Bargain Deals in Iceland

by Neil Woodburn on

Iceland is one of my favorite places on this planet. It’s also one of the most expensive. And that’s why any time I hear about budget travel or cheap deals in this wonderful country, I happily share the find.

And so, just in time for the upcoming Iceland Airwaves Music Festival (October 17-21) the Guardian has interviewed five locals in search of cheap eats and other bargains–such as enjoying free espresso at 12Tónar, an independent music store.

One of the more unique discoveries I came across in this article was a recommendation to visit MulaKaffi Restaurant and try some slátur. Icelandic cuisine is notorious for its oddity and slátur is no exception. Rather than try to describe it myself, I’ll simply quote the words of local musicians Gunni and President Bongo: “…like haggis, involving all the “other” bits of meat. It literally translates as “slaughter,” and is also a slang term for a man’s genitals. The blood sausage, fat and oats sown into the stomach of a sheep – is boiled, cut down and fried, and then sugar is sprinkled on top.”

Mmmm… I’m sure the sugary topping really makes this dish extra yummy!

Booking Stragies for Hub Captive Flyers

by Grant Martin on

If you happen to live in a city where the airline market is dominated by one carrier (Minneapolis: Northwest Airlines, Houston: Contintental Airlines, etc), you’ve probably been subjected to the semi-monopoly that they can impose. It irritates me how they can complain about rising fuel and air traffic control costs while they charge 350$ for a one way flight from Detroit to Columbus Ohio. Yes, that’s 161 miles.

The thing to remember is that the price of tickets is dictated by the number of open seats and the demand for them; unfortunately demand is higher in hub cities where you have little choice of your carrier. But if you can get to a small feeder city where demand is lower, the price will often go down.

Take Detroit and Flint. The price for a DTW-SEAttle flight between October 15 and 22 is 716$. Plug in FNT-SEA though and you’ll get 536$. Often times, the leg from FNT will connect in Detroit anyway and you’ll get on the exact same flight that was 200$ more departing from Detroit. Sure, Flint is an extra 30 minutes away and you have to connect, but I’d do it for the extra money and frequent flyer miles in my pocket.

Another thing is, you don’t have to fly all the way back on your return trip. If your flight is from CDG-MSP-STC (Saint Cloud, MN), you can just get off the plane in Minneapolis and have your buddy pick you up from there. Be careful though, bags will check through to your destination (domestically) and the airline will cancel the rest of your itinerary. Just be cautious, plan well and more of often than not you can work the system to your advantage. And you didn’t hear that tip about skipping flights from me.

Dumpster Diving: The Cheapest Way to Eat While Traveling

by Neil Woodburn on

Food can become a considerable expense if you are a backpacker exploring the world with a limited budget. If this is your style of travel, you might consider becoming a “freegan.”

A freegan is a vegetarian who eats for free. And how does one eat for free? Dumpster diving, of course.

The freegan movement is a relatively new one, despite its roots stretching back to the very first bum who pulled something out of the trash, gave it a sniff, and then wolfed it down. Today’s freegans are a little more cultured and refined, according to Erika Hayasaki, who recently studied their lifestyle for a Los Angeles Times feature article. She claims that most of the dumpster divers “are often college-educated people from middle-class families” who are simply rebelling against capitalism and waste. Or, for the purpose of this post, just looking for a meal while thumbing their way to Dublin.I slightly get the point. I certainly spent some time in my youth digging through grocery store dumpsters in search of melons to throw off of tall buildings. The amount of food that these places throw away is staggering and I was always amazed at how fresh some of the items looked. They never looked fresh enough to actually put in my mouth, but I can certainly see how others might want to do that–be it a statement against consumerism or simply to save a buck.

For those of you considering freeganism to supplement your hunger during your budget travel jaunts, you might want to check out Meetup.com–a site that offers dumpster-diving tours in Seattle, Houston, LA, and England. And, if you’re really serious about this, Hayasaki also suggests Freegankitchen.com, a recipe site that promises “gourmet meals from the dumpster.” Mmmmm…

Getaway Maps — The Perfect Cure for the Destination Blues

by Grant Martin on

Believe it or not, there are other places to go on vacation besides Cabo San Lucas. Heresy! Heresy, I know, but give me time to redeem myself.

The three main factors in getting away for the weekend are budget, time and location. Sure you could get away for the weekend to Hoboken, but it really doesn’t have the charm. And we’d all like to go to Fiji, but ticket prices aren’t too competitive right now.

What Farecompare has done is created a tool that factors those two variables into one that displays the lowest price of tickets in a region against a Google map. It’s called a Getaway Map; you know you want to get away at some point this fall, you know you’ve got three hundred bucks and you know you want to go somewhere in Central America. Plug in your hometown to the root Getaway Map page, click on the Central America page and you’re set.

Farecompare takes the cheapest fare from a broad survey of fares from the present to deep into 2008, so to get the price you want you may have to tinker around with the software. There can also be small discrepancies in price; international tax isn’t always calculated correctly and it will sometimes take a few hours for new fares to load (I’ll explain that later).

Along those lines though, one nice thing you can do is set up a fare alert to tell you when cheap fares to any particular region go on sale — Toledo to Europe for example. And since the fares load early, you often know about the sale before it shows up on Expedia and you can call your girlfriend in a panic telling her to break open the piggy bank. Not that I have done that.

Point is, Farecompare is a very powerful tool for those who are flexible on vacation date, budget and location. Plug in a few sample destinations and give it a try. Between you and me, Farecompare is one of the only three travel websites that I check multiple times a day.

$200 from Los Angeles – Guatemala City. Got any Plans this Weekend?

by Grant Martin on

There appears to be some squabbling for the Los Angeles — Guatemala City (LAX-GUA) route today. Spirit, American Airlines, Taca and Mexicana all have been showing excellent fares between LA and the Latin capital, and I’m currently seeing a price of about 200$ on Taca starting this weekend through Q1 2008.

Usually, fares departing on such short notice are hard to come by. So if any of you left-coasters are free this weekend, surprise your significant other or mother with a trip down to Guatemala.

Don’t even think about telling me that you think Guatemala is dangerous. I was there in March and got there and back just fine, even with a white girl in tow.

If you want to be super safe, the trick is to leave Guatemala City as soon as you touch down and head straight for Antigua, the old capital of Guatemala. Here you’ll find an historic Central American village high in the mountains surrounded by volcanoes. Head out to see La Merced Church or stick around for a few weeks to attend spanish school.

There are a variety of activities in this safe, colonial town that will keep you busy for a long relaxing weekend without breaking the bank. And to put the safety issue in perspective, I ran into a guy from my home town, Ann Arbor as I was walking down the street one day; tourism is fairly common in Antigua.

If you get bored, you can pay a few pesos for a trip to Lake Atitlan or the top of one of the local volcanoes. I would recommend a tour in that case though, because things can get a little dicey outside of the Antigua bubble.

Use a flexible search engine such as Kayak to locate the best itineraries for your window. And as always, fare sales can disappear in the blink of an eye. If there’s any question, book now and ask questions later.

%Gallery-8257%