Defining Cheap Travel in Europe Staying at Expensive Hotels

Often we cover the topic of "What is the definition of Cheap?" Whether it be cheap travel or cheap shoes or whatever. In the past few years, "cheap" has gotten a bad name. It has come to be a derogatory term used to insult a product or a person. We hear statements about something being a "cheap knock-off." This means that someone has produced some kind of product at a lower price than the "original." Some times these products are just as good. However, often the products produced are of inferior quality. Some people are willing to put up with the lower quality and even get used to it and would say that buying brand name items at a higher price is not worth the extra money. They are happy with the cheaper option. There are also people that simply aren't happy with anything less than the full-price, original or best quality item. In travel this is also the case as First Class Gold Members will rarely be happy with economy class seats, any more than a millionaire with a private yacht will be happy with a berth on a modern cruise ship with 1,800 other passengers!

So for the sake of definition. Let's just clarify that "cheap" here is meant to refer to getting a good price on something of value. The value may be relative in the sense that some people don't value it at all while for others it's a good deal. A good example of this concept is the hostel stay. I stayed at a hostel in Europe for under 20 Euro and it was a comfortable bed and clean bathrooms. So I suggested it to a friend. He came and stayed and complained the next morning about how loud it was (apparently two people were sitting on a bed talking well into the night in our 10 bed room). He complained and said it would be a better deal for him to split a 60 Euro room with me and have privacy next time. So you have to see what your values are and where you would stay and then make intelligent moves to find cheap prices for the same kind of travel you would want if money were not an option.

Here is a great way to do this. Find a hotel where you would have a great time no matter what (i.e. no matter how much money it would cost). A place where you will be comfortable and one that has the amenities you want. Now start to do some research. When is it "off season" for that particular hotel? Do they have any deals for certain holidays or periods of time? Can you use some miles or rewards from a credit card to get in? This may take some planning ahead, but can lead to some really amazing deals. I just recently was working with some friends to help them find some place for a getaway weekend in Europe. I was amazed to find a 5 star hotel that is part of an international chain (Starwood) available for $80. This is an exceptionally good deal. Especially when you consider that in Europe, you usually can't find anything good for under 100 Euro, and this is hovering around 60 Euro currently. If you check the high season rates (summer because it's a seaside hotel), you will see that they start at $190 a night for two adults. So you are getting this hotel at almost 70% off. Can you say this is cheap travel in Europe when you could probably find a hostel for about 40 Euros and sleep with unknown people talking in your room, or spend a little more and stay at a 5 Star Hotel? I say it IS cheap travel.

Cheap Travel on Easy Jet

You want to get away during the winter. You don't necessarily want to go to a ski resort, but you want to travel in Europe in the Fall and Winter. First of all, good job! You should be able to find much better fares than people who can only travel in the summer (HIGH price season). You also may get some of the best weather, actually. That's right! Instead of hitting Athens in the middle of July and temperatures pushing up even into the 100's, you might catch it during a week of beautiful fall or winter weather that will neither freeze or cook you.

Speaking of Athens, let's look at some CHEAP TRAVEL to Athens! I wanted to look at Easy Jet in particular, maybe in honor of a friend of mine who is flying Easy Jet today. Though they don't have as many flights during the winter season, they have quite a few more than some of their competitors and keep many of their destinations going year-round. If you are coming from the US, you can just use London as a gateway city and then hook up with some of the discount airlines that are available in Europe. Easy Jet flies to Athens out of Gatwick.

Let's assume you are in a hurry. I wouldn't recommend buying tickets on Easy Jet too late because the cheap tickets may be sold out. Cheap travel is often all about timing. In a quick cursory look today, there are flights from London to Athens every day and usually there are two! So to grab some dates, let's try later in November. The site is friendly for moving days backward or forward, so you can find the cheapest dates that work for you.

In this case, Thursday, November 17 has a flight available for EUR 55.91 leaving at 1:55 p.m. and arriving at 7:30 p.m. So no early morning or late night required. Nice. Return trip to London (four days just seems like a nice weekend jaunt) on Monday, Nov. 21 is only 97 EUR and looks like the cheapest right now (it says last seat at that price!).

