Your Guide to Making Budget Travel Happen!

Note: the following is not intended as professional travel advice. Always do your own research to stay up-to-date! 

It would be nice to think overseas vacations happened by themselves, but the reality (at least for those of us without an unlimited discretionary spending budget) is they don’t. In fact, to afford a vacation, most of us need to invest considerable time and effort into some robust project management. If this sounds like you, welcome to the first in our series of articles designed to help. In this, our Part 1 article, we’ll be considering first things first – the flights.

Think outside the square for the time of year!

When searching for flights, shoulder seasons are almost always going to be more affordable than high-peak periods, but off-peak times of year will be more affordable, still. While you may have warmer seasons in mind for travelling, don’t write-off winter abroad. Taking a train through the snowy beauty of the Canadian Rockies, skiing the low-cost slopes of Poland, enjoying a majestic ride up a Swiss alp in a heated gondola, or savouring a mulled wine at a German Christmas market – each is every bit as magical as a Greek island at the height of summer (and with fewer crowds, and more affordable accommodation)! A down jacket and a woolly hat may be all it takes to save several hundred dollars on flights and other expenses!

Budget airline blues

Budget airlines are usually going to offer the best fare deals, but it doesn’t necessarily mean your flight experience as a whole will be less costly than a standard airline flight. This is because budget airlines often depart and arrive at the most inconvenient times – often in the middle of the night. Outside of regular working hours, the cheapest public transport is unlikely to be operating, so you’ll be paying premium fares to travel to and from your airport.

Landing in the middle of the night can also mean you arrive at a time when all SIM card sellers are closed, or when the only one still open charges exorbitant prices. Either you pay up, or you are without the sort of data that enables you to call the most affordable transport such as an Uber, or buy an online bus ticket to your late night destination.

Budget airlines are notorious for flying into obscure airports which are far from the main centres you want to visit or reach in order to start your onward overland travel. Getting from an obscure airport to a main centre can quickly eat through your travel budget. Add into this the fact budget airlines charge (in addition to your fare) for virtually every gram of check-in luggage, and before you know it, your budget airline ticket has cost you more than you’d pay for a seat with a regular airline. While this isn’t always the case, it does mean you need to take the time to look carefully into the fine print of each flight you book.

Self-transfers

Be aware of flights offering a ‘self-transfer.’ Self-transfers mean you alone are responsible for collecting your luggage and checking it, and yourself, onto the next leg of your journey. This usually means you’ll be required to clear customs to reach the baggage claim and check in (and there may be a long queue ahead of you when you get there). To help figure out just how long it takes to self-transfer, research the airport you’ll be flying in to and find out how long it usually takes to work through such procedures. Always give yourself more than the suggested time frame. Because you will usually be required to clear customs in order to self-transfer, check carefully to see if you will require an entrance visa, because the moment you leave transit, you’re in another country!

Switching airports

Study your flight itinerary carefully before clicking on the ‘confirm’ button. One of the reasons for doing this is cheaper flights may, in some instances, require you to change airports for part 2 of your journey. Airports, even in the same city, can be many kilometres apart.

Reducing your flight costs when you travel is do-able. But the planning and research takes time. Head online to forums such as Trip-advisor to ask questions and read others’ experiences, and always bear in mind information in the travel world changes regularly.