Unless you’re willing to swim, there’s one big cost you just can’t avoid for international trips: flying. Especially for a country like the USA where everything is far away.
Luckily, air transportation can be extremely comfortable for the prices you get nowadays. Gone is the 19th century, where your ancestors would have to sell everything they own to get in a steamboat and cross the Atlantic.
My Total Flight Costs: 5 Months of Travel
But just how much, exactly? I have taken the liberty of compiling EVERY flight from my 5-month trip across 23 countries and 4 continents. I’ll convert miles to USD for simplicity, not including baggage costs (I’ll explain why).
| From | To | Cost | #Hrs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Colorado Springs | Austin | $108.18 (Bank points) | 4 |
| Austin | São Paulo | $260.60 (Delta miles) | 15 |
| São Paulo | Florianópolis | $63.30 | 1.5 |
| Florianópolis | Belo Horizonte | $171.20 | 1.5 |
| Belo Horizonte | Buenos Aires (AEP) | $146.00 | 3 |
| Cordoba (Argentina) | Porto (Portugal) | $577.80 | 15 |
| Porto | Milan | $75.51 | 3 |
| Milan | Wroclaw (Poland) | $53.93 | 2 |
| Budapest | Tirana (Albania) | $25.29 | 2 |
| Tirana | Rome | -$239.27 (Wizz paid me for delay) | 1 |
| Rome | Kutaisi (Georgia) | $72.66 | 4 |
| Tbilisi | Abu Dhabi | $167.40 | 3 |
| Abu Dhabi | Bangkok | $280.00 | 8 |
| Bangkok | Chiang Mai | $67.99 (round trip) | 1 |
| Bangkok | Da Nang (Vietnam) | $72.69 | 2 |
| Da Nang | Hanoi | $90.78 (round trip) | 1.5 |
| Da Nang | Cebu (Philippines) | $130.48 | 9 |
| Cebu | Kuala Lumpur | $64.33 | 4 |
| Kuala Lumpur | Singapore | $28.74 | 1 |
| Kuala Lumpur | Taipei | $121.10 | 5 |
| Taipei | Colorado Springs | $452.29 (Delta points) | 26 |
| TOTAL | $2,791 | 86.5 |
So there you have it. $2,791 for 23 flights, 16 of which were international! It’s important to note that some of these were self-transfers (notably my Cordoba to Wroclaw trip was 3 separate bookings… absolute beast!). If I had had more time, I would have spent a couple days in Porto and Milan. In this case, my “final destination” was Wroclaw but the self-transfers allow me to stay in some interesting layover countries. For example, I wasn’t planning on going to Rome, but since it was a layover city of interest, I gave it 4 days.
Final Destination Cities
I planned my trip around “final destination” cities. These were typically smaller, less accessible, and less expensive cities. They gave me a chance to relax, plan the the next leg of my trip, get some work done, and have a home base for the tourism and day trips. If you want to authentically experience different lifestyles and get closer to local culture, this is the way to do it. Urban metros are surprisingly similar everywhere.
Example: Pécs, Hungary. It’s the fifth-largest city in Hungary and has a very laid back atmosphere. Most people stay in Budapest. I recharged in Pécs for 4 days and speed-ran Budapest in 3, which I felt was plenty to see everything.
Oftentimes, I would fly into a nearby major airport and opt for rail or bus. This was generally several times cheaper than flying into the local airport, and was part of the adventure.
Why the “Two-Week Vacation” Model Fails
Just for laughs, let’s see the cost if I were to book all of my “final destination” cities for separate vacations (round-trip instead of one-way) during their respective high seasons, looking at budget airlines and picking the lowest price (so we’re not comparing apples to oranges) on Google Flights. I will remove domestic flights for simplicity and string any self-transfers together.
| From | To | Cost (round-trip) | #Hrs (round-trip) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Colorado Springs | Florianópolis (Brazil) | $1,586 | 48 |
| Colorado Springs | Cordoba (Argentina) | $1,277 | 51 |
| Colorado Springs | Colonia del Este (AEP -> Ferry) | $1,396 | 50 |
| Colorado Springs | Wroclaw (Poland) | $1,336 | 45 |
| Colorado Springs | Pécs (BUD) | $977 | 33 |
| Colorado Springs | Shkodra (TIA) | $1,360 | 39 |
| Colorado Springs | Batumi (Georgia) | $2,753 | 80 |
| Colorado Springs | Dubai | $813 | 48 |
| Colorado Springs | Chiang Mai | $1,358 | 75 |
| Colorado Springs | Da Nang (Vietnam) | $1,496 | 60 |
| Colorado Springs | Cebu (Philippines) | $1,412 | 45 |
| Colorado Springs | Kuala Lumpur | $1,303 | 61 |
| TOTAL | $17,067 | 635 |
Mother of Guac! Just the Batumi visit alone would have covered all my flying expenses, and required just as much flying time as all my other trips combined!