So simple math would say the ticket is 152.90 EUR and I do keep checking to make sure the price isn't in British pounds because this price seems too good to be true! Oh wait, do you want to take a bag? Let's say "Yes." OK. Add 34 Euro's! Wow, I better bring some pretty nice stuff with me in that bag. 20 kilograms allowed (44 pounds) and the site is bragging that if I pay the 34 EUR now it's half price for the bag! 68 EUR at the airport? Hmmmm. I'm up to 186.90 now! Still under 200, so I'm feeling ok. So we go on through the hotel and rental car page (rent a car from Gatwick?). And I click to purchase. What?!? Why does it now say 202.90?!? Hmm. Small print, get out the reading glasses. Because I am paying with my credit card the price is now almost 203 EUR instead of 187. It's only 197 if I pay with a debit card. The quoted price is only if I have a Visa "electron" card, which I apparently don't have (and would venture to guess most normal travelers don't!). So we got tagged for another 15 EUR or 10 EUR if we put it on our debit card. Maybe this doesn't bother you. I would just as soon they charge the fee up front. I suppose if I had a Visa Electron card I would feel smug and happy about this rule.

Still, from one end of Europe to the other (granted it's the West side to the South side), I think that 203 EUR for a London Athens round-trip flight qualifies as Cheap Travel in Europe. Don't you?

Cheap Travel on Easy Jet

You want to get away during the winter. You don't necessarily want to go to a ski resort, but you want to travel in Europe in the Fall and Winter. First of all, good job! You should be able to find much better fares than people who can only travel in the summer (HIGH price season). You also may get some of the best weather, actually. That's right! Instead of hitting Athens in the middle of July and temperatures pushing up even into the 100's, you might catch it during a week of beautiful fall or winter weather that will neither freeze or cook you.

Speaking of Athens, let's look at some CHEAP TRAVEL to Athens! I wanted to look at Easy Jet in particular, maybe in honor of a friend of mine who is flying Easy Jet today. Though they don't have as many flights during the winter season, they have quite a few more than some of their competitors and keep many of their destinations going year-round. If you are coming from the US, you can just use London as a gateway city and then hook up with some of the discount airlines that are available in Europe. Easy Jet flies to Athens out of Gatwick.

Let's assume you are in a hurry. I wouldn't recommend buying tickets on Easy Jet too late because the cheap tickets may be sold out. Cheap travel is often all about timing. In a quick cursory look today, there are flights from London to Athens every day and usually there are two! So to grab some dates, let's try later in November. The site is friendly for moving days backward or forward, so you can find the cheapest dates that work for you.

In this case, Thursday, November 17 has a flight available for EUR 55.91 leaving at 1:55 p.m. and arriving at 7:30 p.m. So no early morning or late night required. Nice. Return trip to London (four days just seems like a nice weekend jaunt) on Monday, Nov. 21 is only 97 EUR and looks like the cheapest right now (it says last seat at that price!).

$101 flights to London from USA

Yes, it's true. There are 101 US Dollar flights out there from Boston to London! "Wow!" you say. "I can do that!" you say. Guess what, though? There aren't. Well, there are. But that is the base price. $568 and some change will pay the taxes and fees required to get an AIRLINE TICKET TO LONDON FOR $101. See how that works? You put the part of the information that seems interesting in capital letters and the rest of it in smaller letters and it looks like an amazing deal. This means that $678 will get you to London from Boston. This AMAZING DEAL is actually better than the one at which we were looking a couple weeks ago in a great article about cheap travel to Europe. It is exactly $21 better! Not much difference.

I'm actually very interested in cheap flights from Indianapolis, or other places in the mid-west. So KLM's flights from Indianapolis caught my eye. They are also advertised at amazing prices $252 dollars, I believe. However, there is one or ten more catches. Of course, the prices advertised are, for one, hard to find, and second without any taxes or fees added in. It is actually possible, however, in this case, to get pretty cheap travel from Indianapolis to London. There are flights in November available for 769 dollars round-trip on US Airways. These flights, connect through Charlotte and arrive into London Gatwick. This is a good airport as far as public transit in London is concerned, and will not require you to get an expensive bus or train like some of the outlying airports do (such as Luton and Stansted).

Does this meet your standard for cheap travel to Europe? I will let you decide. If you are headed farther into Europe, using London as a gateway city, you may decide that almost $800 is too much to get you to a place to "begin" your travels in Europe. If you are spending your time in London and going no farther, it might suit you. If you are going deeper into Europe (most of my friends are farther East, as well as cheap travel deals), you will want to keep in mind that at this point tickets from Indianapolis to Vienna are a good deal at $866 per person on United. Try to get from London to Vienna round-trip for 97 US Dollars, and you will probably barely cover your bus or taxi fare both ways to and from the airport! Happy travels and I wish you great success in finding cheap travel to Europe!

