Reading time: 25 minutes
Hello ladybugs! I'll go ahead and warn you, the post will be lengthy, but full of GREAT information if you're interested in saving your shmoney.
Okay so boom... If you've had the pleasure of having the travel bug like myself, then I know you've grown accustomed to hearing these oh so common questions and statements..
"How can you afford to travel so much?"
"Does your job not care about how many days you take off?"
"Do you ever sit still?"
"Can you help me plan a trip to -insert random location here-?"
And this one's my favorite....
"YOU GOT MONAAAYYY!"
There is a common misconception that traveling, especially when international, takes an astronomical amount of money. Before traveling myself, I too believed this myth. I would read about people taking trips to Paris, London and Barcelona and think "I could never afford to go to these places". Traveling as far as Europe, Africa, Australia... seemed like a far off dream, that maybe, one day if I was "lucky" enough I'd get to experience. WRONG. Travel can be affordable for everyone if you walk into trip planning with patience, an open mind and the willingness to utilize all available resources.
Some points of this post may be a bit tedious, but I'm starting all the way from ground zero for my travel bug's that like a step-by-step example of all processes, so bear with me!
Welcome to Planning a Getaway 101
First off, ever since I really began to plan my own vacations, Google Flights has become my absolute best friend. I'm going to use this post to solely focus on this tool alone as there are so many different ins and outs you can use it for. The Goole Flights feature launched in September of 2011, but I'm always surprised by how many people I come across, especially fellow travelers, who have no idea what this feature of Google is! Google has made cost, travel distance, and destination planning and selection as easy as it gets. Google Flights is hands down my favorite tool to use when preparing to plan a trip. For the following reasons...
- It allows you to search from a more general perspective. You can search by month, length of travel, and even by activities. For example, you can choose to search for a one week trip in the month of November to a destination that's known for it's food and culture.
- When selecting your dates, Google allows you to see the price point for each calendar date. If you're flexible with your vacation dates, this can be extremely useful. If flying out on a particular Monday, is cheaper than that Friday, why not go for a Monday departure? ( I completely understand not all of us have this much flexibility, but if you do it can put some easy coins back in your pocket!)
- As long as you've entered a specific departure destination, your arrival destination can be as broad as a continent. For example, your departure city could be Charlotte, NC, but your arrival destination could be as broad as Europe, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and so on. This feature is LOVE! If you have no idea where you'd like to go, Google Flights will show you a multitude of popular cities on that continent along with the prices for the particular dates you've entered. You can even put countries, instead of continents as your arrival destination also.
- If you're an airline snob, we've got ya covered! Google Flights allows you to search by a specific airline if you have an absolute favorite that you prefer not to stray from. On the flip side, you can leave the airline open to all options, which is a good way for your to compare prices amongst airlines. This is EXTRA beneficial if you're a miles collector!
- Lastly, I know many travel applications have this feature, but Google Flights also grants you the ability to track prices. If you have your dates set, location selected, but feel the price is too steep, you can play your luck with having Google track the flight activity. Every time there is major activity, whether the price has jumped or gone down (fingers crossed for price drops!), Google will e-mail you letting you know.
Now, let me show you exactly what each feature looks like! Before I start, let me take a second to reiterate here...YOU MUST HAVE AN OPEN MIND. There are many trips that I already have a destination in mind, other times, I've allowed Google Flights to choose my future vacay for me. I'll show you exactly what I'm talking about.
Step 1.
How do I find it? SIMPLE! We're going to first go to www.google.com. From there type in Google Flights. Boom. We're going to select that second link from the top. I'm currently in the UK so by default that's the first option that came up for me, whatever country you're in will likely be your default link.
Step 2.
Now we're presented with the below screen. Before we dive deeper, I want to point out a couple of things. Before inserting any destination at all, the "popular destinations" aka super touristy spots will be listed below. If you're flexible, this is the place where you can select a specific month and whether you'd like to go for a weekend, one week or two weeks. If none of those times fit your agenda, or if you already have specific dates in mind then you can jump right into inserting your dates. If you're really excited about trip planning like I am, then you'll find this screen super fun to play with as you're able to experiment with when may be the cheapest time/place to travel! As a side note, the departing destination will auto-fill based on your IP address' location. I'm currently in Bali, so mine is "Denpasar". A very helpful fact to know, is that sometimes changing your destination to a surrounding airport may help you save a couple of dollars. For example, I previously lived in Charlotte, but sometimes Raleigh and/or Atlanta would have a flight for $90 compared to $350. Exploring your options is key!
Step 3.
Are you still following me? Yes? Great! Okay, so now we'll pick a destination. I'm going to give you guys two different scenarios and I'll discuss the differences in both and how each is beneficial.
Scenario 1: Let's say you are flexible and you have no idea where you want to go, but you know you'd like to travel for a week in January. On that first tab, "Dates", located right under the Discover Trips header, you'll select 'August 2018' and '1 week'. Now, this is where it gets fun! We'll select the "Places" tab which presents us with some options of what sector of the world we'd like to travel to. You can either select one of those areas, or type in a region or country of your choice. You can type things such as Caribbean, Australia, Norway etc. For our example, we'll select Australia.
