Originally published at: https://discgolf.ultiworld.com/2020/03/03/travel-like-pro-getting-best-deals-airfare-making-trip-part-2/
Photo: Bogi Bjarnason
If you missed part one, our Icelandic travel expert Bogi Bjarnason broke down what it takes to choose a disc golf destination of your dreams. In part two, he’ll tell you how to make that trip happen using years of wayfaring knowhow.
Since moving abroad to Sweden at a young age, constant travel and adventure has been a big part of my life. As a slightly better than average snowboarder I was able to do a season on the FIS World Cup Tour at the turn of the century, and work as a chef and a waiter at resorts in Austria, Norway, Sweden, Banff, and Vermont, and later, during a very brief stint as a semi-professional poker player, I qualified for the EPT Barcelona. As a band manager, I have toured Europe and North America repeatedly, once hitting 27 states and three provinces while traveling with three bands and crew in an old, delipidated, Econoline for 28 days. Furthermore, in the five years since discovering disc golf, I have been on six domestic and 27 international trips in my various functions within extreme metal, disc golf, and journalism.
While having been a regular contributor to the WoW Air in-flight magazine certainly helped with “free” flights, I have not spent a single cent out of my regular, day job income on travel since 2015, but have relied on diverse perks, government and private grants, different sponsorships, all sorts of fundraising events and other efforts, and the income from multiple different revenue streams generated by various businesses and side hustles to travel the world in discomfort.
In 2019 alone I traveled to Spain, Morocco, Brazil, Norway, Sweden, Scotland, England, and to the USA twice, pushing my total tally of countries visited past 30 and the continents up to five.
Next on my itinerary is a trip with five Icelandic friends and one American to Oviedo, Spain, where my disc golf protégé, Blær Örn Ásgeirsson, will try to defend his Open de España title against Eagle McMahon. Following that I´ll be traveling onwards from Madrid through Miami and to Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Belize on an Innova sponsored “missionary” trip to grow the sport in Central America in cooperation with Fendivo, the Federación Nicaraguense de Disco Volado.
Now that we’ve established my “jet setting” credentials, let me show you the ropes of Star Team travel on a DX budget.
The following is a collection of pro tips and travel hacks that will benefit anyone, no matter if they live out of a suitcase, or need to stretch their travel dollar to the extreme during their two weeks of annual, American vacation, or for the five weeks of paid vacation we enjoy in the civilized world.1
Touching briefly on a couple of the points from the first article, don’t forget to bring gifts and network during your travels.
Networking is an ongoing process that isn’t just about keeping in touch with new friends you make on a random card at a course you play on vacay. For maximum effect, it should start weeks or even months ahead of departure with joining all the club and course Facebook groups at your destination/s. For the marquee Pro/Am events there will be large Facebook groups created by the tournament host where hundreds of players will share info, post tips, and join together for ride-sharing, and even to rent entire villas on Airbnb. What I personally do whenever leaving my homeland through Keflavík International Airport is purchase half a dozen shot size bottles of Brennivín and a wide assortment of Icelandic licorices for gifting purposes. You may use whatever is unique to your area. It’s the thought that counts. The largest ROI I’ve ever had on a gift is the $2 spent on a tiny bottle of Brennivín that when gifted to Dave Dunipace at USDGC planted the seed for Blær Örn Ásgeirson´s entire disc golf career. The licorice, however, is mainly reserved for Nate Sexton´s wife.
A few other quick notes off the top.
Saving up for something special like travel and airfare can be hard when daily life keeps tempting you to dip into your savings for more mundane and immediate pleasures. Solution; keep your funds out of harm’s way at www.soarfare.com. Disclaimer: I have not tried this myself and I don’t vouch for it, but it seems pretty damn nifty on a surface level.
Slim down your luggage, breeze through TSA and store all your documents, devices, and creature comforts in your Baubax outerwear.2 Pro tip: wear a dri-fit tee underneath and kiss sweat stains goodbye.
Here’s an up-to-date list of the WiFi passwords at every airport in the world so you don’t get stuck shelling out $10 to download a boarding pass last minute.
Major pro tip: book flights through aggregator sites, clear your search history beforehand, browse in private mode, and use a VPN with an IP from a country with a lower GDP than your own to maximize savings. Yes, flights cost differently for different people.
Heading out on a Tuesday and home on a Sunday will often score you the cheapest airfares, and legend has it that flights often hit their lowest listed price exactly six weeks before departure.