Cheap Flights to London Fall 2011

Cheap Travel to Europe is here and it's open season! Published fares are dropping as we head into the colder part of the year and any of us can have a chance to jump a flight to Europe at good prices. Not fantastic, but good. There are rumblings about prices dropping, but some of them are nothing more than the airlines trying to stir up the rumor mill. A big Delta "sale" I saw turned out to be Business Class fares starting at $1600 and some each way... What? If you read me often, you know that I'm not looking for "deals" on biz and 1st class flights. I am looking to get away for the minimum amount of money, even if that means I have to stand up like a city bus (Yes, it has been discussed by Ryan Air in the media... are they serious? I don't know).

So with all that in mind, I checked flights today for cheap travel to Europe from the Right Coast (Boston), to the middle coastal city of Chicago (it's on the coast of a lake...), to the West Coast... hmmm. Los Angeles is just easy. I looked from Tuesday to Tuesday October 11-25. That gives me three weeks advance and should be a quiet time of year for travel. I was lured to the internet by US's claims to be having big sales to Europe on air tickets, particularly London. I was disappointed to find nothing really from them. I did find that Virgin and BA seem to be having a nice little bidding war that could benefit all of us who want to travel a little bit cheaper. Especially if you like non-stop flights. Really if you do the math, with all the fees for stopping in airports and taxes, this often saves money these days, as well as wear and tear on your body (do I sound old yet?). At least two airlines want your business from Boston to London and will let you fly midweek for under $700 by $1. This is really good when you start to consider what the dollar is doing on international currency boards (think "falling?"). This is only EUR 516 (and the people in Europe may be paying 700 Euros for similar flights) or 451 British Pounds. Virgin Atlantic's website states them as 500 US Dollars plus fees which then comes in at $699 also.

Chicago is only a little more expensive at $815.40, so if you live West of Boston, don't dispair. In fact, you won't find any flights from Chicago to Boston for $116.40, so you might as well just check your bags all the way to London and forget the gymnastics of trying to get flights out of the east coast in segments. When the flights to London for $350 start popping up, though they may not any time soon (I hate saying "never") then you can mess with all that. Now, just jump a flight to London midweek from O'Hare for only 600 EUR. Too bad you're probably not getting paid in Euro's right?

If you are trading in the cold pacific waters for the colder Atlantic waters and flying from L.A. to London, don't get in the water! Just kidding! I'm just saying what I would and wouldn't do in the case that I was in or near London this week. You can do pretty much whatever you want, I hope you just get a good deal going there and that you have some ideas for indoor activities or like the rain and clouds or both From Los Angeles I'm seeing non-stops on United, Virgin and BMI, British all for US $827. So mile per mile, the LA flight is the cheapest one. It also looks like good service on those long flights and mostly 777's flying if that matters to you (I like the new planes). Once again about 600 EUROs. Is this is good time to go? I guess it depends on you. Do you have the cash and time off? If so, rates are low enough to go. If not, just wait until they drop to ridiculous prices and hope that you can still get time off. Either way, I wish you happy travels and most of all, Cheap Travel to Europe.

Fall refers to prices on Cheap Travel to Europe

Of course it will be cheaper to fly to Europe in the Fall! All the kids are back in school, not to mention the teachers, administrators and professors and college students! The airlines need some people in the seats. If you are waiting for some cheap travel opportunities to come to Europe, this is great news right? Just jump on your favorite site or call your travel agent (I know, they really do still exist despite the cuts) and see how low they can go for your next week or weekend away. The crowds are dying down in the popular places and things are getting a little bit more normal and traffic will be greatly reduced if you decide to travel during these months. The weather is never guaranteed, especially places like England, Scotland, Netherlands or Scandanavia, so even summer trips to various destinations often produce cold memories! In fact in many places, you are likely to get as good or better weather in your destination of choice during the months of September and October. November can be very cold in mountainous areas or northern climes, but this summer was too for many. If you are going to places like Turkey or Greece, I think these are brilliant places to visit in the fall and avoid the high summer temperatures and crowds at destinations like Athens, Santorini, Corfu, and Southern Turkey or even Istanbul.

