometimes a 2 hour flight is way easier than a 10 hour a train ride to the same place for the equal or less amount of money.
