Top Five Foreign Travel Search Engines to Fuel Your Budget Travel

by Grant Martin on

With the tanking dollar and rising fuel costs, it’s getting harder and harder to find cheap fares out of the US these days. But not all markets are created equal. Airlines and travel agents base their prices on supply and demand; if they decide to cater to a particular country or region, often times the prices from that area will reflect it. As the New York Times recently reported, it can therefore be useful to try querying an off-shore search engine in addition to your favorite domestic website.

I’ve been doing this for a few years with mixed luck. What I’ve found is that with a little bit of patience and clever planning, one can frequently find competitive fares by searching on foreign sites. The difficulty is in finding the best engine and method suiting your needs; not all sites accept US-based credit cards nor are they in English. Occasionally, you’ll also have to deal with paper tickets and will need to find a foreign address to send them to. But these are small hurdles on your quest to dirt-cheap fares. A little research and patience and you’ll be well on your way to secret low-cost tickets from abroad.

Luckily, you have me to give you a head start. I’ve compiled a list of my top five favorite tools for finding good deals from foreign sites. Don’t forget to convert your currency!

1. zuji.com
As I reported earlier this week on Gadling, Zuji is a powerful tool built off the Travelocity engine, with the added benefit of broad flex searches. I’ve booked several mainland China flights through Zuji with no problem — just watch out for their added taxes at the end.

2. kayak.co.uk
The British analog of kayak.com, kayak.co.uk (or kayak.fr or de.kayak.com) provides a similar fare search from a European perspective. As the NYT article mentioned, Paris-Nice flights researched on kayak.fr were generally cheaper than those found domestically.

3. opodo.co.uk
There is a faint stench of Oribtz on the Opodo website, but when it comes down to the nuts and bolts of the operation, you can’t go wrong with the solid architecture on the site. I subscribe to the weekly fare deals coming from Opodo, and occasionally they come up with some competitive prices.

4.travelprice.be
Travelprice only comes in two flavors, French and Dutch, but that just adds to the authenticity of the site. Pawing around the reservations page you’ll find a lot of the same options as in any other search engine (airport codes are always the same) and you should be able to find your itinerary after tinkering around for a few minutes.

5. flylc.com
If you’re traveling solely in Europe its also always handy to check the low cost carriers to see if any of them serve your route; most of their itineraries don’t show up on legacy travel search engines. Flylc has a comprehensive list of city pairs and the airlines that serve them, just click your departure and destination and you’ll see what carriers are available. I always cross reference flylc flights to the legacy carrier itineraries to see if there is a huge fare difference.

What’s in Your Pack, Tim Leffel?

by Justin Glow on

Tim Leffel is author of The World’s Cheapest Destinations and Make Your Travel Dollars Worth a Fortune. He is also editor of the narrative webzine PerceptiveTravel.com. So Tim, what’s in your pack?

“As a travel writer, I’m packing differently for different trips, sometimes for work, sometimes for pleasure, alone or with my family. Plus I’m constantly reviewing different items for the Practical Travel Gear blog. I tend to rotate through a bunch of different bags depending on the situation. I’ve got an Eagle Creek Continental Journey carry-on travel backpack, a generic rolling duffel bag, two regular wheelie suitcases in different sizes, a large backpack, and a leather duffel bag.”

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“This last one has become my favorite for trips two weeks or less where I won’t be walking around much between hotels or buzzing through five different hub airport connections. I bought it in a Mexican leather shop for $35 and have used it on eight trips so far. It’s comfortable to hold, has a shoulder strap, and is dead easy to spot on the luggage carousel. If I don’t stuff it to capacity, it works fine as a carry-on too. I usually carry it to my destination, then check it coming home (when it’s invariably fuller).

Here are pics before my recent two-week trip to Hungary and the Czech Republic, with the contents laid out and the bag after it was packed. This was a trip where I had to dress nicely for dinner and meetings fairly often, but I was also biking through the countryside of Moravia and shuffling through wine cellars. So I couldn’t be a total travel bum and it was a bit of a challenge to do it carry-on style, but I couldn’t risk losing my luggage going there so I had to make it work

Here are a few notes on some items that help me pack light. My Fujitsu laptop weighs less than three pounds and has a built-in wireless card. It slips into my eBags laptop backpack, which looks just like a regular daypack. My camera case also holds a small notebook, pen, lip balm, and extra memory card, so it’s all I need for the day when doing research. I carry some lightweight, quick-dry clothes from REI and Ex-Officio, including two pairs of boxer shorts, so I can do some sink laundry on occasion. My toiletries are all travel size items that can be carried on. Everything electronic is rechargeable. Only two pairs of shoes: dressy loafers with rubber soles (worn on the plane) and a pair of lightweight, water-resistant sneakers from Technica. If I were going somewhere hot I would also take Teva-style sandals.

You’ll notice that the contents are not very colorful. That’s intentional. Any pair of pants can go with pretty much any of the shirts.

As I write this I’m finishing up my trip and it went swimmingly. There was one long-sleeve t-shirt I didn’t wear and I could have done without the stretchy clothesline since I was in decent hotels. The Skype phone didn’t get used much because high-speed Internet access was often iffy in both Hungary and the Czech Republic. Everything else got a workout and there wasn’t anything I wish I had brought. I stupidly left my travel alarm clock in the room in one hotel though, so time to get another one…

Wearing in transit

  • Slacks
  • Semi-dressy loafers
  • Wrinkle-free sportcoat
  • Wrinkle-free dress shirt
  • Belt, underwear, socks
  • In my bag
  • Two pairs of pants (one dress, one light khakis)
  • Two shirts with collars
  • Two long-sleeve t-shirts
  • Three short-sleeve t-shirts
  • Biking shorts
  • Long underwear(for biking)
  • Baseball hat
  • Sneakers
  • North Face windbreaker fleece
  • Waterproof jacket (balls up into small pouch)
  • Belt that holds money
  • Six pairs of underwear”