It's not all sunshine and roses though, even in Southern Europe. Many of the discount carriers that make air-travel in Europe so cheap cut down or change their routes quite significantly during the winter. Germanwings, ryanair and easyjet, amoung others, will have a daily or four times weekly flight reduced to one day a week or even canceled completely until next summer! FLEXIBILITY will continue to be a key to getting cheap travel in Europe during the Fall season. You will have to look at a week at a time and try to see if they still have flights going and pick your days of the week accordingly. Can you get cheap flights to cities like Zagreb, Graz, Katowice, Ancona, Barcelona, and even Scandanavia? Absolutely. You just have to look. Many destinations will have a mid week and a weekend flight remaining on the schedule so you can do 3 or 4 days in a destination or a whole week if you prefer.

Now, however, is a good time to book the cheap stuff before it fills up. For the trans-atlantic flights, it's possible there will be some last minute deals as the planes don't fill up, but this may leave you spending a few days exploring a gateway city, rather than paying for flights to continue on which have filled up or become expensive at the last minute. Ryanair sometimes gets cheaper at the last minute, but Germanwings tends to charge more days before a flight. Look around and see what you find. That's part of the joy and challenge of cheap travel, though, right? It's a bit like a box of chocolates... but that's a sentence that belongs somewhere else. If you get an extraordinary good deal, please feel free to drop me a line and let me know how you did it!

Out and About: Cheap Travel in Europe

Hello again! I've been out and about traveling in Europe and it's fantastic!

Recent destinations include Budapest, Vienna and even a little bit of Venice! They are all in within a day's drive of each other. Being from N. America, I have to ask myself where could I go between three VERY different countries and find such diversity in a mere 9 hours driving time? Certainly not in the Western United States (24 hours from Los Angeles to Denver, for exampe). So there are advantages of the near-by borders of these countries, especially when you figure the vast differences in culture and history between the Venician and the Austro-Hungarian Empires that lead to very different experiences and sites as you travel.

I must confess that I ran into a real conundrum in my quest for cheap travel in Europe. I wanted to get from Vienna to Venice as cheaply as possible. I didn't want to completely rough it for various reasons, so hitch-hiking and www.gorivo.com were out. I could have flown out of Budapest or Vienna, or even Bratislava and I looked at Prague too. My general target is to get a short roundtrip for $200 or less. So $100 each way is usually my target. I was pushed to 200 EUR and I still couldn't hit the target! I did see some pretty good deals on Wizz air and Ryan air from some of my cities (especially Bratislava and Budapest), but they were mostly to Milan, which is a good couple hours from Venice and I had an appointment in the mid-afternoon, which meant I would be flying in the night before and booking a hotel for another 50 EUR or more. I will say there was a flight from Brno, Czech Republic (about 80 km north of Vienna) a couple times a week, but my dates just didn't line up.
Remember one of the main rules of finding cheap travel in Europe or anywhere else for that matter, is FLEXIBILITY. In this case, I didn't have enough of it. I even checked buses, though I was dreading a 12 hour trip on the bus. Not significantly cheaper! Trains were more than 100 EUR each way per person, blowing my budget out of the water... I'm doing some of this by memory now, so please don't sue me. I ended up paying $180 USD for a car plus fuel and tolls, a night in a hotel and parking through Austria and Italy. This was my cheapest option but I'm not sure we made it for less than $200 per person (there were only two of us). Oh well. I mentioned flexibility. I had a chance (which I just didn't take because we have to let some things go in life) to go from Budapest to Madrid for 200 EUR roundtrip on KLM airlines, flying through Amsterdam! Yes, hard to believe isn't it? There's a good lesson that after you check (or maybe before!!??) all the cheapo airlines and discounters from their less-than-convenient airport options, go ahead and check all the main airlines and sites you would normally check. I was shocked. KLM was beating everyone and I could have added Spain to the list for 200 EUR for a weekend trip from Budapest!!

How do you get cheap travel to Europe? How do you find cheap travel in Europe between great destinations like Budapest, Vienna, Venice and Madrid? Now if I could offer you a little gadget that would help you never miss another good deal for exactly the destinations you need when you need them, you would definitely buy it wouldn't you? Well, I don't have one and I don't believe there is one. You just have to keep your eyes out. I suppose it would have helped if I had booked a ticket months ago, but if you would have asked me months ago if I would need a ticket to Venice, I would have told you "You're crazy!" If you can plan ahead, it may help. Then again people that bought tickets to Madrid months ago may have paid 300 EUR. Who knows? So keep it flexible and just make it happen. I will probably never have another chance like I did to see Venice from Vienna and all the other details worked out, I just needed the time and the transport to have a once in a lifetime experience. At that point, I have to agree with the credit card tagline: Priceless.

