If you are a person that enjoys traveling, then this article
will give you some great ideas on how to travel cheaply to Europe. The beauty about Europe is that it has a lot
of countries, and all of them are different in a lot of aspects. The cultural
differences from country to country will amaze you. I personally have visited
seven European countries, and I never felt bored, because even though some
countries are next to each other (like Belgium and Germany), they are
completely different.
Well this is great, but when someone that wants to go to
Europe looks at the price of the airplane ticket alone he or she will think
about it twice before they decide to go. Plane tickets to Europe are very
expensive, they can go up to $1700 per person for economy class, forget first
class and business out of the equation.
But these prices are usually for peak summer times, and major holidays
such as Christmas. By knowing this fact it is essential to prepare ahead, and
do a lot of research before deciding on traveling to any European country.
Personally I love traveling to Europe, and when I first
started going there I used to pay a lot of money, not just for my plane
tickets, but for my hotels and car rentals also. It got so expensive, that I
could not afford going there anymore, so I was left with two options: travel
within the US or find cheaper ways to go to Europe. For me the answer was
simple: find ways to make my trips affordable, so I can go as often as I can.
That’s when I did a lot of research, and I found ways (that I will explain
below) to lower my costs.
The first and most important way to lower your traveling
costs is to bundle, by booking the flight, the hotel, and the rental together.
This can be done on most traveling websites like Expedia.com or at your local
travel agencies. Having a local travel
agency is important, because they want your business badly, and they will offer
you very good deals.
Another thing you can do is to sign up to websites like
kayak.com for deal alerts. There you can set it do you receive price alerts on
the dates you want. The best thing about this website is that it can sent
alerts for flights, hotels, and car rentals.
Something else that has helped me lower my traveling costs
is to plan, and get my tickets months ahead. Summer time is the peak season for
traveling to Europe, and if you wait until 1 month before you travel you will
not get any deals at all, in fact the prices will inflate a lot. For example I
am going to Greece this August, and I bought my ticket in December for $1180,
and now in April the ticket has gone up to $1380. That is $200 I saved just by
booking early. I also booked my hotel and rental car at the same time so I
saved even more.
Also do not waste your time with private guides, because now
all you have to do is go on Google.com find the places you want to visit, and
all the information you want to know about the places and you are done. If you
have a smart phone like the Iphone then I suggest to buy the international data
plan just for a month it will come in very handy. By the way do not worry about
getting lost, because every rental car I Europe now come with GPS.
If you want to save even more money, and you like traveling
to the north side of Europe I suggest to travel in the winter, because
everything is very cheap. For example a ticket to Belgium right now from Boston
is $1050 where in January is was only $680. That is almost $400 in savings just
from the ticket, the savings will be a lot more when you purchase everything together.
Hopefully this blog has helped you on how to save some money
when traveling to Europe.
