Are you turned off by the high cost of travel? If you are, you may consider putting off your summer vacation plans. Or, you may opt for visiting a more local attraction. Of course, doing so can save you money, but the high cost of travel doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to forego your dream Hawaii vacation.

If you intended to travel to Hawaii this year, but have yet to make your travel plans, do not make the mistake of assuming that your travel costs will be too high. Yes, travel costs may have increased, but you may still be surprised how affordable it is to take a Hawaii vacation.

One of the best ways to find great deals on Hawaii vacations is to examine all of your options; literally all of them. First, you will want to start with Hawaii vacation packages. If you are looking to stay at a hotel or a vacation resort, you should have a number of packages to choose from. Vacation packages are nice because you are often rewarded with a small discount. It is also important to note that you can save yourself time. Vacation packages are set up so that you can make multiple travel arrangements, like your flight, car rental, and hotel stay, all at the same time.

While most Hawaii vacation packages will save you money, some can actually end up costing you more. That is why you will first want to do a small amount of research. If your vacation package includes a stay at a hotel, your flight, and a car rental, determine the individual cost of these three and then compare the total to the vacation package price. Are you getting a good deal? You should be.

Although it is easiest to save money when staying at a Hawaii hotel or vacation resort, you may have had other ideas. Private Hawaii vacation rentals, including homes, cottages, villas, condos, and apartment rentals, come highly rated and recommended. If you would like to rent a Hawaii vacation home rental, just be sure to use your best judgment. The best ways to save money is to examine rentals that only have features that you need or will use. For example, don’t pay more for a Hawaii vacation home rental with a pool if you don’t like swimming.

If you opt to make your Hawaii travel plans individually, as opposed in a vacation package, search out the best deals. Starting with your airline reservations, check each airline that services the area. Compare prices. Also, try to be flexible with your travel dates. For instance, it is often cheaper to fly in the middle of the week than on the weekend. The same applies for holidays, as travel costs are often higher during peak travel times.

In keeping with your flight to Hawaii, you are presented with another way to save money. Many airlines now charge you an extra fee for extra luggage. In fact, some airlines now charge you for the first bag. If you are taking an extended trip to Hawaii, you may not be able to avoid the fee for the first checked bag, but there are ways you can eliminate that extra fee for a second bag. For starters, only pack what you need. To make sure that you are well prepared, check the Hawaii weather forecast before you leave. Next, invest in space saving travel bags. They are often $10 or less for two bags and they can significantly reduce the amount of space in your suitcase.

As for renting a Hawaii car rental, you should do so. All of the Hawaiian Islands have so much to offer you and you want to be able to see each and every part of Hawaii. Having your own car rental allows you to do so. What you will want to do, however, is find the best deals. Car rental companies often charge different rates for different cars. If your traveling party consists of you and a friend or you and your spouse, a large SUV or minivan may not be needed. You could save money by going with a smaller, compact car.

 

About the Author

Let Hawaiian Beach Rentals help you make your Hawaii travel plans. They list a large selection of luxury, yet affordable Hawaii vacation home rentals.

 

These days when we look at advertisements for spring break packages online, on television, in newspapers, or magazines we see many incentives thrown at us to help us choose one package over another. Twenty hours of free drinks, free pizza at Pizza Hut while your there, free entry to exclusive parties and clubs...these are an example of what you may see posted with the ads. These are called travel teasers. They help one travel agency establish dominance over another by giving away something you can't get from the other guy. This is usually done when the basic elements of the package have a preset price that can't be changed due to contract restrictions from the hotels, airlines, or cruise lines. Most of these incentives and travel teasers turn out to be less valuable than they appear.

It's important to cut through these teasers to reveal the important elements of each package. If it's an air/hotel package try to concentrate on the price your paying for those two elements. Food may be included if it is an all-inclusive spring break package. If so, this also must be taken into consideration when a price is given. It's normal for food to add a significant amount to the price.

Some college students may be looking at a cruise/hotel package. These are typically called cruise and stay packages. Bahamas cruises usually offer a cruise and stay package since a Bahama cruise is usually no longer than seven hours each way. Again, look at the cost for the cruise and hotel only when comparing to other spring break deals.

Incentives are great if you view them from the proper perspective. The price shown is what you are paying for your hotel stay and round-trip ticket on a cruise or airline. If by chance the incentives and teasers turn out to be useful that's great, if not you didn't pay for them. Travelers who think they are paying for the incentives are usually the people that feel cheated when they return from the spring break vacation.

Once you break through to the nucleus of the package, you still have a problem. You need to be able to predict the best spring break destination. Ten to fifteen years ago it was all about Panama City and Daytona Beach. This was a cheap spring break vacation. Gas prices had not skyrocketed yet and you didn't spend hundreds of dollars driving that Ford Bronco or Jeep Grand Cherokee to Florida and back. The hotel rooms were cheap and you didn't need a birth certificate or passport to go. Also, it was much easier to convince your parents to let you go to Florida. Letting their baby boy or girl leave the country always makes a parent uneasy and they felt like they could reach you quickly if a problem should arise.

Cancun, Mexico had its moment in the sun from 1992 to 2005. This was generally fueled by buckets of money pouring into MTV and other entertainment firms from Mexico. You couldn't turn on MTV during March without seeing college kids screaming and dancing in Cancun on spring break...drinks in hand. They sold the idea that Mexico was the number one destination for spring break and college students believed them. Every year saw bigger numbers than the previous. Hotels were booked out seven months prior and it seemed like spring break tourism couldn't get any better, but it was all about to change. The old law of supply and demand combined with mother nature would soon give college students a new spring break destination.

2006 was the year the Bahamas took over, and it has been that way ever since. They typical college student could no longer afford to go to Cancun. The hotels had increased their nightly rates to a level that was no longer affordable. Then in late 2005 the eye of a massive hurricane moved directly over Cancun. The lobby areas of most of the hotels has four feet of standing water. The hotels and beaches had suffered many millions of dollars in damages.

The Bahamas was affordable, it was just a short distance off the coast of Florida, and it was beautiful. Bahama cruises were suddenly full and the hotels were getting sold out in November. Parents liked the fact that Grand Bahamas and Nassau had a lower crime rate than Mexico and they didn't need to send tons of money with their kids to pay for overpriced food, activities, and drinks. The Bahamas had a variety of reasonably priced restaurants to choose from.

It's hard to say where college spring break students will be during spring break 2009, but one fact remains. The pictures and videos shown of MTV spring break will look exactly the same regardless of the background. Spring break will live on somewhere.

 

About the Author

Francis Copa is the author of this article. www.BahamaSun.com is a great source for the best spring break packages.