Cheap Travel Europe: Central Europe

Hi all,

So I am getting ready to do some cheap travel in Europe! I hope that you are also getting ready. Going to Europe or travelling around in Europe can be the trip and experience of a lifetime. I wish you all the best and happy trails in that endeavor. This is a great year to find cheap travel in Europe and possibly offers some opportunities because of the world economy and specifically in some locations.

I think there are still many deals and you can definitely still find cheap travel in Europe. You just have to know where to look. My general opinion is to go East and go South at this point to find the best deals. In some cases (particularly Greece) go East and South. The recession is still affecting much of the world and this economy is going to push some prices down if you know where to go. I don't think some of the mainline "West" destinations are feeling the squeeze enough yet to lower their prices significantly. Honestly, I don't know if the South and East are either, but their prices have never been as high as out West. Having said that, I think that Spain and Portugal definitely need to have a very good year considering their tough position economically. Greece continues to struggle, but the beaches in Greece have always been a great place to find cheap travel accommodations and that will simply continue. Southern Italy is similar if you know where to look.

The Adriatic coast of Croatia and Montenegro will also continue to be great places to find cheap travel and accommodations this summer. Both of these have been re-discovered since the Balkan war and are getting busier and busier and the prices have gone up a little, but the availability and variation (i.e. selection) have gone up dramatically as well and these locations continue to offer excellent value to the budget conscious traveler. If you are looking for upscale places at good prices and haven't booked yet, I would definitely check out Croatia and Montenegro... Cheap travel to Croatia is available on several airlines, including, RyanAir, Easy Jet and Wizzair. Montenegro is also opening up and offers use of the Euro in the economy there.

But perhaps the new "new destination" that hasn't completely been discovered yet, though I know that Lonely Planet has started to catch on, is ALBANIA. Albania is not for the no-touch freight traveler who is looking for an upscale vacation with no snags. For that matter, go West young man on that one (stay in London or Dublin if you want). But for the traveler who is willing to look for cheap travel and explore new areas, this country has very beautiful beaches at rock bottom prices. Just a short ferry ride away are the Greek islands, but if you stay on the continent you will find excellent prices and gorgeous natural settings. Go away from the cities to find this! This is a former communist country that was very isolated during the old days and their public systems (read sewers) are not advanced, so please don't go to the beach right near a major population center. You'll be disappointed. Having said that probably scared off a few more people, which means that the prices will be great for you when you arrive.

If you want to get more excellent deals, I recommend Romania and Bulgaria. These two EU members only joined recently and the economies have not caught up yet with the West, so the services there are much cheaper. This means that you will find cheap travel and accomodations without much trouble. This is especially true in the countryside. You can also buy real estate here quite cheaply, but that is another topic for another day and probably another writer.

Serbia also is a beautiful country (though you won't get a seaside place there) with some rough politics at the moment. The people there are very hospitable and the politics don't affect that. The prices are very reasonable, possibly even more so because it's on the top of so few lists as places that really need to be visited right now.

If you're already in the neighborhood, Macedonia and Turkey are also beautiful places with very reasonable prices. They haven't caught the Euro-lust that so many places have. The prices remain very good and you can find good lodging and cheap travel.

In all these cases, if you want to take a bus around and you ask a bit, you will find SUPER CHEAP TRAVEL deals. Honestly, I don't have patience for that and am able to find good airfare deals to all but a few places with just a bit of research.

You will find that while these are good options for Cheap Travel in Europe, the populations are very friendly and hospitable and will be glad to see you.

Get ready for cheap travel in Europe this summer!

Greetings on a rainy day. That's what Spring is about, though, right? To get some moisture that makes the plants start growing like crazy and then we start to get beautiful weather and can enjoy a great summer. And hopefully this summer will be full of travel, right? It would be interesting to see if school was out during a different time of year if summer would still be the high travel time. I bet for many it would. You just don't go to the beach in December in most places and really enjoy it like you can in the warmer times of the year. Since we are focusing especially on Europe, that is really true. Swedish sea kayaking in November anyone? Didn't think so.

