I have a secret! 😀
Well, it’s not really secret, it’s more like me being really good at tweaking the internet as much as I can to get a good travel deal. But I’ve finally decided to write out how to use my awesome trick for how I get the cheapest flights, so that you can use it to not only get cheap flights too, but get an idea of where to go!
I call it “Not Being Picky”! But for technical purposes, I’ll call it the “Worldwide Search”, and it always puts a smile on my face to search “worldwide” instead of a specific destination and date. That’s right, I don’t put any information in the search fields except the airport I want to leave from, and sometimes I don’t even use that since I know other airports are cheaper to fly out of!
Confused yet? I don’t blame you, so here’s my step by step guide (or see my VIDEO TUTORIAL below) on how to use the Worldwide Search trick to find the cheapest flights, locations and dates!
Jump To:
1. Type “Cheap flights from ____ Worldwide” in Your Browser
You can use your home airport, or you can get savvy and play around with other international airports. For example, I know flying out of my home airport LAX is cheaper for Asia flights, but if I fly out of FLL (Ft. Lauderdale) it’s much cheaper for South America flights.
2. Click on Kayak or Skyscanner’s Results
Find Kayak (you can also use Skyscanner but they work better for non-U.S. flights), make sure it says FROM and not TO, and click on it.
3. Browse by Date, Location, or Just Cheapest
Once on Kayak’s worldwide search page, you’ll see a bar graph, which lets you search depending on date (if you roll your mouse over the bars you’ll see prices and locations), or you can just start browsing through the results starting with cheapest overall flights.
For me, I go to the right hand side and click on the “worldwide” destination so that I only see international flights. You can click “worldwide” and it’ll show you all international flights, or you can click a specific continent.
4. Use the Results to Plan Your Trip
The most useful part about this worldwide search is that it automatically puts dates together depending on when fares are cheapest, which also automatically gives you trip lengths! You have the option to select flights based on price (if you’re flexible with dates), or if you have certain dates in mind, you can always select a destination that’s cheapest to fly to around the dates!
5. Use the Dates as a Guide
Since most people already have a destination and date range in mind, you can also use this search to see around when is most cheapest to go, then do a new search using +/-3days of the date the search gave you for similar price results!
Other Tips:
- Use cheaper destinations to get close to your ideal destination, then look up local airlines (what I did to get to Cusco when Lima was $200 cheaper)
- Use points or find cheap domestic flights to airports with cheaper international flights
- Use overnight buses from cheap destinations to ideal destinations
- Don’t be picky 🙂
VIDEO TUTORIAL:
I like the Jetradar app. It’s legit.
Also, I just got back from a month in Antartica. If you go, don’t go on a cruise like most people. You don’t get to see much. Go on a chartered yacht. They have last minute deals and they charter film crews and other adventurers and usually have a space open if you are cool about it.
Ha, that would be awesome, will totally look into it!
There are such powerful tools available online. So glad to see you are using them to your benefit. Happy travels, Alyssa.
Another great way is to use the explore feature of your kayak iPhone app, although that mostly saddens me because I can’t go to every single place in the world.