Traveling to Europe from the US has never been easier or cheaper. If you often dream of going to Europe to see a match or on vacation, now is the time to make that dream come true.
Several factors are in your favor for a European vacation this year. First, the strong US dollar means that Europe is not as expensive as it once was. Second, several international budget airlines have emerged, which have caused prices to drop. Third and finally, once you arrive in Europe, you can find incredible prices for city-to-city flights.
Overall, it can be cheaper to take a trip to Europe than a vacation in the US.
Take it from me. I found some great deals last summer when I took my wife and three of my kids to Europe for 30 days. We visited seven countries, traveled 12,000 miles by plane, train and car and had the trip of a lifetime. It’s hard to believe, but we spent less money than if we had stayed a week at a Disney World hotel and theme park just 140 miles away.
How is all this possible? Here are my golden rules for making an affordable dream trip to Europe possible.
Fly to Europe: Find the flight that fits your budget
Of all the costs of a European holiday, the most important thing to master is finding an affordable flight ticket. Without a doubt, the best tool is to use Google Flights, which is free.
To get the most out of Google Flights, enter a number of airports in your area where you would be flying. Also enter several options for the destination airport. For example, for London as the destination, enter LGW (London Gatwick Airport), LHR (Heathrow) and MAN (Manchester). Wherever you’re traveling from and to, including multiple nearby airports will give you more deals to choose from.
When you click on the “Departure Date” option, you will immediately see the prices for each day. Those listed in green are good deals, while prices in black are less. By being able to see which deals look promising before you even choose a departure and return date, it lets you see which dates offer the best savings.
The “Search” results page is the heart of Google Flights. From here you can see the “best” and “cheapest” options. You can also use the “Date Grid” and “Price Chart” to see the best days of the week to fly. The best feature is the “Track Prices” option, where Google sends you an email when prices drop. You can also choose to only include direct flights in your search.
The more flexible you are with the dates, the more likely you are to find a deal. And if you don’t find one right away, be patient. Airlines often have deals around different times of the year such as Black Friday, Valentine’s Day, President’s Day, etcetera.
If you’re patient and want to keep your options open for great deals, bookmark Secret Flying. As an alternative to Google Flights, Skyscanner is also very good.
Fly with a low-cost airline if you want
When looking through the deals on Google Flights, remember that it’s not just the airlines you’re familiar with that offer the best deals. For example, you can usually find good deals with international low-cost airlines such as TAP Air Portugal (to Portugal), French Bee (to France), Icelandair (to the UK) and Aer Lingus (to England and Ireland). Besides them, my favorite is Norse Atlantic Airways. I flew with them to London in 2023. It’s a no-frills airline (food, heavy bags and seat selection are extra), but they almost always offer good deals. I’ve been able to find deals for as little as $400 (winter) to $600 round trip (summer) from Florida to London.
To be fair, the quality of service from most major airlines has dropped so much from what it used to be that there isn’t much difference between them and the international budget airlines. Most of them use the same type of plan. With Norse or other low-cost airlines, bring some food to eat on the plane, don’t worry about seat selection and pack light.
Speaking of packing light, before you take your departure flight, don’t go crazy packing your suitcase with clothes. Learn some packing tips and – if you’re feeling daring – take a backpack instead of a suitcase. When you take a backpack, it can be used as hand luggage. In addition, it is easier to travel with it on your back instead of dragging the suitcase all over the streets of Europe.
When my family went on the 30-day European trip last summer, our only luggage was a backpack each. It saved us so much time going through airports when others were waiting on carousels to unload their checked luggage. And it helped us get in and out of planes, trains and cars once we got to Europe.
If you don’t believe me, here’s a photo of our backpacks just before we dropped them off at a baggage claim in Edinburgh, Scotland. The extra Primark bag was just for some souvenirs we picked up earlier in our trip.
So how did we do it? At first we had enough clothes for seven days. Every week we found a laundromat in whatever city we were in that day. Second, I highly recommend the Matein backpack (pictured above far left). It has so many compartments inside the backpack where you can store shoes, clothes etc. It also has room for a laptop if you need to bring one with you.
Other travel tips to consider before heading to Europe
Once you’ve landed in Europe, you’ll find that public transport makes it easy to get around – whether you want to take the bus, train or plane. Buses will differ in every country, but Flixbus is certainly one to take a look at.
The high speed trains in Italy and France are wonderful. The rest of Europe has good train services too. If you plan to take a lot of train travel, definitely check out Eurail and BritRail as options. The train passes are only available in the US, and they are often much cheaper than if you bought rain tickets in Europe. I’ve used them both on previous trips, and I love the comfort of sitting on a train as we relax and enjoy the view out the window as the trains hurtle through the countryside.
A big advantage of traveling in Europe is how cheap the air travel is from city to city. Last summer we took a flight from Manchester, England to a city in southern Italy called Brindisi. For the flight of just over three hours, we paid about $25 per ticket on RyanAir. We saved so much because we found the deals on the RyanAir website. Plus, we didn’t have any checked luggage, so those backpacks saved us a lot of money, too.
While RyanAir and other European budget airlines offer amazing deals, they are not luxurious. As you can see from my picture below, the seats don’t have much comfort, and legroom is minimal.
As before, Google Flights is an excellent resource for searching for European city-to-city airline deals.
Last but not least, when it comes to where to stay while in Europe, I recommend Booking.com. If you use their app to make a reservation, it’s cheaper than its website. Plus, both the Booking.com app and website aggregate listings of hotels, apartments and bed-and-breakfasts into one.
Safe travels.
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