And if you think I’m pulling these numbers out of my ass, check them out on Google Flights. I looked at flights months in advance and moved them around by a few weeks, which some of us don’t have the flexibility to do.
You may also have noticed the INSANE flight times. To get the price this low, I had to pick some sub-par flights. Maybe this is why people pay so much for agencies.
Step 1: Change your Mindset
Once you have the “final destination” cities mapped out, the key is to prioritize flexibility when it comes to international flights. There are DRASTIC differences between specific airports, for specific airlines, for specific seasons. Pick major airports off-season that you can string budget airlines into. The domestic, and even intracontinental (meaning flights on the same continent) ones don’t matter as much.
You’ll notice that the most expensive flight I did was Argentina to Poland ($707.24), followed by getting in and out of the USA. These are the flights you really have to look out for.
What this means is, instead of thinking, “How am I going to get from Denver to Budapest?” You should be thinking “How am I going to get from USA to Europe?” You save big bucks doing this, and then it’s a matter of stringing local budget airlines together.
Risky? HELL YAH! This ain’t for the faint of heart. However, I never had a single issue with missed flights. I’ll explain why this isn’t so much of a concern in a later article.
Second thing: If you’re doing a multi-month multinational trip like I did, you’ve already cut your bill in HALF (because no round-trips). Now it’s a matter of being smart and knowing geography. Don’t plan your Brazil trip in between Thailand and China.
Step 2: Targeting Intercontinentals
This is a complicated and important method, so let me break it down into a few steps:
Step 1 (Optional): Prioritize airlines you have points with (skip this if you don’t have any)
I had some Delta points from churning. Anytime I had a flight that could possibly be routed through Delta, I took it. Not only is it a better experience and more secure than budget, you get big discounts for buying in miles instead of USD. I was getting 25%+ discounts on mine!
For example, my flight from the US to Brazil was 25k miles or equivalent to $250. That’s crazy.
My other flight was Malaysia to the US. Now you might say, “Wait! Delta doesn’t have any Malaysia flights!” and you’re right. That’s why I used https://www.flightconnections.com and filtered by airline to discover that Delta has connections to a few major Asia airports. Remember, we’re just trying to get from Asia to US.
Then, I found a copy of Delta’s 2026 schedule for WIDEBODY – APAC OUTBOUND (Asia and Pacific), which narrowed it down to just 24 possible flights.
I then created a spreadsheet comparing the lowest price for each route. The black squares are routes that don’t exist. At three levels, I compared the price from each asian airport to:
-Each major US airport on the route
-The biggest airport near me (Denver)
-The closest regional airport to me (Colorado Springs)
Interestingly, this revealed that the lowest price was actually Taipei to Colorado Springs, so I didn’t need to compare domestic US prices to Colorado Springs.
I then added the cost of Kuala Lumpur to each of these asian airports (which isn’t much – East and SE Asia have the best cheap flights) and it still turned out to be cheaper to go through Taipei. Turns out TPE -> SEA is a very high volume route for Delta, and high volume = cheaper.
Step 2: Plan intercontinental flights off-season.
Personally, I went to South America in November, right before high-season kicked up. I still wound up paying a bit much for accommodation. I then flew to Europe mid-December (their off-season), and wrapped up my trip in Southeast Asia from Feb to March.
AVOID HOLIDAYS AT ALL COST. Although, sometimes you can find some good deals on Christmas day…
Step 3: Find the cheapest flights between continents
Skyscanner is good, but so far the best site I have found (and the only one that allows you to search by country or continent) is https://panflights.com/. Pan Flights mostly looks at Kiwi data, and Kiwi is really good at stringing together budget flights. It also allows you to get really flexible with dates (up to a month).
Remember that $2,700 flight to Batumi? Check out this result on Pan Flights from Orlando for $354 (Don’t look at the total time lol, we can do better)
Think we can find a way to get from Colorado Springs to Orlando for less than the remaining $2,400? You bet we can!
Let’s expand our criteria to US -> Europe – AND… I want to leave within two weeks because I’m INSANNNNNE!!!!
$139 direct flight on short notice? Not bad.
Now you see the power of having an entire continent of flight options.
Mind you, I paid -$170 to get to Georgia. Yes, I made money. That’s because my original airfare was about $120 total (low, because I was already in Europe), and Wizz is a European airline. Meaning, they had to pay me €250 for a delay of 3+ hours under European Consumer protection code EC261. Definitely keep this in mind if you’re using European airlines, because they are not going to tell you this exists.
Step 3: Stringing Intracontinental travel
Let’s go back to this $2,750 CO Springs -> Batumi flight as an example; it’s too much fun.
We should expand our ‘exit’ criteria to all of Georgia. Kutaisi and Tbilisi are larger airports anyway, not to mention the fact that Kutaisi is a Wizz Airlines hub. It’s also fine to include Denver in my ‘enter’ criteria, being just an hour drive from CO Springs.
