It's On. The next great adventure for The Escape Artists - Asia: 2018

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We’ve talked about going to Asia for a while now. We wanted something culturally different from all our previous vacations. Very different. And this week we booked what we’re calling the “Asia trip”. And it looks like it will deviate from even some of our original visions. And that’s a good thing!

 

For starters, we’re flying in and out of Tokyo. Japan wasn’t even on our “first draft” itinerary. We were thinking of places like China, Vietnam, Thailand, Bali, or several other dreamy locations. But then we found it. Airfare for $400 RT. On United nonetheless, not some discount no-frills airline. Direct to Tokyo. We booked it before we could blink and talk ourselves out of it or ‘wait’ for an airfare deal to one of our originally discussed destinations. So we’re re-routing our trip a bit from our earlier visions and we couldn’t be more excited. This is what travel escapes feels like.

 

How did we do it?

 

We subscribe to a lot of different discount airfare sites and email alerts. This particular alert came from Scott’s Cheap Flights (scottscheapflights.com) and even though every week I’m tempted to go wherever Scott shows a screaming deal, this is the first time we booked from one of his deals. And it was a smashing success. We saved about 60% (as a family, about $3,500) from previous travel fares over this same time period we found to Asia.

 

Now outside of planning a vacation within the vacation (this being our newly found time while in Japan), the next big hurdle is that Tokyo doesn’t seem like the cheapest launching pad for the rest of Asia. And we didn’t just grab $400RT airfare to lose all our savings on flights within Asia. So we did what any good travel hacker would do. We researched all the airlines that fly within Asia (to and from the bigger cities we plan to base out of), found the local Asian airlines that are partners with the airlines we’re used to and have points with (United, Delta, American), and started opening credit cards like mad to rack up some quick miles. We figure we can book many of our intra-Asian flights for free just using our miles and save our $$ for great sites and tours. The great sites and tours are where the great experiences lie anyways! And if you want to know more about what a “travel hacker” is and how to use it for your advantage, we’ll share that in a future post.

 

So stay tuned to our blog posts geared towards Asia 2018 and we’ll share the good (and the bad) of our planning process. Hopefully you can take the good and bring it into your family travels as well! If you know want these kids of tips and ideas to plan your own family vacations, or just want to follow along with our latest adventure, subscribe to our monthly newsletter and like our “The Escape Artists” Facebook page!

 

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