Where to Next?

Where to Next??

If you plotted my travel destinations on a map, you might think I just randomly select where to next - but you’d be wrong. There is a method to the madness - and clearly it isn’t the closest country to me.?

When picking a destination, flexibility is key. I have a long list of places I would love to visit, but some aren’t financially feasible for various reasons, so I just slide those locations in my back pocket for when the opportunity arises. My favorite website to explore when I’m looking for a new place to visit is Kayak’s Explore page. I enter where I am and then can see the flight prices for all of the places I’d like to visit. I don’t stop there, though. Once I identify a few affordable locations from my travel wish list, I then go to Kiwi to see if it’s running any specials for those flights. Here are some deals I’ve gotten from Kiwi:?

Naples → Corfu for $36

Corfu Turin for $19

Turin → Copenhagen $24

I’ll also take it one step further and cross reference those flight prices with the airline listed on Kiwi. I’ve found the flights can be similarly priced, but the airline will offer cheaper luggage rates - or even luggage specials.?

When I’m exploring routes on Kayak, I take note of layover destinations. Many times, a popular layover destination happens to be on my travel wish list, and breaking up the flight also breaks up the price (and helps with battling my nemesis, jet lag). A version of this saved me over $200 when I was booking my flight from San Diego → Roatan, Honduras. I found the cheapest flight from the US to Roatan and then worked backwards finding the cheapest flight from San Diego to that location (which happened to be Miami).?

Circling back to flexibility being key - I’m always open to delaying my travels by a few days in order to get the best flight price.?

In my experience, there’s almost always a hack to be found to make flying more economically advantageous - you just have to know where to look.