Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations

Off-peak Travel

One of the chapters in Make Your Travel Dollars Worth a Fortune deals with the huge savings you can reap by not going somewhere when everyone else is going. Here’s a new article with some specific winter travel recommendations from SmarterTravel: Five Off-peak Destinations for Winter 2006/7.

I’m not sure I agree with the Chicago option–you’ve got to be pretty hearty to put up with their winter weather–but the other ones are worth considering. The Austria angle is especially interesting because high season for skiing in Europe is different than the period for high season skiing in the U.S. So if you timed it right, you could actually ski off-peak on both continents the same season. Plus flights to Europe are usually a bargain in the winter.
The Yellowstone entry actually applies to almost every national park: many are close to deserted in the winter, in contrast to the throngs of vacationers you deal with in the summer.

The ideal is if you can hit a place during shoulder season: that magic time between high and low season where the conditions are great but prices have dropped just because demand is down. Winter is a good time to fly to Southeast Asia, for instance: weather is good in most spots, but flight and hotel costs are lower. For more options, see this article: Best Seasons for Travel Bargains.

Related posts:

1. Budget Travel Advice for Europe
2. Why This Will Be a Great Summer to Travel
3. The State of the Travel Dollar, Summer 2009
4. The Main Travel Budget Factor: Your Destination
5. How the Travel Dollar Fared Last Year