International travel has become much affordable these days, and it is really up to traveler’s will to visit as many dream destinations as possible under calculated budget.
There are possible methods to keep the travel cost low by stretching out the traveling time, and many travel blogs and writers talk about this. If you follow me on Twitter @PoachedEggQuest then you know how I share lot of these information 🙂
In general, the longer you travel the wiser your relationships become with your wallet. You will become much keen on land transportation that takes long time but cheaper than air transportation. For example, here’s some blog posts that give advise on traveling two most popular backpacking destinations on train:
Simple with a smile: Seeing Thailand on night train
But of course, for many worker bees in today’s society it is not easy to take months of time off from work. I myself have trouble making time for longer traveling so I am inclined to shortcut the travel itinerary by flying.
Today, I want to share tips on how to find reasonable deals on flights and how to deal with inconvenient indirect flights with least stress and even adding some exciting bonus activities to your total agenda!
Finding Cheap (but not too shitty) Flights:
If you already have particular places you want to visit in mind and looking for the cheapest flight for selected dates, I would definitely recommend starting your search with Momondo and Skyscanner. The former website uses search engine to pull the comparable pricing from travel companies around the web, so it’s the best shot to find the lowest fare.
Kayak is also quite useful website for finding low fare on flights, rental car, as well as hotel accommodation and their Explore feature surely will inspire you to bubble up the travel aspiration.
NOTE: Always look out for travel duration as very often the flight deals on these websites include flight transfer time and may add extra day or two to get to the destination. It will be a bummer to learn one precious day of vacation get wasted away in transportation. So be sure to check the start and end dates! Very important!
I will also give you tips on how to manage long layover frustration later in this post 🙂
Flight deal for intermediate traveholics:
- Airfare Watchdog is a very good source for cheap flight deals. Follow these guys on Twitter for low airfare alert.
- The Flight Deal is another cool website that lists special flight deal per travel origins.
- Flyertalk forum is my favorite source to construct ideas for next trips and often stumble upon hot flight deals. This is traveholics’ online community where people constantly talk about the mileage run deals and exchange good deals on flights. You may need to do some study and learn the forum language first, but this is very good source to get your travel passion amped up.
Downside/Upside of Cheap Flights:
Not all the good things come together seamlessly, and sometimes you have to deal with inconvenient layovers that may stretch out for hours to days. So it is good idea to always do research on various database to find out which flight itinerary makes best sense for you. If your flights are making multiple stops on the way back home and include overnight layover in unfamiliar countries it could become very stressful.
However, if you look at this positively the long layover also means you have chance to explore new territories. In order to avoid negative impact of layover to your awesome trips, here’s some tips on how-to make best out of your long layovers (NOTE: these tips are only applicable in situation with layovers over 8 hours):
- Join the free city tour offered by airport.
Yes. Many airports actually offer FREE city tour to promote local tourism. It is the best way to spend your long hours until the next transfer flight! Here’s some examples of airports that host free tour (source: Airfare Watchdog).
I joined the free bus tour in Seoul two years ago between my connection flights from Bangkok to San Francisco, and I was surprised how neatly it was organized despite only had about 8 hours from morning until late afternoon there.
During the tour we stopped at the palace and visited the city canal and ate awesome soon tofu/bulgogi with added incitement of ice cream shop stopover. My layover and first time visit to Seoul couldn’t have been better.
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(Bonus Zone) #seoul #korea #morning #layovertraveler
A photo posted by Poached Egg Quest (@poachedeggquest) on
2. Get on your shoes and explore the urban city life by night.
Overnight layover usually asks you this question: “Do I want to book the hotel near the airport, or just sleep inside the airport terminal? (If lucky to find the space big enough to stretch your legs that is).”
If you are very tight on budget and ok with sleeping uncomfortably the latter option may be possible, but for most regular travelers it is likely the hotel option is smarter decision. In my case, “sleeping” is actually the least appealing choice when I get the opportunity to visit new places. I want to make the best out of my travel time. So I tend to leave the airport and explore the city overnight then return to the airport few hours before the flight departure; this worked surprisingly well for me when I visited Frankfurt in Germany during my connection from Madrid to LA.
Frankfurt, or any other urban cities, is very interesting place for night photography: high rise skyscrapers reflected on the river, futuristic architectures emitting neon lights, empty plaza with gigantic opera house illuminated by spotlight, street arts under the glowing signs…all of these are worthy of strolling around at night to capture on camera. I had my headphones on with obligatory minimal techno music and explored the streets for some photo adventure.
Before dawn I caught the train back to the airport and caught one hour nap on the bench before the TSA workers started to invite people inside the gates. One advise: MAKE SURE YOU SET ALARMS SO YOU DON’T SLEEP OFF AND MISS THE FLIGHT. I nearly did this haha.
Overnight exploration can also work perfectly in Tokyo for example, where the city is known for no-sleep lifestyle. In Tokyo, you can go directly to the city central by express train (if you are coming from Narita Airport) and by monorail (from Haneda Airport) usually in less than hour one-way. There are many all night karaoke bars, Internet cafes, and restaurant chains that you can spend the hours until dawn. Be mindful that the first train usually starts around 4-5am so make sure you have plenty of time to get back to the airport to catch the flight 🙂
3. Reconnect with your friends.
You often forget that you know someone that live in your layover location. Look up your friend(s) on facebook and shoot messages before you start your trip and potentially meet up! During my recent travel to Peru, I had a full day layover in Mexico City so I made it into a perfect reunion with my old friends. I wrote about the experience in the post below:
How to live in Mexico City for one day (or 18 hours to be precise)
Take the advantage of long wait and reconnect with your friends!
4. Free city walk tour.
If your long layover falls during the day, joining the free walking tour is great idea. For example SANDEMANs New Europe Tours hosts 100% free walking tour run by volunteers on gratuity basis. This is perfect option if you want a quick sightseeing and also meet and connect with other travelers in doing so.
Here’s some of my experience with free walking tour in London:
5. Meditate
Sometimes the most important thing that you forget to do during the travel is to create time and space to reflect on your recent adventure and sort it in your head. I usually keep journal during the travel but sometimes writing the overall experience in structured text is hard thing to do on-the-go. This is why I think “detached from the world” feeling of the airport terminal is actually helpful in achieving some tasks that I put aside during the trip. After all, every travel experience leaves certain after taste and that’s what makes it so appealing. Here’s ultimate zen statement for traveholics: doing nothing can be as grand as doing random things just to pass the time 🙂
Do you have suggestions for spending long layovers? Please share them in the comment. Follow @poachedeggquest on Twitter for low airfare alert and other tips on world travel. Let’s make the world travel much affordable and not impossible goals for those curious!