Travel to Hawaii with The Traveling Textbook: Quick Tip #1: How We Book the Budget Flight

Small choices with Big Impacts.

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Hawaii.  The dream destination for many.  A tropical paradise within the United States boasting of beautiful beaches and incredible scenery.  We heard the same statement multiple times. 

​"I would love to go, it's just so expensive." 

You can do it.

We're going to give you a series of Quick Tip posts for you to step by step put together your dream vacation.  (And if it's not Hawaii, the steps will work for any trip you want to take.)

Start With the Flight

Most dream destinations require airfare.  Flying is freedom we have only known for a short time.  The first flight was just over 100 years ago and went 17 miles.  We've come a long way.  

Flights can make or break a trip.  We have two rules when booking flights:

#1 - Flights are required to be somewhere in the $600 range or less for us.  (This includes tax.)  Pick your budget range and stick to it.

This is a really important rule to stick to.  If the flights aren't able to be found in your budget range, the trip itself doesn't become worth it.  Spending over half of your budget on airfare not only limits what you can do on your trip, it also limits future trips you can take due to having to pay so much for just one.  Driving to an airport within 4 - 5 hours saves big.

Our tickets to Hawaii, nonstop flight to Honolulu, were in our $600 budget range.  

We flew out of Toronto.  Being American, we needed a passport and we had to drive three hours to the airport.

It saved us approximately $1800 dollars.

#2 - Stop Checking luggage
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We really can't stress this enough.  It saves an INCREDIBLE amount of money.  We did three of us with carry-on only. When we were able to walk through the airport and skip most of the wait times.  The over-packing teenager converted and loved it.  

Click HERE for our carry-on choices.  We each have a different one to fit our needs.  You also need compression bags for those that like to make sure you're covered for everything. (We are Amazon Affiliates and receive a small compensation from qualifying purchases.)

Here's your homework to get started:
1)  List your top 5 travel destinations and set your budget limit.
​2) Pick your travel destination and date six or more months from now.  (Flights are cheaper the earlier you book them.)  Go BIG.  Don't Hold Back.  Put that dream in the search.
3)  Search your destination from multiple airports from multiple sites.  Orbitz, Google Flights, etc.  Don't limit to one search engine or one airport.  The general rule for airports is about 4-5 hours from home or less.
4)  Not in your budget range or less range right now?  That's ok.  Go through your list.
5)  Write down (or create an excel list) of your flights and searches.  
6)  Check back a month later.  Check on different days of the week.  Record your searches.  Find your best flight.
7) Do a little digging to find the carry-on bag that meets your needs.  (Airlines outside of the United States have smaller bag restrictions.  Please make sure you plan for this when buying a bag so you can use the same bag both within the US and outside of the US.)  Buy it now to save on added costs later.