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Regarding leisure travel, Europe is the most visited region according to the U.N. World Tourism Organization; in 2019, over half of the 15 billion international tourists visited there. While you can travel around Europe on a budget, getting there will take quite a bit of money. In the good news, there are times of the year and even days of the week when flying costs less.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Travel during the late fall and winter months of mid-October through mid-March is usually the cheapest (although fares spike in December).

Mid-week flights to Europe are often cheaper, especially on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

You can often get the best deal to Continental cities by flying from the U.S. to London, the busiest route, and then taking discount airlines from there.

Pick an Off-Peak Season

In Europe, peak travel seasons correspond to high airfares and off-peak ones, when you can get better deals on airfares (and maybe even other vacation expenses, too). It is during the summer months, typically late May or early June through the end of August, that many families can travel. Because of this, it is an expensive time to visit Europe.

From mid to late October through mid/late March, the late fall and winter months are often the cheapest to fly. Winter vacations to Europe can be rewarding, even with the cold weather. As well Best places to travel to in august 2022 , there are some great ski and snowboard resorts in Europe (Meribel, Zermatt, and St. Anton are Arlberg, to name a few). When you leave the ski resorts, you can explore other popular tourist attractions around Europe without being surrounded by crowds of tourists.

Don’t Fly Direct

There is a lot of air travel between the United States and Europe, with the most popular route connecting New York with London (yes, we know Britain isn’t technically in Europe or the European Union as of Jan. 31, 2020, but most Americans lump it in with other places across the pond). You can sometimes save money by flying from the U.S. to London and then taking a discount airline to continental cities.

Here again, though, seasonality matters. Kayak.com’s search in April 2021 for round-trip tickets from New York to London’s Heathrow Airport (LHR) shows fares steadily increasing from May onward, rising from $711 in mid-May to $1123 in July. Later in August, they begin to drift lower to around $705.

While airfare prices fluctuate constantly, you can generally reproduce these results when you shop for tickets. This is the general trend, however.

Pick Your Days

If you book your flight to Europe on a particular day of the week, you may face a hit-or-miss scenario. It is often cheaper to fly mid-week, especially on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, but sometimes you can find the same mid-week fares on a Saturday. You can find a big difference in price depending on how long you stay. Consider booking a Saturday night stay-over to get the best fares.

Your departure and return dates may be flexible enough to save you money. The Google Flights app and other online airfare aggregators (such as Kayak and Travelocity) let you search for fares based on specific dates and surrounding dates.

How Far in Advance?

It is a good idea to plan, but not too far in advance. Prices can be high if you book too far in advance, or they can be high if you book at the last minute. Considering how much airfares to Europe fluctuate (often quite randomly, it seems), it can be helpful to sign up for price alerts that send email or text fare updates for the routes you specify.

The Bottom Line

You will likely pay the most if you travel to Europe during the summer when everybody tries to go. Winter is an excellent time to fly (except for December), and when you are flexible with the dates, you fly. The fares to London are sometimes among the lowest in Europe.

Travellers can book cheap flights from the U.K. on discount airlines like EasyJet and Ryanair and hop from city to city or buy a Eurail pass for unlimited travel by train throughout 33 countries in Europe.

The U.S. currently prohibits most unrestricted travel to Europe from May 2021. Still, you will likely relax these rules soon for those who have received vaccinations and have tested negative for the Coronavirus before travelling. Before booking flights, check the Covid-19 travel policies of the specific country.