Lately, a lot of people have been asking me how I manage to travel for a longer duration and spending lesser than I had intended to. It is not that I spend less, I spend where absolutely necessary and try to cut corners wherever possible.
What does a holiday mean to you? For me, it is not ticking all the must-dos in a town/city that I visit. It is more to tune into the vibe of the city and chill for a while. I use the open bus tour wherever available (it is available in most of the cities that even has the slightest number of tourists), which is a good start as you get to know what you want to visit. If there are 12 stops, for example, on a such a bus tour map, there will be some 5 places in each of those stops to visit. You're not going to do 60 attractions in 3 days and end up tiring yourself down with just one city right?
Let's get back to the drawing board and start with a clean slate, shall we? One of the largest spends when you do a Europe/America trip is on the flight tickets. So before planning where to go, have your options open, with two or three places in mind, and then start searching. Start looking for flight fares across several months and several nights, say for example, you are planning 7 nights, look for flights anywhere between 6 to 10 days (Yes, I don't like shortening trips, extending is welcome, Lol)
I will give you examples of unbelievable flight fares me and my partner have taken.
2016 - May - INR 30,000 return trip Chennai-Paris-Chennai
2017 - August - INR 52,500 return trip Chennai-San Francisco-Chennai
2018 - April - INR 24,500 return trip Chennai-Milan-Paris-Chennai
How is this even possible, you may ask. Well. If you are somebody who is rigid about dates, or somebody who books the travel after freezing your leave dates, then this won't work for you. Your travel dates should be completely open and you have to apply for your leaves only after you saw an offer that is irresistible. I booked my 2016 flights 3 months in advance. 2017, 5 months in advance. 2018, 3 months in advance. It all depends on when the airline is running a special offer.
In 2016, the offer I used was an INR 10,000 cash back by MakeMyTrip.com on return international flights to Europe by using an Axis bank issued card. In 2017, there was no offer, I was just lucky to find a fare that is closest to Saudia. No, I didn't fly Saudia. In 2018, there was a Jet Privilege offer of 15,000 Bonus JP Miles for any return international flight booked to Europe, which by itself, translates to an INR 7,500 equivalent of flight tickets.
I started out to just introduce this blog but since I've come this long, I'll leave it here and continue in my second post. Happy travels!
What does a holiday mean to you? For me, it is not ticking all the must-dos in a town/city that I visit. It is more to tune into the vibe of the city and chill for a while. I use the open bus tour wherever available (it is available in most of the cities that even has the slightest number of tourists), which is a good start as you get to know what you want to visit. If there are 12 stops, for example, on a such a bus tour map, there will be some 5 places in each of those stops to visit. You're not going to do 60 attractions in 3 days and end up tiring yourself down with just one city right?
Let's get back to the drawing board and start with a clean slate, shall we? One of the largest spends when you do a Europe/America trip is on the flight tickets. So before planning where to go, have your options open, with two or three places in mind, and then start searching. Start looking for flight fares across several months and several nights, say for example, you are planning 7 nights, look for flights anywhere between 6 to 10 days (Yes, I don't like shortening trips, extending is welcome, Lol)
I will give you examples of unbelievable flight fares me and my partner have taken.
2016 - May - INR 30,000 return trip Chennai-Paris-Chennai
2017 - August - INR 52,500 return trip Chennai-San Francisco-Chennai
2018 - April - INR 24,500 return trip Chennai-Milan-Paris-Chennai
How is this even possible, you may ask. Well. If you are somebody who is rigid about dates, or somebody who books the travel after freezing your leave dates, then this won't work for you. Your travel dates should be completely open and you have to apply for your leaves only after you saw an offer that is irresistible. I booked my 2016 flights 3 months in advance. 2017, 5 months in advance. 2018, 3 months in advance. It all depends on when the airline is running a special offer.
In 2016, the offer I used was an INR 10,000 cash back by MakeMyTrip.com on return international flights to Europe by using an Axis bank issued card. In 2017, there was no offer, I was just lucky to find a fare that is closest to Saudia. No, I didn't fly Saudia. In 2018, there was a Jet Privilege offer of 15,000 Bonus JP Miles for any return international flight booked to Europe, which by itself, translates to an INR 7,500 equivalent of flight tickets.
I started out to just introduce this blog but since I've come this long, I'll leave it here and continue in my second post. Happy travels!
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