Oneika’s tips for cheap, abundant, and quality travel

BY ONEIKA RAYMOND


I recently signed up for the discussion forums on nappturality.com (great website for those with Afro hair, check it out!) and one of the threads was asking if anyone had travel tips to share. Having been around the block a few times, I posted some of my general travel tips and thought that it might be a good idea to share them here as well. So here goes!

–Cheapie ticket websites are a must. For travel in the U.S. I’ve used sidestep.com with much success, for example. For inter-European air travel ryanair.com and easyjet.com have the cheapest tickets I’ve seen (shoutout to Sky Europe as well). For Asia, airasia.com is pretty decent all around. What you save in price, you sacrifice in comfort but unless it’s a long-haul flight I really don’t mind.

–If you’re looking for cheap tickets, try to fly in and out of major airports and train/bus/drive/take another cheap flight to your departure/main destination airport. In my experience, booking a plane ticket straight through to Nantes, France (lived there for a year) was a lot more expensive than flying into Paris and then taking the high-speed train (2 hour ride) to Nantes. A Canadian friend of mine who wanted to go to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia found it cheaper to fly from Canada to Hong Kong and then take a cheapie flight from Air Asia to Kuala Lumpur. For Euro-tripping, flying into London is typically the cheapest option as Heathrow is a major hub. Nairobi, Kenya’s airport is a hub if you’re going to Eastern or Central Africa. If you have the time to burn, then it’s a good cash-saving option!

–Book EARLY and be flexible with when you travel. I just booked a cheap ticket to Singapore (got it at half the usual price). The catch? I don’t actually fly out there until next May 2011. I would have loved to have gone in, say, December, but it wasn’t worth paying double the price. And so I will wait.
Prices always go up for tickets.. Book early to avoid disappointment as the cheap seats sell out first. I’m going to Germany and Turkey at Christmas but booked the tickets in August at a really low price. Tickets are $500 USD more now. Nuff said.

–Try to avoid travelling during peak season. You’ll pay through the nose for it.

–Save yourself time and money by planning a good itinerary. Need help? I’ve found Lonely Planet’s web forums (lonelyplanet.com/thorntree) to be a GREAT resource for recommendations and sample itineraries. Travelblog.org is a great resource for reading people’s accounts of their travels to a particular place.

–Fly economy.

–If you’re going on a short or weekend trip, ditch the checked luggage. I only take my carry-on. Why waste precious minutes of your trip at the luggage carousel when you don’t have to?

–Ask to sit in the emergency exit row if possible. Most airlines nowadays charge for that seat but sometimes you can get it for free if the plane is empty. Also, ask to be seated toward the back of the plane (at check-in) as most plane tickets are sold from the front of the plane to the back.

–Flying a long-haul mid-week? There’s a good chance your flight is not fully booked. Ask to sit in an unoccupied row if possible. On a night flight from Frankfurt to Philadelphia I scored a row of three seats to my self. I was happy.

–Once you get to your desired destination, do the free walking tours. Europe is amazing for these. I’ve done free walking tours in Dublin, Berlin, Edinburgh, Prague, and Budapest. They really help you to get your bearings in a new city and the tours are usually lead by energetic younger people. Sandeman’s New Europe tours are in almost all the major cities in Europe and they are awesome. Best thing is that they are totally free- although if you fancy, you can tip the tour guide at the end. It’s also a great way to meet people- in Dublin, I met a couple of Israelis on the walking tour and ended up having dinner with them and tagging along with them to a performance of Riverdance. In Budapest, I hit it off with two guys from Colombia and we ended up travelling to Vienna together.

–For accommodation, don’t be afraid to “hostel it”. I’ve stayed in hostels to cut costs (this is a particularly good idea when you are travelling alone and have no one to split the cost of a hotel room with). Hostels (particularly in Europe) can be really nice. I usually try to stay in the newest ones. The best hostel I’ve ever stayed in was in Prague. It was called the “Czech Inn” (corny, I know)… The runners-up for me were the Reykjavik Downtown Hostel in Iceland and the Wombats Lounge Hostel in Vienna. If you’re travelling solo, it’s a great way to meet people, as most hostels have common areas. Hostelworld.com is a pretty good hostel booking site. Be sure to check the ratings from people who have already stayed there.

–If you’re going for a hotel, do your homework and get thee onto tripadvisor.com and check the ratings. I recently discovered Trip Advisor and it has been a lifesaver for when that hotel that purports itself to be 4-star is actually in the 2-star range. It is also good to look at the photos of the hotel that guests have taken themselves. Hotels will misrepresent themselves until the cows come home and put up really nice (read: outdated) pics of rooms and other facilities that make the hotel look really good. It’s good to see a true representation of what the hotel is working with- sans good photo angles and lighting. Also, don’t be afraid to stay in one or two-star places- there are some really good, clean, no-frills ones out there. Use Trip Advisor to verify.

–Use Priceline.com where possible- and pay what you want! Priceline has a great feature where you can actually “Choose your own price”/bid on hotel rooms in major cities. I did it the last time I was in Paris and got a sweet 4-star hotel in La Defense area for a fraction of the actual sticker price. You can plug the amount you’re willing to pay, how many hotel stars you’re looking for and the areas you’re willing to stay in into a search engine and it will try to match your requests. Phenomenal!

–In terms of accomodation, if possible, always try to stay in newer places. I’m a fanatic about the toilets being clean and the shower being mildew free. I don’t like thinking about how many people have slept in the hotel bed before I have. Hence me preferring to stay in newer places- and they won’t necessarily be more expensive, either.

–If you’re travelling in Asia, bring your own toilet paper!! Many places do not provide. Better safe then sorry, eh?

–Ditto on the liquid soap/hand sanitizer. You’d be astounded how many places are “out”.

SHARING IS CARING

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