Note that when you enter your dates and sites of departure and arrival into these aggregator sites, they will normally pair the closest connecting flights at the same airport with your cheapest departing flight. This can be great if all you need is to get from point A to point B as fast and cheap as possible, but if you´re vacationing and value new sights and experiences above quick transit, exploring other options may be both cheaper, less grating, and more enjoyable.
Case in point; when traveling round trip to Brazil from Madrid last January, Royal Maroc Airlines offered the same price for a 23 hour stop-over in Casablanca as for a five hour one. After a nine-hour redeye from Rio de Janeiro, you better believe I chose a free visit to Morocco over five hours of dead time at the airport. Similarly, on my upcoming trek from Madrid to Managua, the Miami layover is 14 hours overnight, allowing me to sample the legendary local nightlife while not having to leave my hotel until 8 am the following morning. An infinite amount of similar deals are available to a traveler of fertile imagination.
Another great option is available whenever transiting through the six international airports of London, England. Whether you have a long layover at Gatwick Airport, or you need to connect with one of the other airports, the glorious Lloyd Park DGC in South Croydon is only 10 minutes away by Uber, or 20-30 minutes by train and tram through East Croydon Station. You could even book a later, and potentially cheaper, outbound flight in order to get a round in. Similar options are no doubt available elsewhere. Airport Lakes in Orlando, and the one and only Järva DGP spring to mind.
This all ties into another point. Blindly booking the cheapest accommodations and traveling through a low budget airport in a city you’re unfamiliar with is like running a death putt when you’re not confident you´ll make the comebacker. It all boils down to actual cost versus opportunity costs.
If you save considerably on flying Ryanair or Easyjet into an airport 90 minutes outside your final destination versus flying a legacy carrier into the city’s official airport 30 minutes out by public transport, that may be fine for a longer stay where both your in and outbound flights are scheduled during waking hours and there is affordable transport available from the airport. This may, however, not always be the case. Some of these more far-flung airports are only served by expensive private trains and buses that may eat up much of your savings and they may not always run 24/7, so the rest of the savings are spent on a dinghy airport hotel and you may lose half a day of play on each end making that ground transport.
As an extreme example, I once picked the cheapest flight off of the London Stansted Airport departure screen and went to Barcelona for two days because it was cheaper than taking the train into London round trip.
Boarding: if flying on a legacy carrier, board dead last. If flying a budget airline, board early, preferably first. Why? Because on an old fashioned airline overhead bins are unlikely to fill up and when everyone else has boarded you just coast through the sky bridge and straight into your reserved seat. Whereas on a low budget carrier you may have to hustle to cram your bag into the overhead bin, grab a good seat on those airlines that don’t assign any and as low-cost airlines will often park planes on the tarmac far away from the actual terminal and ferry passengers there by bus, you’ll often be stuck in a tight corridor with a 100+ people for fifteen minutes after going through the gate unless you´re part of the very first batch.
If annoyed by potential turbulence, book early morning flights and sit close to the wings. If you need constant attention from the stewardess, a seat in the back of the plane will guarantee better service and you´ll be closer to the WC.
I could write a thesis on the art of seat booking optimization, but you should just head over to Seat Guru.
Always download the app for every airline you´re traveling on for live notifications and fast, convenient, check-in as soon as the service opens,3 because if traveling extra cheap without reserving a seat, being among the first to check-in will guarantee you a window or aisle seat assignment. The apps will also simplify getting your electronic boarding pass downloaded and stored in the Wallet of your phone.
If you´re a primadonna who travels with luggage in the hold, make sure to attach a Fragile sticker to your bag to ensure that it goes on top of the pile and hits the luggage carousel with the first batch
And, finally, a hardcore traveler´s rant about packing light.
A SuperHero backpack is all you need. Period. It will fly carryon to absolutely everywhere on any airline. Mine has been on 80 flights, to 20 countries on four continents, with 18 different airlines on everything from a Focker 50 to a Jumbo Jet in the last five years, no questions asked and no additional fees.
First of all, you´re probably traveling to a warm destination so you can wear the same shorts for the duration and sport a pair of jeans during travel and at night. Dri-fit tees can be worn for a long time without catching a funk, and in the US, most mid-level hotels have laundry rooms. If, like me, you live in a horribly expensive country and travel mostly to cheaper ones, you should buy all your socks and underwear when traveling and use those same trips to cycle out worn-out items. The savings of traveling with carryon only, both in time and baggage fees, will be enormous over time, and the convenience of carrying only one piece of luggage is immeasurable.
The end. Safe travels, y’all!