This is the best strategy, because when you get to most countries outside the US, domestic travel is extremely cheap and easy. You don’t have to rent a car and drive 8 hours to get everywhere, especially in a country like Georgia, which is the size of Kentucky and costs $5 to get from one side to the other by rail. GDP per capita here is like $10k. Prices come down a lot if you are willing to ‘go local’.
I did Colorado Springs + 200 km to include Denver. I was highly flexible on my date (October).
This way, we get the cheapest flight yet, and only 20 hours! That’s a big improvement over an 80 hour $2,750 flight.
Step 4: Put it All Together
Sometimes you can get a better result from Pan Flights if you find the intercontinental flight first and force Kiwi to work around it.
For example, let’s say I want to fly from Colorado to North Korea in May.
$1,364? Let’s do better.
First, I looked at intracontinental flights from Asia to North Korea. There’s only ONE in April: $760: Beijing to Pyongyang.
Then I looked at Colorado flights to within 300 km of Beijing. Easy… there’s a $500 from Denver to Beijing. Thank me later.
That gives us a new total of $1,260. Not bad.
BUT WE’RE BETTER THAN THAT!
According to Rome2Rio.com, we can get from Incheon airport to Pyongyang via Dalian airport and a few trains for $119-291:
Behold, Denver to ICN for $447:
This gives us a total of $647-738.
BUT I’M NOT DONE! I must reduce the variance.
There’s a flight from ICN to DLC for $56 on May 15:
Total domestic railway fare I estimate at $20. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a price listed for the K27 train to Pyongyang, but it appears to be rather expensive, $55-80. What kind of dictator chose these prices? We’ll say $80 to be safe.
That brings the grand total to $447 + $80 + $20 +$56 = $603. Fantastic!
But did you forget something?
Yah, um… we don’t pay a damn dime.
According to Google Maps, Pyongyang is only 200 km from ICN airport. Why go all the way around China like Rome2Rio wants you to? We can go ICN -> Paju -> Kaesong -> Pyongyang.
ICN to Paju is almost negligible; it’s in the same metro area.
There’s a train line between Kaesong and Pyongyang. Given North Korea’s GDP per capita of $600 to $1,700, I predict the domestic railway fare will also be negligible.
For some reason, there’s no train line between Paju and Kaesong. That means we just have to get across the border from Imjingang station, South Korea to Panmun station, North Korea. 10 km will probably be a $20 Uber (there is a road there, I checked), or a nice day hike if you’re up for it.
This brings the total to $467 Denver to Pyongyang. Wow! Almost $1,000 saved with 2 hours of research.
NOTE: DO NOT ACTUALLY DO THIS – YOU WILL DIE. THIS IS PARODY TO PROVE THE METHOD WORKS.
Some Misc. Thoughts
Q. Does this strategy work everywhere?
A. Yes.
Now, there are some places where you are just not going to get these satisfyingly low prices. Southeast/East Asia is KING for budget airlines (Thank you Air Asia). Europe is great. USA is C-tier. The predictors for cheap flights are high volume, many competitors, short distances, and dense connection network. Africa, island nations, and remote areas have none of these.
South America (the region) has the WORST value flights I’ve seen. It turns out they are far away from everyone and low-volume. Brazilian airlines in particular have barely functioning websites and want a CPF (It’s like a national ID) for everything. How am I supposed to have a CPF if I’m a foreign visitor? Getting out of South America was my most expensive flight, and domestic flights were sometimes double or triple what I would be paying for similar distance in Asia.
Q. What about checked bags?
A. DO NOT CHECK BAGS!
This is the worst mistake I made for my travels. While I was fortunate to never miss a connection, checking bags made self-transfers tight and I often had to purchase better seats to get to the next flight in time. It’s also expensive and makes local travel harder. I estimate I spent $510 in baggage fees.
I had a smaller checked bag that I was trying to pass as a carry-on. This worked OK in the US, but Asian and European budget airlines have tighter sizing requirements and they will check! That first $70 fee at the gate was a rude awakening for me.
You should be able to get by on a large, 7 kg backpack. Trust me; lose the gadgets, lose the fashion. Keep coats out of your bag and load them up. You’ll only need a few pairs of shorts and T-shirts in some of these places anyway. I had to bring my laptop to get work done, but I considered a leaner setup.
The backpackers were on to something.
Q. But I have a pet/spouse/child.
A. It’s over for you. You’ll have to fly private, and that’s prohibitively expensive.
Q. Can you help me with an itinerary?
A. There’s nothing I can do for you that’s not in the article – I laid out everything. However, if you email me a 1. tentative flight itinerary, 2. your “must-visit” cities, and 3. your time window to consults@tightwadtravelling.com, I may give input for free. Please do not email generic travel questions! I am not your travel advisor.
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