In my experience traveling is not as expensive as you may think. The two major expenses are 

Cost of Flights

Cost of Accommodations

Flights

I’ve used all of the following services to get good deals on flights.

I’m sure there are hundreds of other services out there, but these have worked for me.

Caveat: These amazing deals sometimes require making 6:00 am flights, 6-hour layovers, and other inconveniences that come along with discounted airline travel.

In Order of Best Deals

Theflightdeal.com: This is a “secret flying” service that I follow on Twitter. It shows error fares and deeply discounted flights. I was a little skeptical when I first used it when I booked a flight to Stockholm, Sweden last year, but everything turned out fine. I flew from Phoenix to Sweden round trip for $480, when a normal ticket costs $1,350 and up.

Google Flight Matrix: This is not Googleflights.com. It is rather a behind-the-scenes website with raw flight deal data. It’s definitely not user-friendly, but this is the program where secret flight deal sites find deals.

Skyscanner.com or Google.com/flights.com : These two popular sights are good. The deals are not as good as secret flying deals, but they are better than the airlines’ websites or expedia.com.

Tip: I like Google Flights because you can search for prices for every day of a month.

Tip: Skyscanner’s depart to “Everywhere” function is good because you can search how much it cost to go anywhere in the world with an easy list view. You simply put your depart city in and leave the destination blank. 

Expedia.com: I like using Expedia.com because there are good reward points, and if you go through Ebates.com you can get cash back. After that, you can get a flight (or hotel) at deep discounts.

I go to Ebates.com, then through there I find Exedia.com, then I book my flight. Typically, I’ll get $40 dollars back for a $1,000.00 ticket.

You can get cash back on almost anything on Ebates.com and it’s free, sign up here:

Accommodations

I spoke about Airbnb in Uber and Airbnb in Central and Eastern Europe.

If you don’t already use it, you can sign up here: Airbnb.com (link)