Here’s a sample itinerary that gets the most bang for your buck. If you want to go to Europe and don’t know if or when you’ll be back, you might as well visit a few cities. It just so happens that you can do so for $320 total. The trick for finding itineraries such as this is to be flexible. Also, you might want to be a light packer, as paying for overhead luggage will cost you. With a pack like the Osprey Farpoint 40 or Minaal Carry on 2.0, you’ll avoid this issue.
To get the $319 price point you’d have to fly from Newark and land in Newburgh, which is about 75 minutes north of Newark. However, it’s only $32 more expensive to book from Dublin to Newark if you were to leave a day earlier on WOW Air, but that’d mean you’re only in Dublin for a couple days. That also comes with the added caveat of a two hour layover in Reykjavik, for a total of 11 hr 15 min in travel time. If you fly Norwegian into Newburgh, it’s a 7 hr direct flight and it is cheaper.
I’m more of a hostel/Airbnb traveler. But, To find cheap hotels, I usually use booking.com. For instance, the cheapest hotel in Paris for the 24th-28th with over an 8/10 rating is $237 total. Three nights in Barcelona will only set you back $136. Dublin has very expensive accommodations, as the cheapest hotel for three nights is $334, which unfortunately has a shared bathroom. An entire apartment can be rented on Airbnb during those dates for only $183.
Be flexible!
Again, the key is to be flexible with accommodations as well. You could choose to make this itinerary even cheaper by staying in Airbnbs or hostels for the entirety of the trip. The accommodations come in at $557 total, or $287.50 split between two people for a grand total of $606.50 per person. Round trip flights to Europe alone usually come out to this price depending on the city. This is a great bargain for anyone who can be flexible on airport/accommodations and doesn’t mind Winter in Europe.
