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How to travel Cheap: The definitive short Guide

10/14/2014

 
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First of all, I can imagine that many of you already know some of this websites and tricks to travel, but I also realize that many people is willing to travel and doesn't know the best way to do it, so they pick the first option they can, because they think is the best. I was that kind of person 2 years ago, I realized that I needed a change when I payed 200€ for flying to Budapest when my friends just payed 70 in the same dates. So if you take some minutes to read all of this, you will start to become a little expert in traveling. 
I warn you, maybe I don't remember some stuff, or there are better ways than mine, but instead of writing information about things that I don't know, I will tell you about the way which worked for me. Also important, for this article I don't have a proofreader, and I don't study academical english since 2011, so expect some kicks to dictionary and grammar, but I'm working on a solution.
At last, I warn you that this is a fast/easy to read article, in some weeks I will write detailed information from each section.

Flights

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Probably, there is nobody now who thinks just about Iberia or Lufthansa as first option for traveling, at least young people.
If you think Europe is expensive, you are very mistaken! We have a lot of good prices with our airlines and with just a little time you can save a lot and you can ever go to the other corner of Europe for less than you ever imagined!

For sure you heard about Ryanair.com, that company that even if they pack us in a flying fish can, has offers like having Brussels or Milan for 20€. This company usually offers excelent prices, is one of the few that I allow them to spam my mail. Also in their offers they usually give some period for traveling cheap, meaning that you have like 1 or 2 weeks of cheap flights instead just a flight to certain city. After this I will talk about flight comparer webs, but about them, you need to know that many of them skip Ryanair when they search, so it will be wise to always check in Ryanair.com even when you think that you have just found the best offer in the world in other web. With them is specially cheap to flight for Ryanair Hubs (airports mainly operated like them) like Bergamo (Milan), Charleroi (Brussels) and around the UK, they are also increasing the offers for having cheap transportation once you arrive, as well as accomodation. You can feel how I like this company, is because made traveling so easy for me but as I can writing ages about this company, I will write an exclusive article in a few weeks, so let's move on.

Other real low cost fares companies (There are "low cost" which are just a little bit cheaper than normal, so not the cheapest) are Vueling and Pegasus (this one specially for Turkey). There are a lot of them, and it also happens like with Ryanair, sometimes ignored in flight comparers, so you need to check them through their web, again, I will back to this one day 

Now it's time for what was my salvation for many trips, the flight comparers. This webs compare chosen dates and destinations between thousands of flight companies, so in 20 seconds you have more than 30 options with different caracteristics for the time you wanted to flight. Some of the most famous are Skyscanner and Kayak.com
Personally, I use Kayak.com due to I got used to how it works and some small tricks it has, so the next paragraph will be for it.
In Kayak you will have a lot options, but since is just a searcher, you will finally buy the ticket from the airline or another web tourist agency. The web has a quite simple interface, is very easy, you pick a departure and a destination, dates, how many people, click Start and be amazed about the amount of offers you have. 
Kayak also allows you to:
  • Refine your search by departure and arrival time (not just date)
  • Select the amount of check in baggage and your payment way, so even if you see the price increasing a little bit when you choose it, you will also realize that those will be the final and real price, so most of the times you won't pay any more cent, is something very good because many other webs work with offering an attractive price from the begining, and after writing down all your information and 5 minutes of paperwork, they want to charge you with a remarkable quantity for "management services".
  • Select flights with 3 days before and after your selected dates, so you can make a good combination and search faster. Read the NW trick for this at the end of this section.
  • Also offers you the possibility of renting cars and booking hotels, but I never did this throught them, so I can't give you my opinion.

