For many of us, one of the main things that holds us back from traveling more than we already do is finances. Traveling is almost always well-worth the money, but sometimes we just need to be more frugal than others.
The good news is, travel doesn’t have to be super expensive. In fact, there are tons of travel deals out there just waiting for you. They often shift according to season, starting point, changing demand, and available travel dates, but they’re there—you just need to be able to stay on top of them. Here are our favorite tips for doing just that:
If you need to get to a certain location on a strict timeline, bookmark this website right now. Google Flights has a simple interface, and scans almost all available airlines to all destinations before giving you your best options, which you can easily sort according to price, time, stops, and more. Our favorite part? You can also sign up to get notifications when flight prices fluctuate. You’ll receive an email every time a price you’re tracking gets more or less expensive, with advice on whether to buy now or wait a bit, as prices are likely to go down sometime before your travel date. In addition, the Google Flights landing page will tell you about topics like the most popular places to travel right now and the best places to go to get some sun!
Have you ever heard about those seemingly miraculous situations in which a person finds a ticket price online that is alarmingly low? Like $187 from the United States to Casablanca? If you haven’t, read this. Those are a real thing—mistakes made by the airline that they have to honor—and sites like Airfarewatchdog exist pretty much solely to find them (and other great deals). They make sure you know about them. The best part is, the website is run by actual human beings who are scanning for these errors, so you know they’re actually real when you hear about them. Head to their website and sign up for their newsletter to be one of the first to know when these amazing deals arise.
Are you the type of traveler who prefers to purchase your airfare and hotel in one bundle, rather than tracking them down separately? If you’re into going the package route, check this out: Orbitz offers a wide variety of packages that include both flights and a hotel reservation for under $500 each. These packages vary by season and are sometimes offered on less convenient days of the week (starting on Monday and ending on Friday, for example), so this website is more helpful if you’re a fairly flexible traveler. If that sounds like you, Orbitz will hook you up with a luxurious and inexpensive vacation package!
If you’re always on the lookout for good travel deals, but don’t necessarily have a specific destination in mind that you must go to next, sign up for the Flight Deal newsletter as soon as possible. Landing in your inbox daily, it offers super reasonable airfare deals for that specific day. It can get a little confusing, because the deals aren’t necessarily connected to your city, but if you read through the deals each day, you’re likely to find one that aligns with your home airport at some point! Plus, the fares they include in the newsletter include tip, so the price you see is the price you’ll pay when you book the ticket. To give you a glimpse of what we mean, a few days ago, The Flight Deal sent out a $366 roundtrip flight from New York City to Guayaquil, Ecuador, and a $431 trip from Chicago to Shannon, Ireland.
Hitlist is both an app and Google Chrome plug-in that tells you about the best deals 
from your starting point all around the world. When you install the Chrome plug-in and tell Hitlist the city you live in, you’ll be served a new travel deal from that city each time you open a new tab. If you want to see another deal, simply open a new tab or refresh the page. For example, if you open a tab in New York City right now, one of the options that’ll come up is a flight from NYC to Auckland, New Zealand for $985. The Hitlist app gets even a little bit fancier. You can provide more information about your travel preferences, and it’ll tell you what your best options are on any given day. Pretty cool, right?
Now that you know how to save some money on your trips, go ahead and start planning one! We recommend checking out one of these destinations. Have you ever booked a travel deal that felt too good to be true? We want to hear about it! Let us know on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram (or tag us @insureyonder!).
As a seasoned professional with over five years of experience in the travel insurance industry, Meagan has honed her expertise in marketing and operations working for Yonder Travel Insurance.
Throughout her career, she's shown dedication assisting customers at every stage of their travel insurance journey, from the initial quote process to navigating the claims process. Her expert understanding of travel insurance equips her to provide unbiased and valuable insights, which help travelers find the best coverage and maximize its benefits.
