John and I are at a place in our lives where traveling and exploring new places is one of the top priorities to us when it comes to how we should spend any “extra” money we have coming in. Unfortunately for us (and our travel dreams), like a lot of people, we don’t have a ton of disposable income available for treks all over the world. Instead of letting that stop us from going anywhere, I try to be as thrifty as I can when it comes to scouting out trips. Because, YOLO, right? You only live once. You’re only young once. And bills will always be there. RIGHT??

A couple of weeks ago I booked two plane tickets to Italy for $798 bucks. That’s LESS THAN FOUR HUNDRED BUCKS PER PERSON. TO ITALY. Since a lot of people have asked me how I got that deal, I thought I would share my favorite travel deal tips here on the blog!

Sign up for deal emails. If you hate junk emails, this might sound like somewhat lame advice because 99 percent of the time these deal emails are going to feel very junky and spammy. HOWEVER, these kinds of emails are how I booked my amazing Italy fare! I get a weekly email from Travelzoo with their “Top 20” deals of the week from around the internet. A lot of times they’re things I would never want to do (a weekend of fly fishing was a recent one..no thanks) or they’re not really all that great of deals. But every once in a while there’s something AMAZING in there. The key to making these kinds of deals work for you is being flexible…if I was planning a trip to Italy specifically for October, it might be trickier to find as good a deal. But in general I know “Okay, I’d love to go to Italy this year…so if a deal pops up and it works out, I’m game!”

Sign up for hotel rewards. I signed up for HHonors because we love staying in Hampton Inns when we’re traveling for weddings. Nothing beats a free breakfast and wifi. Since we have to stay overnight a lot for weddings we’re photographing, I figured we might as well be earning points towards stays on vacations! Most major hotel chains have a reward program. I would suggest signing up even if you don’t stay in hotels as much as we do. Over time your points will add up and just having a membership with a hotel will sometimes help score you free upgrades and other goodies. On at least three occasions we’ve gotten our room at a Hilton property upgraded for FREE just for being members.

Consider hacker fares. This is probably my best tip! I personally think that airfare is usually the most expensive and cost prohibitive thing about traveling, so I’m always looking for a way to save on airfare. If you don’t know what “Hacker” fares are, in a nutshell they’re buying two one way tickets (one there and one back) instead of one round trip ticket. These are my preferred way to buy airfare even if I can get the same price buying round trip. Why? Because buying two one way tickets is a lot more flexible than just purchasing round trip airfare! You have more departure and arrivals, more carriers, and more pricing to choose from. You can even decide to leave from one airport and then return home to a completely different one based on what time you want to get back, what’s most convenient for you, and what the overall cost would be.

Here are two great examples of how I saved money with “hacker” fares:

1. Flew to Las Vegas on Frontier for $130. Returned home on Us Airways for $180. Frontier is a less expensive airline, but they didn’t have flights back home on the day I wanted to leave, so I purchased a one way through Frontier and a round trip through US airways for less than the cost of a round trip through US Airways.

2. Bought a ticket for an upcoming trip to Boston for $74 out of Richmond International. Since it’s leaving on a Saturday, it’s easy enough to get someone to take me and drop me off. Bought my return trip on Delta returning to Newport News, because I’m coming back on a weekday and it’ll be easier for someone to grab me on a weekday morning a little closer to home. I saved about $70 dollars booking my outgoing flight through a slightly larger airport that’s a little bit farther out from me!

3. Needed to get to JFK specifically but it’s expensive and difficult to get there from where I live. Instead of buying a single one way ticket with a connection on US Airways or Jet Blue (which was $212) I spent $70 each on a ticket to Boston (where both of the previously mentioned flights connected anyway) and then a ticket from Boston to JFK! That’s a savings of $72!

Use “private browsing” when searching for fares or rates. If you are searching frequently for hotel or airfare to a particular destination, sites can start tracking your browsing history (cookies, etc) and will sometimes rearrange or change your search results based on that!! I personally try it both ways when I’m looking around and considering my options.

Be flexible and open to opportunities. This tip goes against everything I am as a deep at heart planner. I am definitely not a fly by the seat of my pants kind of gal, but I’ve learned that if you’re trying to save money and go on inexpensive trips, sometimes being open to going somewhere semi-last minute can mean getting to go somewhere awesome for a steal. Last year I randomly came across a sale on airfare to New Orleans for $39 one way and booked a trip for the following weekend! And my Italy trip is another good example of being open to something exciting somewhat last minute (our trip is in 44 days!!)!

This leads me to my last tip…

Utilize Social Media to Find Deals. All of the awesome deals I’ve found (other than the ones that I got in emails I signed up for) were basically through social media! Follow air carriers, hotel chains, and more for flash deals they may post about, or to enter to win giveaways. It’s also really smart to follow friends who travel a lot because sometimes they’ll post about deals they’ve found. At the least you can expect them to share ideas of where to go, and most importantly, where to EAT when you’re on your trip.

Traveling on a budget is not for everyone, but I personally do my best to save on each trip we take so that we can go on MORE trips. Hopefully these tips can help you do the same! Good luck and bon voyage!