This Holiday Is the Best Time of Year for Cheap International Travel
Plus a great excuse for getting out of that awkward dinner you didn't want to attend anyways.
This year, skip the gravy, your one aunt's absolutely unhinged regurgitation of conspiracy theories, and watching grown men risking concussions during the annual NFL Thanksgiving games, and leave the country instead. According to the experts over at Going (f.k.a. Scott's Cheap Flights), Turkey Day is actually the best and cheapest time to travel internationally.
Scott Keyes, the founder and CEO at Going, tells Thrillist that Going's usual advice on the best time to book trips doesn't apply when it comes to international holiday travel. "Thanksgiving is the hidden best week to travel internationally. People are heading home to see family and friends domestically pushing up prices," Keyes explains.
If you book your trip by the end of the month, you'll likely find some excellent deals for trips. Flight experts at Going identified several roundtrip flights to Europe for under $500 for the week of Thanksgiving if you book them soon. Here are just a few of the sample fares they found:
- Boston to Scotland, $291
- Baltimore to Rome, $394
- Denver to Copenhagen, $484
"I was fortunate enough to snag some cheap flights to Dublin for the second Thanksgiving week in a row," Keyes shared. "Trading in turkey for Guinness yet again. Less crowds, lower hotel prices, and decent weather."
Considering that November is an off season for most European destinations as well, this means you aren't only going to find some cheaper flights — you'll likely also find much cheaper hotel and vacation rental prices.
To find these cheap fares on your own, you can use the Google Flights “Explore” feature and set the time frame to one-week trips in November. Looking from the East Coast, I found several roundtrip flights to Europe for less than $400, including to Paris and Lisbon. For an expert curation of cheap flights year round, you can head over to Going.com.
Looking for more travel deals?
Here's our running list of all the cheap travel deals you can book right now, and you can head here for all the latest flight deals plus cheap things to do and savings on hotels, cruises, trains, and more to help you plan for your next trip.