The high season means it's more difficult to find cheap travel to Europe, but not impossible. Since it's pretty late to try and get a jump on the game, if you are still planning to travel to Europe with cheap fares, you might have to be little cunning and patient now. Last minute travel deals will pop up depending on how poorly things are going for the travel companies. The economy is starting to shows signs of recovery, but this is not guaranteed and it's likely that the companies aren't going to be too hard-nosed about giving good deals to try and scare up as many customers as they possibly can this summer. Having said that, you have to keep your eyes out for some good deals, possibly some signs of frustration or desperation. In my recent checks on the "low fare" carriers of Europe--you probably know who they are, but if not, read through some of my other posts and I name a few--I am not seeing that they are desperate AT ALL. In fact my recent cheap fare in and out of London is a thing of the past. A pre-season give-me. They are definitely asking for more money this summer, with only a few exceptions.

Is all lost? NO WAY! Hold on a bit and buy some last minute tickets and I think you will find that there are going to be many good deals out there. This requires, of course, patience and flexibility.

So if you're going to Aunt Nellie's wedding in the old country and you absolutely have to be there on a particular date and you are planning on getting a super cheap airfare, you need to raise your price expectations and start looking like crazy to get the best fare you can, otherwise you may be needing to fly first-class to get a seat and that will definitely cost you about triple.

I have walked into an airport and looked at the board and tried to see an interesting place where I would like to go, but don't have to if the price isn't right. If this is you, you definitely have some exciting days ahead of you, because I think the airlines would rather have your money than have an empty seat and nobody bragging about getting a good deal...

Also, because the airlines that have made their name with cheap fares in Europe are starting to become more mainstream (and thus more expensive), the traditional airlines are seeing a chance and dropping some fares to lure people who don't want to pay 40 more Euros to bring a bag and 5 more to drink a coke on the flight... There is an opportunity to get very reasonable airfares with some European airlines who are giving out cheap flights to lure customers back from the bargain brands.

If you are new here, take a look back at some of the other entries here on my cheap travel to Europe blog and see some of the strategies and try them out for great deals and I wish you the best of luck and success finding cheap travel to Europe this summer!

Cheap travel to Europe on a busy weekend

Hello again!

Just got back from a great trip to England. Of course I got some cheap airline tickets and basically stayed with friends for next to nothing.... I have also mentioned couchsurfing.com in the past for a way to stay cheap, though I found a place through friends of friends this time... Not to bore you about me, but I basically bought flights for the week I could go and found out later that the ROYAL WEDDING was that week! Why is this a big deal at all? Because conventional wisdom would say that cheap travel to Europe, especially London would be hard to find on such an occasion, right? Apparently wrong. Yes, I did buy my tickets about 2 months early and planned ahead a bit, but our flights weren't jam packed and I would venture to guess that cheap travel to Europe wasn't too big of a challenge last week. But maybe I'm just lucky--it only rained two days out of seven when I was in London!! It's not high season yet, so tickets were cheaper and it's a great gateway city, London. My main problem was finding decent meals and paying for public transportation in one of the most expensive cities in the world, not to mention that the dollar isn't exactly worth much these days against European currencies. My other big challenge was finding people who could speak English (I'm not joking!). One of the few people I spoke with whose native language was English, I really had a hard time understanding until I figured out that both three and four start with an "f" for him!! Overall, though, cheap travel to Europe and especially cheap travel in Europe is not too difficult to do. I flew no-frills and took my own water on board to avoid paying big money there, but hey, the bathrooms are still free! Although some airlines are talking about charging for them in the future, most notably Ryanair (super cheap travel within Europe). My friend just got a decent flight roundtrip in May and returning July, so there are still some tickets to be had if you follow the directions out there and on here about getting cheap travel to Europe.

Cheap Travel to Europe Another Season

Another "high season" is coming up in the Travel to Europe Universe. Yes, not only do the winter snows stop and melt away and the rains begin and the flowers bloom and the gardens grow, but the prospect of TRAVEL begins to take on a new glow! We could actually pack lighter and stay warmer if we traveled to Europe in the summer, right? So the search for cheap travel to Europe begins anew in earnest for those of us born to wander. (If you are just starting out, please check out my blog about gateway cities for a primer on one of the basics of finding cheap travel to Europe).

