Fall Has Arrived and I'm Finally Getting Around to Some Travel Tips.

I know that I told you that I would be posting some travel tips for last week... but I made that statement without considering playoff baseball. Yes – my beloved Washington Nationals and Boston Red Sox (R.I.P.) both made it to the postseason this year. For the first time in my life, both of my cherished ball clubs were fighting for the Pennant and therefore possessed my entire focus. Lucky for you non New Englanders, the Bo Sox got eliminated last night, freeing up half of my brain in order to craft a post as quickly as possible before the Nats game begins 79 minutes from the end of writing this sentence.

Travel Tips... just give me them already!!

Okay! Okay!! GEEZ! I'll give you them. I really don't have a clue of where to begin, so let me just start with my favorite places to search for cheap flights. Oh and before that, let me just quickly plug a new service that my friend Sean and I will hopefully be offering down the line. We plan on starting a website where you can sign up for discounted travel alerts. The website isn't operational yet, but if you are interested in the idea of the service, definitely contact me here so that I can start sending you cheap flights that I come across. Include your email address and nearest airport and I will email you cheap flights. Most of them are likely to be international, but I'll send some domestic ones too. Hop on this opportunity now because down the road, Sean and I will be charging rates for the service (although the rates will be ridiculously low compared to your savings!). They also won't be so customized eventually because that would be virtually impossible for us to manage! Instead, we'll send out amazing regional deals we come across.

So without further adieu, here are the Top 5 sites and apps that I visit for cheap travel:

1. Google Flights – A phenomenal all-around source for flight deals. Add up to 6 departure and 6 arrival airports in one search. Uncertain of where to go? Type in your departure city and instantly see a google map listing dozens of destination prices from around the world.

2. Kayak.com – Kind of a staple in the fare aggregator universe, Kayak is the second place I check if I have an idea of where I want to visit. What I enjoy about Kayak is that you can add +/- 1 to 3 days around your dates to see the cheapest fare options. The best feature is the Buying Advice Chart in the upper left corner of the webpage after a search. It's very useful to see which way prices are spiking. I'll sometimes set up Kayak alerts within my kayak mobile app so that I'm alerted if prices drop to a certain figure. Make sure to always buy directly through the airline once you find a deal because third party sites don't offer many protections.

3. WOW Air* and Norwegian Airlines – For those that don't mind budget travel, WOW Air is a beautiful beast. I have flown with them twice to Europe and had mixed experiences, but the prices make it worth the hassle. WOW Air is a new budget airline out of Iceland that flies to a number of destinations throughout Europe for as low as $99 one way. All flights to mainland Europe stop at Keflavik Airport near Reykjavik, Iceland. WOW Air flies out of Boston, Baltimore, Miami, New York, Montreal, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and a few other locations.
   
   What's great is that WOW Air will let you stopover in Iceland for free just like Icelandair.  The downside is that you have to be very flexible. You are only allowed one carry-on (which you have to pay for above something like 11 lbs.), one duty free bag, and you have to pay for your checked luggage. You also have to pay for EVERYTHING on flight. If you want to sit together, you have to pay. If you want water, you have to pay. As a useful tip though, if you don't pay for your seats, there is a good chance that you'll end up next to your travel buddy anyways. Another plus is that the flight attendants are amazingly kind and amazingly attractive  people. Those Icelanders are scary perfect.
   
   In order to get flights under $250, you really need to wait for deals and sometimes even book your departure and return flights separately months apart (they generally jack up the return price when $99 flight deals are happening). Even with some delays and baggage issues with them, I've flown to Iceland and mainland Europe for under $350 each time. Admittingly, I have not flown on Norwegian Airlines, but I've seen fares under $260 Round Trip from Boston to Oslo, Norway. 
   
   *Like a lot of airlines, it's smart to also check the international websites of the country you plan to fly to. For example, if I'm flying WOW Air from Boston to Dublin, I'll check the Irish version too because they sometimes list prices cheaper, albeit in a different currency.

4. Southwest – Always check southwest.com. Want to know why? They release amazing flight deals on Tuesdays every few weeks and they also don't show up on most flight aggregators. Southwest only sells tickets through their own website and often times they are far cheaper than the likes of Delta, United, and Jetblue.

5. Momondo – I honestly haven't used Momondo much before, but looking at it now, the user interface is gorgeous. They seem like another site that is great if you don't have a set destination in mind. Set your home airport and see the cheapest destinations all over the world. Momondo has been highly rated by many of my favorite travel reviewers.

Honorable Mentions: Skyscanner, Fareness, Hopper, and Jetblue.

Next time I post, I'll talk about other cheap travel tips, like accommodations.

Real quickly I want to share a couple of photos from another trip up north. Last week, I took a trip up towards Franconia Notch in New Hampshire. I did a bit of leaf peeping and drone flying, so I'd like to share with you two pics.

And there you have it. My baseball game starts in 9 minutes, so I'm going to leave you now. Until next time!

BP