You've been asking and I'm finally answering! I'm here to tell you all about my travel tips and tricks.
I am such a wanderlust girl. I love to explore and seek new places. I haven't been to very many places...but anything that is not in my regular routine is good for me!
Most of you know my favorite place to travel is California. I go multiple times a month. It's easy, quick and it's my home. But when I do venture away from the west coast, I use the same methods of travel. So, let's go over them so you can start looking for new adventures! Keep in mind looking for the best rate is a lot of work. I have spent hours and days looking for trips. Some might not think it's worth it but when I can get a round trip flight and hotel for two nights for less then $300...it's worth it!
Choose your dates:
I work Mon-Fri so I usually always travel over a weekend, which is usually the most expensive. But if you book far enough in advance or can be flexible on any weekend, it can be very cheap. Also check to see if there's a holiday in the month because woohoo long weekend! I'll look at every weekend in the month and go from there. When I have prior plans or events to attend, sometimes I don't get to choose and sometimes that particular weekend will be expensive. But most of the time I base my traveling off the cheaper dates.
Travel sites:
I use all the travel websites you can think of. Expedia, Hotwire, Orbitz, Travelocoty, Kayak etc... I found that Expedia and Orbitz are usually the cheapest with better deals. I open all the travel sites at once and plug in my info. Some states/areas have multiple airports to choose from. California for instance has four I can fly into, which adds time to my searching because I will look at all of them for the best deal. You can also create accounts with most of the travel websites. Every time you book a trip, you earn points allowing you to use those points towards future trips. And they have "member pricing" which gives you 10% off some hotels. Signing up is absolutely free too!
I have accounts with almost all travel sites. It's helped a ton!
Bundling:
Bundling is where you book your flight, hotel and car together, which is an amazing feature because it can cut your search in half. But it's not always the cheapest. I bundle about 80% of the time. I also will crash at a friends house so I can to save money on a hotel! You can bundle plane, hotel and car. Plane and hotel or just hotel and car! I personally always choose plane and hotel, I always get my rental cars from Costco Travel (more about that below). The thing about bundling is if you want to fly into say Long beach but want to stay in Los Angeles...it will pull up hotels in Long Beach because that's where your "destination" is. At least I've never mastered how to change that haha. So that can be tricky. That's where purchasing separate things come into play.
Buying separately:
For just plane tickets, I use Kayak or Expedia. Almost all the travel sites go off the same pricing so I've found that plane tickets are usually the same all around. I will check round trip and one way. Again, it's a lot of work and time but I've found plenty of two one way tickets for the same airport for way cheaper then round trip. It depends where you are going, but I try to stay under $270 for plane tickets. There's no reason to pay $300-$350 for a ticket....again, it depends where you are going though. Definitely do some research before you buy! For hotels I use Orbitz or Hotels.com. Both of those usually always have a 10% coupon that pops up when you go to the site.
Rental Cars:
I use Costcotravel.com. You DO have to have a membership to use this feature. I haven't gotten a car from a travel website in a while so I'm not very much help in this department...but if you do have a Costco membership you can look up more then just rental cars! You can get hotel deals, vacation packages, and even Disney parks packages. The one thing I love about Costco Travel is you can cancel your car reservation all the way up to your travel date. I look at cars every single day until my trip and you best believe I have cancelled and re-booked when the price drops. I've actually done that as I was boarding the plane to get the car! This past trip to California, our rental started out at $120 and it dropped to $73 so I highly recommend Costco Travel if you can!
Hotels:
I'm very cheap when it comes to hotels. If you have seen my stories on Instagram you know I'm not a big, fancy hotel person, although I do enjoy those when I can. I like nice hotels when I know I'll be spending time in them. If I'm out and about all day then I don't really care. I look for hotels in a bundle and separately. Whichever is a better deal! I also have learned that if I'm going to a touristy area to book a little farther away and Uber or drive to my destination. Disneyland for example, Garden Grove is about a 7 minute drive and a little cheaper than staying on Katella. But I have found good deals at Disney's Good Neighbor hotels which are in walking distance to the park. Motel 6 Anaheim Maingate is my fave.
I think that sums everything up (for now)! Thanks for hanging till the end and I hope this helps! I'm no pro at this but I feel like I have it down pretty well! Be on the look out for a packing blog soon. I get a lot of questions on how I live out of a carry on!
Comments