So what else will be new in the wacky world of travel to Europe? A friend of mine recently had an experience that proves that "truf is stranger than diction" or something like that. He bought a ticket mere hours before he flew from Central Europe to the West Coast of the US and got one of the best deals he has ever gotten in his life! And this person is no stranger to travel and knows how to find a good deal. So what does it prove? Not much other than "you never know." Do I recommend waiting until the day of to book your flights? Not usually. If there is any principle that we can find for cheap travel to Europe , I guess it would be that there are three things we need to have: Flexibility, Flexibility and.... gumby-ness. It is economics 101 that flexibility will allow you to find the cheapest flights to the cheapest locations with the cheapest connections and when you don't have any options, you will pay what they want you to pay when they want you to pay it. I have recently read at least one place that waiting until close to the date will work well IF you will go where-ever. Now if you have a specific place and dates you have to stick with, I wouldn't recommend waiting too long. If you can get your tickets on cheaper airlines within Europe, I would definitely recommend buying those ahead, because the law of supply and demand will make them get more expensive as time goes by and more people fill up the flight. Even having said that, some carriers will drop the price once the flight is 7 days out and still very empty to get some people into the seats. So see how you do. Set your limits and look for something that suits you. I will soon be flying to London with tickets that I bought a couple months ago just because I couldn't pass up the deal to get away for super cheap.

There will be some people paying more for travel to Europe this summer and some people paying significantly LESS. My hope is to be among the latter group and that you will be too. I hope you have all the luck finding cheap travel to Europe this year and once you get there, to have cheap travel in Europe. After all, it is worth it to save some of the money getting there so that you can spend it on things that will make your time in Europe memorable and enjoyable.

Cheap Travel to Europe this year

Greetings! So in the dead of winter (for some deeper than others), the discussion of Cheap Travel to Europe may not sound appealing, especially if we are talking cheap travel to Scandinavia or some of the northern parts of Europe. Interestingly, this year Europe seems to be having a much more mild winter than the States, so perhaps the idea of escaping to southern climates like Southern France or Italy by finding cheap flights to Europe will be appealing to some trapped in the snow and ice of the season. If cheap is the top priority, then indeed, hop on the plane, of course first that means hop on the internet and look for cheap travel to Europe. During this season it's pretty sure to be had, as mentioned in my last blog on timing in finding cheap travel to Europe. If you are interested in traveling during the summer, it is also (past) time to jump in and start looking. Of course there will usually be some last-minute offers, but for the summer months ("high season") you will be very lucky to find anything close to cheap travel to Europe if you don't buy well ahead. The pickings will be slim the more time goes on and you will have very few options on what is available for truly cheap travel options to Europe. Don't get me wrong, catching a cheap flight on Iberia to southern Portugal or Spain will still qualify as cheap travel to Europe, but do you really want to have the 100+ F temperatures or long rides from there to get to other more temperate parts of Europe? Go ahead and carefully shop and buy a summer trip to Europe soon if you haven't already. Why is it tricky to get cheap travel to Europe this year? The main reason is: oil prices. They are already volatile this year and look like they are headed up. Will this really make the price of travel by air more expensive for the airlines? IT DOESN'T MATTER. The last time oil prices went up, so did several fees that the airlines added. The fares also climbed and cheap travel was made more difficult. The oil prices then went down. Guess what? None of those fees and prices really significantly went down during that period. The airlines saw a way to acceptably raise the prices because everyone knew that oil prices had gone up and so they raised fares and added several fees, such as baggage fees which had previously been "unacceptable" to customers. The price of oil finally fell significantly and these fees imposed stayed. If oil goes up again, it's fair to reason that the airlines will try the same trick and raise fares for sure. They will probably also add or increase some fees that will stay even if the fares go back down. This will make cheap travel to Europe harder and harder to find. One way to avoid this is to buy before this happens. When they lowered the luggage weight allowed from 70 pounds to 50 pounds, people who had purchased their tickets during the 70 pound limit were allowed to fly with 70 pounds. Of course if you pack light and go for a short time, this doesn't affect you. However, the concept will remain the same for fuel excess fees, anti-terrorism fees, passenger service fees and the like that will be tagged on if the airlines perceive that they can get away with it (they are not running their businesses as a charity after all!). So cheap travel to Europe may be elusive this year. But hey, what fun would it be if it wasn't a challenge?

On the optimistic side, with the economic outlook still pretty grim, there are several good deals to be had that really qualify as genuine cheap travel to Europe. The airlines are trying to lure people to travel with lower fares despite the bad economic indicators. If you are signed up for alerts from your city, I am quite sure you will see more than a few attractive offers come across the wires. Don't give up. I wish you all great luck in finding cheap travel to Europe this year!

Cheap Travel to Europe Means Timing

This title may seem obvious to some, but the truth of it could save you a lot of money. Perhaps you have read that you need patience in order to get Cheap travel to Europe. This is true--sometimes! But then again, sometimes waiting and "being patient" is the worst thing you can do if you want to get cheap travel to Europe.

