Examine individual changes

<p>Libby Kane / Business InsiderThe see from our balcony at sunset within Fira, Santorini. There is nothing more tedious than spending hours scouring the internet trying to find the best price on every component of your vacation. <br />So I don't. <br />Instead, I make a single choice that saves me a fortune: I choose 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 period when that place is best proven 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 traveling six to eight weeks before or right after high season, I save money upon flights, accommodations, car rentals, and many everything else by making one decision and never 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 going during monsoon season or even blizzards. Really, the only difference is a few degrees - a light sweater, or removal thereof. <br /><br />And the particular financial benefits are huge. For instance, 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 traveled - the cheapest flight with one layover is $562: <br />Kayak. com<br />In early August, the results are almost twice the price, even though we'd become booking further in advance: <br /><br />Kayak. com<br />Bear in mind that isn't a perfect comparison. It involved no acrobatics to find 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 air travel prices fluctuate. It took me all of five minutes - which is kind of the purpose. <br /><br />Here's another basic illustration: Lodging were cheaper, too. On Santorini, we stayed at - the marvelous - Atlantis Hotel within Fira, which charges 240 pounds, about $262, per night for the incredible caldera-view room in early Might. <br /><br />Atlantis Hotel <br />Using the same Sunday-through-Wednesday dates within August, that hotel is requesting 320 euros - about $350 - per night: <br />Atlantis Hotel<br />Admittedly, I don't have children and are not limited by the school calendar, and my job isn't so highly seasonal that I wouldn't be able to journey in May rather than August, so Now i am lucky enough that this strategy is easily doable. Plus, I generally don't thoughts that I have to put a windbreaker over my bikini to see the cliffs of Santorini or the town associated with Mykonos. <br /><br />It's more affordable, less crowded, and just as gorgeous. <br />If you have your coronary heart absolutely set on tanning on the 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 visited the Balearic Islands off the coastline of Spain in late May/early 06 last year with another friend -- but there's really no need. 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 making 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: 20160603171159 Cache expiry: 604800 Dynamic content: false CPU time usage: 0.013 seconds Real time usage: 0.013 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 -->