Make Traveling Happen!

One of the number one reasons why people don’t ever pursue their dream in travelling to Europe (or any country for that matter) is that they think that they don’t have the money. The first “expensive” cost they ponder are the plane tickets.

Plane tickets can, in fact, be the number one expense for a trip. For this reason, people turn away from the idea of travelling. Most people are mistaken, however, on the reality of how frequently available are low-priced flights from the U.S. to Europe. Believe it or not, it is sometimes even cheaper to fly to Europe from the U.S. than it is flying within the U.S.

Trust me; it is very possible to find reasonably-priced flights. You just have to be smart about it. It took a couple of trips to really understand how we can go about finding the cheapest plane tickets for flying out of the country. However, once we figured it out, we could not wait to book our next trip… and our next. Here are some tips you can use to find the absolute best plane ticket prices:

1.            Have an open mind. Be willing to go to somewhere you would never thought you would go. Find a destination that has the most convenient dates and times for you to travel, at a great price, even though it may not be your #1 choice. Now is your chance to bring out (or develop) your spontaneous side.

2.            Sit your butt down and do research on different flight websites. It will take some time to find the best deal, so make time to do it. I promise it will be worthwhile. You will be so glad you did.

3.            Try out Google Flights! Daren stumbled across this website one day and found our Copenhagen tickets for $300 round-trip! In 10 minutes, our trip was booked. We couldn’t pass up that offer. A lot of people only use the more popular, advertised websites. These popular websites can also have good deals, but don’t forget to research some of the other websites like Google Flights or directly within the airlines too! You’ll be surprised at what you can find.

Note: Google Flights is so appealing to us because once you put in your ideal dates, you can click on the world map provided and see the prices at almost every airport in the world! Once you have found the cheapest flight in the area/country you want to go, you can go back to Google Flights’ flight schedule view and find out if adjusting your trip by one day on either end of your vacation can save you even more money. 

4.            If possible, be open to more dates. Early, mid-week flights out of the U.S. and late mid-week flights on the way back to the U.S. tend to be the cheapest.  When doing research for flights, play around with dates to see what you can find. Try out dates and times that you think would be the least likely day for people to travel (which means cheaper). It could mean travelling on Christmas Day or New Year’s Eve. We did just that for our Denmark trip and found the cheapest of the cheap. Bonus: hardly anyone at the airport, so no chaos! Not to mention that we were in Vegas (one of the top 10 busiest airports in the world).

5.            Take the leap and buy the ticket! You were obviously looking for a plane ticket for a reason. Whether the reason being that you were feeling spontaneous, or that you were browsing to just see what was out there for a near-future or dream vacation, don’t procrastinate too long in buying it. If you see an amazing deal that suits your price range and time availability, what are you waiting for? That deal may not last, so you better get on top of it before it disappears! You don’t want to regret not going for it when you had the chance. Plus, you never know if you will have another opportunity like this again!  

Side note:  Like nearly everything else online, travel websites track your movement online with cookies. As you search for the best prices, you may see that the prices tend to increase for the dates in which you are traveling.  This happens because, like all businesses, supply and demand rule.  Try clearing your cookies before you begin a flight search.  Supply and demand in the airline industry is also time dependent.  We have literally seen the same flight change between searches done mid-day and late evening, then back again the next day.

6.            Ready for the best tip ever? Okay. So, let’s say you want to go to Italy or Switzerland. When it comes to flying into these countries from the U.S., they can be the most expensive plane tickets. There are some countries in Europe are far more expensive to fly into from the U.S. than others. Therefore, you first want to research the cheapest airports in Europe to fly into from the U.S. (this ranking changes all the time and is dependent on where you leave from in the U.S.). After doing this research, keep it in mind and follow these next tips to find the best possible price: 1) Try to fly out of the closest, least expensive airports in the U.S. (For Daren and I, we found that flying out of Las Vegas is far cheaper than flying out of Salt Lake City, although it was a 6 hour drive to get there). 2) It may sound like a hassle, but if you’re able to fly out of one of the cheaper airports into another cheaper airport that is closer to Europe on the map, you will be guaranteed to find the cheapest of the cheap flights into Europe (example: Boston and NYC are two of the cheaper airports on the east coast, and Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco on the west coast). 3) Find a flight that flies you into one of the cheaper cities in Europe (Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo, or London). Then, take another flight from that country to the European country of your choice. The secret is that once you get to Europe, flying within Europe country to country can be unbelievably cheap. For example, when Daren and I travelled to Ireland and Scotland this summer, we flew from Dublin to Edinburgh for $27 per person roundtrip! And $10 of the $27 total was for travel insurance!

Note: Ryanair (thing Frontier Airlines but in Europe) just released 50 flights under $10 to celebrate Article 50 (Britain leaving the EU).  Yes I said flights under $10!

7.            Norwegian and WOW Airlines have started to offer round trip to EU from U.S. for under $200 this year.  Check these airlines out!