So am I talking out of both sides of my mouth? Is the case of getting cheap airline tickets to Europe the same as that of winning the lottery? No. I don't believe it is. For starters, there are way better chances of you getting cheap travel to Europe than of you winning (big) at the lottery! Trust me. Part of the reason that the chances are better is that you can educate yourself about the prices of tickets and you can wait or hurry to get the cheapest tickets.

What you need to know to find cheap travel to Europe:

Basically you just need to decide what cities you want to fly in and out of and then you need to find out what the best prices are. If you read some of my other posts you will see some prices but of course those are subject to change with time, fuel prices, taxes etc. So don't rely solely on my prices. Especially with other cities. You want to find the best airline prices for your city pairs, not mine. What does it mean to do some research? I think the quickest way to find Cheap travel to Europe is to ask a travel agent. You may not think that I like using them because I am always looking for travel deals to Europe on my own. But if you have absolutely no idea of what a good price even is, ask a professional. If they can give you the best prices, go through them to get them. If not, get your tickets form other sources, such as the internet. Your travel agent or your own research online can help you to set your target price(s). Once you have those, look around. If you find them, buy! If you don't, wait. You can have your travel agent look for a while or even set email alerts on price drops to your destinations. Be ready to buy when the pieces fall into place and you find sufficiently cheap travel to Europe.

When to stop waiting:

If your travel times are NOT flexible, then you have to look well ahead of time and be thinking about that. You definitely don't want to wait past the three week before the trip stage anyway. That is when most ticket discounts will end completely and you'll be looking at full price tickets within that time period. If your travel time is flexible, just keep an eye out and watch for when the price is right and then just jump in.

Getting Cheap travel to Europe is not a science but being aware of what your target is and grabbing it when it's available is the key! Of course a little luck never hurt anybody either! So good luck and happy hunting!

New Deals Available!

Hello and Happy New Year!!

I have to say that I'm pretty excited because I am seeing a LOT of good deals on airline tickets that mean cheap travel to Europe! Yes, that's right. There are several airlines that are putting the pressure on their competitors to lower all prices in the area. As mentioned in an earlier post, the competition to get the few dollars (or EUROs) out there in a lean looking year may be fierce, which may be very good for us the customer. The first signs out of the new year are pretty good. Of course, it could go either way. Cheap travel to Europe could mean VERY CHEAP (let's take a weekend in Paris!) or it could start climbing again. We'll just have to see where it goes. But right now it looks good.

Right now, Iceland Express is breaking everybody else's--well prices with some flights from Newark to London for under $500 including taxes!! So I was pretty much not believing it myself. I mean this is the cheap travel to Europe that is really CHEAP. OK OK I'll spill the beans. It's on Iceland Express (just google it) and they have these cheap seats going from now to March 28 from Newark airport (I think it's kind of funny they refer to it as New York-Newark, which I know might get them beat up in some parts of the real New York ha ha!). Apparently it's not first class (oh my!) and some people complain about the planes being a bit older (no displays on the back of the seats, wha wha wha!). They have to pass regulations or they wouldn't be allowed to fly, and safety is not the issue on why they are cheaper. Apparently it's a few creature comforts. But I am assuming that if your butler is booking you on first and biz class, you've not even looked at this stuff, let alone are still reading. If you are, you better get to your squash tournament or make use of that country club membership, rather than wasting your time on some blog about Cheap Travel to Europe (ah the horror!!). So it looks like they fly Mondays and Fridays.

Looks like Chicago is on the way for them as a destination but it isn't here yet. Sadly. I think Iceland is a very intriguing place and not just because of the team from there on the mighty ducks movie (remember, Iceland is green and beautiful, Greenland is cold and icy?). So a stop-over might be an option, too which I think could add a lot of value to your cheap travel to Europe. If you are going for fun and to see as many places as possible, this will help you to do that. I also see though, that they are advertising to people stuck in Iceland who want to get out of there (like their pitch to get people to take a vacation in Orlando, Florida is all about going to a HOT destination).

Well, it usually only takes a couple of players like this to start to put the pressure on the bigger carriers to follow suit and lower their prices. It looks like the winter prices are (wait for the corny pun....) starting to thaw! Looks like this Spring the temps will be rising, but the airline prices won't (groan x2). Seriously, all puns aside, these are encouraging signs for those of us looking for cheap travel to (and from) Europe.