Traveling doesn’t have to be expensive

A beautiful tropical island in Fiji. photo by Eric Michael Stitt

The days of you pushing off that bucket-list sea cruise, flight to Europe and West Coast road trip are over. Instead of planning within your ideal vacation schedule, focus on booking around the locale’s peak travel season.

There is a misconception that journeys are expensive. But it’s not where you travel, it’s when you travel.

Most of the world’s sought-after vacay spots have high and low seasons. New England in autumn, Kyoto for the cherry blossoms, Aspen at Christmastime and Italy in July. Options like these all have one thing in common: high prices. Flights, hotels, rental cars and more are going to make you spend a fortune. What you’d pay in high season for a go-to location could be accomplished at half the price a few weeks later.

Traveling domestically or abroad doesn’t have to cost a fortune, if you’re able to schedule vacations around the busiest times. The more flexible your schedule is, the less money you’re going to spend to eat lobster in Maine, take selfies beneath white flowered trees, ski the Rockies and visit the Colosseum in Rome.

If you can only take off during the busiest travel weeks of the year, like teachers, then you’re left with booking early and grabbing the best deals. However, if you can expand that timeframe, then prepare to open the scheduler and reassess a trite debate of time vs. money.

And if financial savings aren’t enough incentive, think of how many more runs down the snowy mountains you’ll get before a quiet firepit scene or how quickly you’ll enter the Vatican as opposed to standing in long twisty lines under the sun. Plus, your chances of obtaining reservations for famous sites, popular restaurants and ideal resorts just enhanced.

So, stop waiting for that vacation fund to pile up higher, and instead concentrate on moving your trip date to a cheaper time.