Examine individual changes

<p>Libby Kane / Business InsiderThe watch from our balcony at sunset within Fira, Santorini. There is nothing more tiresome than spending hours scouring the web trying to find the best price on every element of your vacation. <br />So I don't. <br />Instead, I make a single decision that saves me a fortune: I select to travel in "shoulder season. "<br />This period of time is the months leading toward or away from the high season. <br />In the Caribbean, high season is the winter. In most of Europe, it's the summer. <br /><br />It's the time when that place is best shown to its advantage, so people go see it. <br />It's also the priciest time to go because the tourism business knows what's up. <br />By choosing to travel six to eight weeks before or right after high season, I save money on flights, accommodations, car rentals, and most everything else by making one decision and not thinking about it again. <br />It seems obvious, but a lot of people don't do it. <br />It isn't the off-season. I'm not really going during monsoon season or even blizzards. Really, the only difference is a few degrees - a light cardigan, or removal thereof. <br /><br />And the financial benefits are huge. For example, a friend and I went to the Cyclades Islands in Greece a few years back, choosing to go in early May rather than summer, the peak season. <br />When I plug a 12-day vacation for the same dates into Kayak -- leaving on the last day associated with April, the same days we journeyed - the cheapest flight with a single layover is $562: <br />Kayak. com<br />In early August, the results are nearly twice the price, even though we'd end up being booking further in advance: <br /><br />Kayak. com<br />Bear in mind that isn't a perfect assessment. It involved no acrobatics to get the cheapest possible flight, nor direct comparisons of flights leaving plus arriving at the same time on the same day of the week, nor analyses of how airline prices fluctuate. It took me all of five minutes - which is kind of the point. <br /><br />Here's another basic illustration: Lodging were cheaper, too. On Santorini, we stayed at - the particular marvelous - Atlantis Hotel within Fira, which charges 240 pounds, about $262, per night for our incredible caldera-view room in early Might. <br /><br />Atlantis Hotel <br />Using the same Sunday-through-Wednesday dates within August, that hotel is inquiring 320 euros - about $350 - per night: <br />Atlantis Hotel<br />Admittedly, I don't have children and was not limited by the school calendar, and my job isn't so extremely seasonal that I wouldn't be able to vacation in May rather than August, so Now i am lucky enough that this strategy is easily doable. Plus, I generally don't mind that I have to put a windbreaker over my bikini to see the coves of Santorini or the town associated with Mykonos. <br /><br />It's cheaper, less crowded, and just as beautiful. <br />If you have your cardiovascular absolutely set on tanning on a yacht, I concede that this strategy might not be for you. Although if wish talking Mediterranean, you could try September! <br />I could keep giving examples - I used the same strategy when I went to the Balearic Islands off the coast of Spain in late May/early 06 last year with another friend -- but there's really no need. Simply by traveling in the shoulder season instead of the high season, I've consistently had the opportunity to save hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on incredible trips by causing a two-minute choice. <br /><br /><br />SEE FURTHERMORE: I took advantage of the solid US dollar to spend 11 days touring Spain, and it was totally worth it </p> <!-- NewPP limit report Cached time: 20160603133435 Cache expiry: 604800 Dynamic content: false CPU time usage: 0.017 seconds Real time usage: 0.018 seconds Preprocessor visited node count: 1/1000000 Preprocessor generated node count: 4/1000000 Post‐expand include size: 0/2097152 bytes Template argument size: 0/2097152 bytes Highest expansion depth: 1/40 Expensive parser function count: 0/100 --> <!-- Transclusion expansion time report (%,ms,calls,template) 100.00% 0.000 1 - -total -->