Arguably one of the biggest obstacles standing between a dream and the reality of a trip is the cost of a flight. I’ve presented you with Workaway and volunteering, Couchsurfing, hitchhiking, and food markets to keep a travel budget below the cost of living at home. But how does one get to the destination of interest in the first place?

 

 

To begin my trip around the world, I flew from small town Gainesville, Florida to Buenos Aires for $85. $80 was a fee because I booked it too last-minute, $5 was an airline tax. The flight was free.

My best friend flew round-trip from Florida to Lima, Peru for $163. Another friend managed to fly round-trip from mainland Ecuador to the Galapagos for $180, a flight that usually lists for $400 and up.

A third friend opened 11 credit cards with travel benefits during medical school in order to afford his wanderlust.

We all use a few simple guidelines to spend as little as possible on flights. Below, I have described my go-to methods.
 

The Quickie

If you know you want to get away and the sort of trip you want, but you’re a bit flexible on dates and destination, then start checking the following websites every day:

• Secret Flying

• The Flight Deal

• Fare Deal Alert

Add filters as you please. Get on their e-mailing lists. When you see a flash deal you like, act fast. Buy it before it’s gone by following the instructions provided by the links on the above sites.
 

The Cheapest

To pay little to nothing for your ticket takes the most thinking ahead and actions on your side. But don’t worry, it’s still minimal work.

Working the system of reward points and travel benefits offered by airlines partnering with credit card companies is the superior way for flight travel. This usually involves spending a certain amount within the first months of opening the card, and paying an annual fee that is supposedly “worth it.”

If you suck at paying off credit, or you’re looking to buy a house and your credit score is crucial right now, this is not for you.

The benefits have been more restricted in recent years, but it seems the travel community still swears by Chase Sapphire.

During sophomore year I opened an American Airlines Citi/AAdvantage card. Over the next year I swiped it whenever I could, and cancelled it just before I was charged the first annual fee. I racked up over 44,000 reward miles, allowing me to fly from a puny three-gate airport to a major South American city for free.

 

The Classic

When I know exactly where I need to go, I first open Skyscanner for rough estimates and Google Flights Explore for an interactive visual.

Some prefer Momondo.

Two key features of Skyscanner are that it has “Whole Month” view, for comparing flight prices in a calendar format, as well as the option to put “Everywhere” as a destination, for generating a list of destinations from your closest airport, ordered from cheapest to most expensive.

Google Flights is nice for general areas of the world, because you can enter things like “Caribbean” or “Europe” as the destination. If you’re trying to get to Austria but it’s way cheaper to fly into Germany or Italy, take the latter option and bus or train into Austria.

If I need further references I do a search on Kayak, using the flexible “±3 days” option when entering dates.

If I am flying far, I start noticing where the connections flights are taking place. I plug these individual legs into the search engines and come up with the cheapest combination I can.*

 

Accessing Latin America from the U.S.

Spirit and Frontier regularly e-mail out promotions for destinations in Central and South America, as well as for several Caribbean islands. To reach my most familiar region in the world, I flew Spirit the most and recommend it the least. I’ve flown Frontier into Cancun, Mexico.

Last August, my friend found us round-trip VivaColombia tickets from Miami, Florida to Medellin, Colombia for dates during the high season (near Christmas and New Years).

 

Accessing Europe from the U.S.

WOW and Norwegian have the cheapest regular routes leaving from major U.S. cities. I’ve had friends jump on promotions and fly one-way for $80.

 

Always purchase using the official airline website

When it comes to buying, the search engines offer a variety of weird agencies to book through. The reviews are kind of horrifying. I don’t want to deal with that. For something so significant, I want accountability. And a genuine e-ticket confirmation in my email inbox.

I look at the airline offering the cheapest flight, and go to their website, re-entering the dates and airports I want.

 

Proof of return/onward travel

Sometimes I’m asked to show it, sometimes I’m not. But if I ever buy a one-way ticket, I always have something to show that I will exit the country before the time allotted by my visa is up. Even if I don’t have a set plan in the country and probably won’t use it.

Why? Many airlines won’t let you get on your plane if you don’t have proof of onward travel because they are afraid once you get to your destination, immigration won’t let you through, and the airline will be forced by law to fly you, at their cost, right back to where you started.

To avoid missing my flight for such a trivial reason, I either already have a round-trip flight where I won’t board my return portion (at times these are cheaper than one-ways), or a flight from my destination to the cheapest place found on Skyscanner using “Everywhere,” or the cheapest international bus ticket between two border towns.

Other options include booking a refundable ticket before shortly before check-in and returning it within 24 hours, or renting a ticket for a small price on sites like One Way Fly.

 

The luggage struggle

Using search engines will end up with you flying a low cost airline. And the worst part of that is that you won’t have very much weight allowance in your included baggage. Your options are to buy bags for an extra cost, or to wear and pocket everything you can to shed those last kilos.

It’s okay if you look like a human-sized pumpkin, I’m not judging. I hate this part too. I’ve gifted away or tossed out perfectly usable clothes and liquids because replacing them is far cheaper than being charged. Once I had to wobble towards TSA with dangerously sagging pants because I had shoved my converse into my pockets.

 

 

Plan Sea

Crossing oceans doesn’t have to be done by air. If you have the time, like a month or so, be aware of the option to hitchhike boats. You can arrange with captains all over the world to take watch, or cook and clean, in return for a free or budget-friendly spot on deck.

This is done by showing up to main port cities and heading for the marinas, combined with communicating in specific online sites and forums. There are numerous blogs flowing with advice on this. If it piques your interest, have a Google at it.

 

*To illustrate, I am drafting this post on the floor of Terminal 2 in the Fort Lauderdale Airport. I took an 8-hour bus from the Peruvian Andes into Lima yesterday morning, and flew out on Spirit Airlines at 2:00am. I finished U.S. immigration at around 9:00am. Tonight at 9:00pm I fly Norwegian Airlines to Stockholm, where my friend will meet me tomorrow afternoon. I’ll crash a night at his place before flying Pegasus Airlines the following night. If all goes well, I’ll be in Istanbul at 6:00am.

I said the Middle East was calling, didn’t I?