Well, now I'm going to show you how not to get scammed in this web, with the NomadWill tricks!
  • NW#1: When you choose the option of the 3 days befor and after, usually the day that appears with the best price, usually has even a better price if you close the web, reopen with another browser (or just reopen) and choose just the exact dates of that day, sometimes the difference is very big, never forget to do it!
  • NW#2: Well, this is something very common for many websites, if they detect that you take a lot of time around some dates or certain flight they will know you are interested on it, so next time you will search for it, will be more expensive. Don't be scared, usually you can recover the price (sometimes its real that they are running out of tickets so it increases), what you need to do is change your internet IP, or try it with another browser or computer.

Well, time to move from flights, now is time for accomodation!

Acomodation

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Well, here prices will change a lot, all depending in the way you want to sleep, for example you can do Couchsurfing (google it for a new concept of traveling) so it will be for free, but if you want to go with some friends or your couple, choose a hotel or hostel, according to your budget.
For this, as well as flights, there are thousands of webs doing the same, personally I use Booking.com, because of its easy interface and excelent help service, as well as Hostelworld.com for hostels. Other webs like Trivago also work pretty well.

Back to Booking.com, as I said, is a very simple web, just pick destination and dates (you can even put open dates) and choose the option that fits your needs more. After choosing just complete 1 min of personal data and finish the payment, all done.
This web allows you to:
  • Book acomodation without registering (but is better to do so, I will tell you why later)
  • Choose hotels directly from the map, with the View Map option, where the indicator of each hotel will appear in the map, don't forget to zoom, sometimes a "better" hotel hids a more discret hotel in the map, since the indicators are bigger if the hotel has better rates (or pays more for publicity)
  • Free cancelation, yes, it's for real, many times you will be able to do a booking (for just a few euro more) with the security and satisfaction that if your trip doesnt go as planned, you will recover all your money if you cancel before 3-4 days.
  • See all facilities and photos from the room.
  • Get in contact with hotel reception or help service usually for free
  • Save the hotels you like in a list, so you can finally choose the one you like most without looking again all the options.
  • Coments from old guest
  • Great Android and IOS app
  • Hotels, hostels and apartments avaliable

And now some small advices for you
  • NW#1: Here, as well as other webs, happen the same thing with the IP, so the hotel you were looking may increase its price a little bit, so you know what to do.
  • NW#2: Is a very thankful web towards its members, after booking and rating some accomodations through it, you will become GENIUS user, which can give you up to 20% discount in many hotels, or will leave some small details in other hotels for free (as a bathtub bedroom for the same price as one with sower).

Hostelworld.com is the hostel version for accomodation search webs, is very simple and easy to use for peoplo who never went to a hostel, many free cancelation options and different ways to choose the layout of your bed.

Trivago.com is a supercomparer, it uses, as well as Kayak for flights, other webs like Booking for searching, you should check it, once I saw a 74e room in Westin 5* Warsaw, when it was 230e through other web.

Bus and other transportation

This is logically, very wide, and there are material for writing tons of books, due to every country has its own bus lines, railways... so I will just write how to look for public transport even if you never stepped in the country, but this things are not 100% cheaper until you are there and know the local offers, I will write some articles about traveling cheap in Spain and another countries, but give me time for it first.

The web I use to get from A to B is called Rome2Rio.com . This web is very simple, you choose origin and destination and will show you the different transport you have (boat, train, car, taxi, buses..) and you will finally pay the ticket through the company web. It's very good because in 4 minute you can know all the transport options from even a lost village in Mongolia, but, logically works more accurate in Europe and western countries.

According to the whole thing, is very good to know some local in the place you want to go, even asking in some traveling forum like Tripadvisor.com, because as I said, they can have pretty obvious offers in their language that you will never realize, for example, I was told just 2 days ago, that trains in Slovakia are going to be for free since 17 Nov for students, all this speaking with some locals in a bar. Another example is the polish bus company PolskiBus, which has awesome buses and offers (first person to book has the ticket for 50 cents), but as I say, don't panic if you don't find an awesome offer from the beginign, but I encourage you to loose some times in forums and using Google Translate for translating different languages transport companies webs.


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