Perhaps the most frequent question I get is, “How do you afford to travel?” While I’ve given plenty of tips on how to afford a life of travel, it still doesn’t change the fact that flights can be crazy expensive.
Flights are often the biggest budget breaker of a trip.
Well, would you believe that I just booked a direct flight from Los Angeles to Stockholm for $360? Did I mention that it is inclusive of fees and taxes? And that I didn’t use miles to book the flight at this price?
Let me explain…
Enter: Norwegian Air
Norwegian Air specializes in low-cost flights within Europe and is now servicing popular destinations like Thailand and New York. On March 1 of this year, Norwegian Air will service its first ever flight from Los Angeles to Stockholm. According to the Norwegian Air website, fares from Los Angeles to Scandinavia start as low as $245 each way.
Pssst! This is where I come in!
Part of my “25 at 25” bucketlist was to play a little game of travel roulette. My dates for this summer were flexible and I was open to any destination in Europe.
My mission: book the cheapest flight to anywhere. My tool: Skyscanner.com.
Skyscanner offers an amazing flight search tool where you can search for the cheapest flights anywhere in the world based on your departure airport. I entered June 6th (the week of my 26th birthday), Los Angeles-LAX (my home airport hub) and selected one-way flights (something I’ve never done before).
You couldn’t have prepared me for what happened next.
Skyscanner organized my search results by country, starting with the least expensive flights.
Canada -$135 … hmm maybe.
Mexico -$162 … was just there.
Various Central and South American countries – $230-350 … would love to go back.
And then it happened.
Sweden – $363 …
did I just blackout?!?!?!
Never have I ever seen a direct flight to Europe from Los Angeles at that price. Typically, a good deal for a roundtrip flight from LA to Europe is around $1,200. During summer, you’re looking at around $1,500.
Panic ensued as I rapidly tested the booking process on Norwegian Air’s website. I tried to prove that it was too good to be true but, no matter how I sliced it, the flight from LAX direct to Stockholm was only $360.
So, I booked.
Turns out, I wasn’t the only one to get lucky. Giddy with excitement, I immediately called one of my friends as I stared at the booking confirmation fresh in my inbox.
“Tara, you’re not gonna believe this. I just booked a direct flight to Stockholm on June 6th!”
“Congrats! That’s awesome! I’m gonna start looking into travel plans for the summer soon too.”
“Tara, my flight cost $360.”
Enter: Silent pause for processing
Enter: Deafening scream
“Tara?”
“Sorry. I literally just fell out of my chair. Are you serious?! Tell me how! I’m booking now!”
On June 6th, I’ll depart on my first ever one-way flight direct to Stockholm, Sweden with my friend Tara. That weekend, I will celebrate my birthday… and a new beginning.
The rest of my summer? Well, we’ll just have to wait and see where the wind blows me.
Only time will tell where this adventure may lead.
I wanted to share how I found a way to fly to Europe for only $360 so that you too might be able to take that trip you’ve always dreamed of. See if you can find an awesome travel deal using Skyscanner or on Norwegian Air!
This is rad.
Rad indeed!
Looks like I will probably be flying with them when I go back to Europe in April so will let you know how it goes! Did the $363 include your baggage fees and/or meal package? Pretty lame you have to pay an additional $50 if you want any sort of food service, but I guess for an overnight flight eating sleeping pills will be the better option anyway. Bags on the other hand…I can’t quite figure out their stupid chart but looks like that too may be around $50 per checked bag, 20kg max. Packing is gonna suck 🙁
I typically always bring my own food on flights anyways. Hate airplane food! For me, I’d rather cut the BS food and “comforts” on a flight and get a cheaper fare. PLUS free WiFi! I’ll take WiFi over a crap cardboard meal any day! And yes, my flight was $360 and I paid $42 for my checked luggage. 20kg is around 45 lbs ya? You can bring up to 10kg carry on too. Still much much cheaper than anything else I can find flying into Europe in June. Hodson just flew them to Berlin for ITB and said it was actually a nice flight. You can do it!!!