This post may contain affiliate links. Read our disclosure here.
Recently I decided to do some research on how to save on traveling and I guess I never mastered how to save on flights. I have been planning my flights wrong this whole time! I’ve found two really fun tools that essentially do all of the work for you.
The first tool is from Kayak – their “Explore” tool. This tool shows you all of the best prices for trips (round trip) all over the world. The only thing is that you can’t choose exactly the date you want to travel and you have to be a little flexible with the timing. You can, however, choose the specific month you’re hoping to travel… Or just leave it completely open to the cheapest flights and not specify a month. But that’s why the prices are so amazing, they’re choosing when their airfares are the lowest to get you the best deal. I’m all for it – an inexpensive way to see the world!
To get there, first click on the arrow next to “Vacations” on their home page to see more options. From there, you can click on “Explore.” Or, you can just follow this link directly to Kayak Explore.
Once you get to the page, don’t get overwhelmed by all of the prices that pop up on the map in the orange boxes. If you like seeing everything at once, great! But if you want to narrow your search a bit, they have plenty of options. In the photo below you can see the options to choose a month or season to travel. There’s also a sliding scale for the type of budget you want to follow.
Below are more options to narrow down your Kayak travel search. It includes the best price in the area you’re wanting to travel, which weather you’re wanting to travel to, and activities you want to find when you get there. The only weather option I had with any travel options listed was “Hot.” “Cool” and “Ouch” are listed in the drop-down, but didn’t have any destinations that match. Not that I would actually end up going somewhere with weather that’s described as “ouch”… It’s not a huge selling point for me. I love the activities option! If your husband likes to golf and you and the kids love the beach, you can both find a destination where everyone can have fun.
I’ve always wanted to go to Europe, and the best price over there right now is to go to Dublin, Ireland. This trip lasts for 11 days, and not everyone wants to stay in one place when they have the chance to travel somewhere fantastic. My thinking is that my family and I can fly to Dublin, sight see for a couple of days, take trains/boat/local flights or anything else to see areas close by, then fly back to leave from Dublin when our 11 days are up. It’s still a fairly inexpensive trip considering all of the places you’ll see!
If I want to stay state-side, my cheapest option is to go to Providence, RI at $147 at the end of this month for 8 days.
Let’s say that I see this price and decide that my family and I really want to go to Providence, just not on that date. I can move some things around on the scale. I chose to go a couple of days later and only stay 3 days which brought my price up to $187, but I’m happy because it still shows us the best price for the dates that fit our schedule.
Another tool you can check out is Google Flights. Like the other tool, you choose on the map where you want to go and on this one you can choose the specific dates you want. I decided to try out flights to New York at the end of the month.
After you decide your destination, you can choose from all of the airlines and either choose the cheapest or the airline you prefer to travel with. My favorite features on this are that you can choose your airline, price range, how long your trip will be, and times for your flights to leave and arrive.
I hope I’m not the last one in the world to learn about the tools and you’ve actually learned something from this post. Maybe next time you can save some money on flights for your next vacation. That way you can do more fun things when you get there.
Okay, I’m off to dream of a vacation now!
