My Trip to Chicago + Travel Tips
/December 1st makes me excited and nervous at the same time. Excited because this is the best month of the year, for several reasons. Nervous because I only have 1 month left to end this year with a bang! With that being said, Let's Get This Month Started!!!
This post is different from my regular post. I wanted to share with you guys a little of my trip to Chicago and some travel tips I've learned along the way. I travel enough to consider myself a girl on-the-go, so I can definitely share with you how I afford to travel and the beauty behind getting good flight deals.
If you do not know, I traveled to Chicago for a week for the Thanksgiving Holiday and I must say, that city honestly stole my heart. It is such a beautiful city and the vibes there are completely different than anything I'm use to. Y'all know me, I love hot weather but this windy city with it's 30 degrees weather and windchill factor of like negative 20, made me forget about sunny LA....just a tad. I screamed everyday "I want to move here!!!" It doesn't help that my brother and sister-in-law live in Chicago, so just an extra incentive on why I would consider this move. I'm not though, I love LA and I'm not done sowing my seed here just yet. Other than that, I stayed with my siblings so I didn't have to pay for a place to stay which always helps when traveling. Other than Chicago being one of my favorite cities I've ever visited in life, I want to share with you guys a few tips on how I travel so much for the low low. (scroll to the end if you just want to see photos from my trip)
1. Find an airlines that you love and stick with it!
The airlines that I fly with is Southwest Airlines only. Only bad thing about Southwest is they are limited when it comes to international flights but you can find another airlines just for your international travel as well. There aren't many airlines that allow you two free bags like Southwest, so that is super amazing because everyone knows bags alone can be like $50-$100! Also, another perk about Southwest Airlines is they give you real size snacks for the free. lol I love to grub without paying for expensive airport food so I need all the free snacks I can get. Also just about every airline has a rewards points program. So the more you fly with one airline, the faster your chances are to a free flight. I fly so much with Southwest that I have frequent flyer miles that allowed me to buy another plane ticket already. It is very important to stick with one airline if you want to get a bang for your buck.
2. Watch your flights!
What I really love about Southwest Airlines is the fact that you can cancel/change flights free of charge and it makes watching flights much easier. The best thing about Southwest is they are ALWAYS having deals. If you get an email about a deal you can cancel your flight and buy it again with a cheaper deal. If you don't have time to watch flights, they have several apps that watch flights for you. Hopper is the app I use to watch the more expensive flights that I can't purchase right away. Watching flights has honestly saved me so much money and I've learned the best days to buy flights are on Tuesdays and Wednesdays because they are randomly cheaper.
3. Plan in advance or at the last minute!
I know you're probably like duh, buying tickets in advance isn't new. However, when you buy your ticket at the last minute sometimes the plane tickets are crazy cheap. I've learned that if I search for specific travel dates more than one time, the airlines I searched under will email me the day before and say they have one-way tickets for dirt cheap. That is only if you have your email set up and are logged in with that airline, then they will keep tabs on all your searches. The internet is a crazy thing if you use it properly! Even thought it's very risky to wait until the last minute, if you can do it, then sometimes it's worth it.
Those are my top 3 travel tips when it comes to buying flights! This year alone, I traveled 5 times just in the U.S. and somehow I was able to afford it with everything that I've been going through. So don't think you don't have enough money when it comes to traveling, it's all about getting the good deals. The rest of this blog consist of pictures I took in Chicago! I felt like my brother @ericmichaelw for a second. He's a bomb photographer btw go check out his website @ericmichaelw. I hope you learned something about flying and enjoy my pictures!
