As the school year begins, it may feel like your travel options are limited. For new college students headed off to university or families with kids in school, the school week will be a barricade to any trip planning. This can make trips more difficult to plan, as you only have holiday weekends and special occasions for visiting family. At ParkDIA, we want to help you travel more and worry less, which is why we’re going to discuss some tips on how you can keep traveling even during the school year.
Long Weekends
The easiest way to travel is to plan your trips around long weekends or breaks from school. Schools will have the days they’ll be closed posted by the start of the school year, which means you can start looking at that schedule right away, if not in the weeks before school starts. This gives you plenty of time to make plans and buy plane tickets.
Short Trips
Most people undervalue short trips. True, it can be difficult to organize a visit on a weekend, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth it. If you leave after school ends on Friday, you will still have the better part of two days to travel or visit before heading back Sunday night. Simply because it’s a short trip doesn’t mean it’s not valued or important.
Visit Someone Who Can’t Travel
If you’re in a position in your life where you can travel freely, then you should visit the people in your life who can’t travel. If you have a family member who is away at school far away, visit them instead of expecting them to come and visit you. If you have family who lives somewhere else in the country who can’t travel because their children are in school, then you should make the effort to visit them instead of waiting for them to bring their entire family to visit you.
Stand-by & Red-eyes
Red-eye flights are difficult, but they may make it possible for you to travel during the school year. While getting to the airport that late can be tough, once you’re on a red-eye flight, you can sleep for the rest of the trip. These flights are typically cheaper and have more open seats, making it easier to book them. Taking a red-eye flight on a Sunday night might be taxing, but when you’re leaving, it’s a good way to get somewhere early and spend the day visiting family.
Stand-by flights fall into a similar category as red-eyes, but they add a bit of a gamble. While it’s true that about 20% of people won’t show up for their flight, meaning that there are usually stand-by seats, you shouldn’t count on these if you really need to travel somewhere and can’t risk being trapped at the airport.
Book Ahead
Most people will see long holiday breaks for Thanksgiving or the winter and count those as good times to visit family, but forget that the holidays are the busiest traveling season. Not only is it going to add travel time getting through the airport, but it’s also when plane trips are most expensive and fill up the quickest. If you need to travel over the holidays, be sure to plan well in advance so you don’t get stuck at the airport.
Whenever you choose to travel, don’t worry about airport parking at DIA. Instead, trust ParkDIA, an offsite secure parking lot that costs a fraction of the short term parking prices at the airport. Reserve a spot today and get back to planning for what matters most — seeing family.