Below, you can now see all of the popular destinations for a 1-week period in August. So y'all remember when I said I'm constantly hearing "How can you afford to travel so much?" This! This right here is how fam. This is the part where being open minded comes into play! Lets say I was initially logging onto Google Flights to plan a trip to Alice Springs, BUT, my pockets are currently on the struggle bus. By going through this list pictured below, Alice Springs is $741 while both Darwin and Perth are in the upper $100 range. Which one do you think I'd choose? I'm all about saving a coin or two. Generally, the popular destinations that are presented one this page are going to have a WIDE range of activities, tourist sites and overall things for you to do. So even if you have to change from your original plans, don't stress! Chances are, you won't be sent somewhere totally isolated or boring, other great options await!
Scenario 2: In scenario 1, I gave an example from the perspective of someone that's very flexible on both dates and location. Let's say that you've changed your mind since Alice Springs, Australia is a little too pricey and you'd like to explore other options based on what they have to offer. We'll move right on over to the very last tab labeled "Interests". This will give you a list of things to choose from such as beaches, culture, food and more. For this particular example we'll say that we're interested in searching for a place that either has or is in close quarters to a beach. Google Flights will not only give you those cities, it will also list the names of the beaches that are either in or close to those cities which makes your researching process even easier! You can simply pull some of these names provided, and look up pictures and more information.
As a reminder, you're not restricted in searching only in Australia or other continents. You can also search by a specific country, and Google will produce options only in that country so that there's a more narrow set of options. Below I have switched the search to Asia, to demonstrate that any possible continent/country/state is searchable.
Step 4
Now let's see what it looks like to pick a destination. For the purposes of this tutorial, we'll say that your heart is 100% set on going to Sydney, because let's not front, there are many of us (including myself), who love to have things our way despite the shmoney situation. Referring back to the initial screenshot referencing the "Places" tab (two images up), we'd select Sydney. After selecting Sydney, the below screen will pop up which agaiiiiin is yet another feature that I love about Google, but won't elaborate on in this post. On the right hand side you have hotel options, which is super useful if you're torn between locations. The costs of accommodations compared to another city may be useful in helping you make your decision. We'll move forward by selecting "Show flights", at the bottom of the left hand side.
Now, that brings us to the below screen. I'll point out two things on this screen when it comes to pricing and flight times. The lowest price amongst the selection will always have the price in green. Also shown below are the flight times and duration of the flight. This is particularly helpful if you're looking to avoid or have a layover. Sometimes people get confused when I suggest having a long layover. A layover for 15 hours, especially if it isn't solely an overnight layover, can be an awesome way to add a second destination to your vacation. 15 hours is enough time for you to have a couple of meals, explore some sites and attractions, and potentially even check out some museums/amusement parks/etc. On the cheapest flight below, there is a layover in Kuala Lumpur which is definitely an explorable city! Even if you can't avoid a long layover, but don't feel like exploring a new city (said no one ever), there is also the option of spending time in an airport lounge. Unless you have a rewards card or a lounge pass with a certain airline, you will have to pay a fee to use the airport lounges. Some airports also have mini pods you can rent hourly with beds, showers and space for you to just relax.
Step 5
Okay, we're almost done guys! Just a few more things that I'd like to point out. Honestly, this is probably the part that you all have been waiting for; figuring out the cheapest price! Planning a vacation on a budget! I am able to save SO much money on vacations by using this particular calendar feature. If I see that certain dates are cheaper than the original ones I've chosen, I nearly always rearrange for the cheaper dates, especially if there's a big difference! The calendar feature shows you the price of a roundtrip flight, unless you've chosen to view a one-way/multi-city. As you can see below, leaving on August 19th would be $375, while leaving August 21st is $335. If you're able to be flexible, why not save the extra money? That additional cash that could be used for meals, accommodations, excursions and so on. Just be mindful to check the weather conditions for where you're going. In some places, changing months could be moving from summer to hurricane season.
Bonus:
Whew! We're finally winding down here. The very last thing I'd like to show you guys is the explore feature. If you look back at the image from "Step 2", you'll see in the top left corner an icon besides the words "Flights". If you click that icon and select "Explore Map" the below image will appear. The explore map is basically a way for you to see all the available cities and their price point for the dates you have chosen. This gives you a very broad view of potential places that you can travel to. When I literally have no idea where I feel like going, I take a look at the explore map. Even if I don't use it for the purposes of purchasing a ticket, it's a good feature to use to discover other places that you've never heard of. I've come across a lot of cities that I had no clue even existed by using this feature. It's as easier as clicking on the screen and moving the map around to see what destinations appear. If you haven't heard of it, a quick Google search can give you an idea of what the city has to offer.
That's all guys! Hopefully through reading this post I was able to shed some light on how traveling can in fact be super reasonable when using the right resources. My biggest goal is to help as many dreamers as possible not only open up to the idea of traveling, but understand that affordable traveling is actually a thing. If you enjoyed this and would like to see more content of this sort please feel free to subscribe to my site for future alerts, and leave me a comment letting me know what you think!
XoXo