Discovering money-saving travel opportunities is more about the time and effort you are willing to put into the process than anything else. Networking with friends who share your enthusiasm for travel, reading travel publications, and surfing the web are all essential to saving big on travel.

Like every other aspect of investing, you can do a really good job, or a really poor job, or hit somewhere in the middle. To get the most from your dollar, always keep in mind the fact that there is real money to be saved if you're willing to be flexible with your travel plans.

Looking for Deals and Steals
Often the occasional traveler will say something like, “I wanted to go to Orlando in August, and it was to be my one vacation this year. I knew the $1,050 airfare was a rip, but what are you going to do?” 

Wrong attitude.

A better one is to consider ways to cut that $1,050 fare down to $300.

Prior to the Internet, we had pretty limited search capabilities. ut now our options are wide open.My choice is Sidestep.com for fast, reliable comparison shopping between several travel networks for hotels (Expedia.com, Orbitz.com, Priceline.com, to name a few), and most airline carriers. Sure, it may take you a couple of hours of web work to find the right money-saving deal, but when you consider long it takes you to earn that $600, isn't that time well spent? 

Flexibility Is the Key
For example, if your goal is a week of sun and surf in, say, Florida, and you're based in a city like San Francisco, which has limited direct flights to just a few key cities, be flexible as to where you come in, even if it is several hours from your key destination.

That said, forget flying into Orlando and land in Tampa instead. A direct flight with Southwest will get you there for $375 roundtrip: a savings of $675, whereas the best round-trip price into Orlando might be $1,050. And from the Tampa Airport, you're only a 67-mile hop, skip and a jump from Mickey and Minnie Land.

Better yet, start your trip by enjoying Tampa's exotic Ybor City district, or the clear turquoise water that laps up against the Gulf of Mexico beaches in nearby Clearwater, Dunedin and St. Petersburg.

Don't Get Stranded
Car rental firms also vary wildly depending on the airport in that market you are flying into. Again, try Sidestep.com, although Yahoo! Travel has an easy-to-use comparison template, and seems to pull the best rates  By the way, always book two car reservations. When you land in Kansas City and they have no car for you, the rental company will say "Sorry, and hope you have a nice day" you'll be stuck without a ride if the rest of the other rental companies are also sold out.

Multi-Airport Markets

In most cases, I rent a car when I get to an airport, so it really doesn’t matter to me if one airport is twenty minutes from my hotel, and the other is an hour away. Again, if I’m saving hundreds of dollars, I'll fly to the more competitively priced airport. I’m happy to spend an the extra forty minutes on the road in order to save some big bucks. If you don't need a car because you're in a metro market with a wonderful transportation system, it probably services all the airports in the area no matter which one you're using, so again, it's your time against money saved.

One Airline vs. Another
We all have our favorite carriers. But air travel today is a commodity: going from Phoenix to Boston is the same boring travel time regardless of the name on the airplane. The only value in brand loyalty now comes in the form of frequent flyer miles. So even if yours is a higher priced airline, it's worth the savings to compare choices. Again, I used  Sidestep.com. For Atlanta, I found a flight for $340 round-trip: a lot better than the scary $1,285 I found on my first try.

One other important tip: using a discount comparison service does not mean you can’t still go to your airlines website and book your travel there. On that Atlanta trip, once I had the airline and flight number that had the cheapest seats on that route, I went directly to the airline’s website (Delta in this case) and booked my seat.

Cruisin' for a Bargain
Bargains for cruises? That’s a no brainer. If you have to take the QM2 across the Atlantic you have limited choices, but if you’re looking to take a Caribbean cruise out of Ft. Lauderdale, or an Alaskan cruise out of Vancouver, you have a lot of bargains to choose from as long as you don’t have to take one particular ship leaving on a particular date. Again, flexibility expands your bargain hunting options, whereas rigidity reduces those options severely.

Here are a few sites with cruiseline bargains:
Cruise411.com
CruisesOnly.com
Cruisemates.com

A Room with a Discount
Often the toughest part of the travel equation is the hotel. Here again, if you think outside the box, you have many options.

Here are some examples: Las Vegas, the newest hotels, those opened in the last 24-months are usually the most expensive. Meanwhile there are gorgeous properties (Bellagio, Mandalay Bay, to name two) that have seen significant price reductions because they are no longer the newest kids on the block.

The toughest market I've encountered  is New York City. Here again you have a few options. First of course, as is the case in all other destinations, you can look for a last minute bargain through Priceline.com. Second, look on Craig’s List for weekly sublets, and or consider staying at a hotel outside of Manhattan. Prices drop by hundreds of dollars when you are willing to take a thirty-minute, $2 plus train ride. Whether it’s Long Island, Brooklyn, Queens, or New Jersey, if millions of commuters can make it into Manhattan each day and live to tell the tale, you can too.

Euro, Dineros, and Dollars
One last travel word about exchange rates: Yes, the Euro is brutal right now. But in time that will shift—yet again. If you have to get to Europe now, rent a flat for a week. There are countless agents online who will help you do just that, and plenty of clean safe options at approximately $100 US per night.

Better yet, head to Buenos Aires, the Paris of South America, while the dollar is strong in this beautiful country. In fact bargains abound throughout South America, Central America, Asia, and many other destinations. When the dollar rebounds, the Eiffel Tower will still be standing, Pisa’s Tower will be still be leaning, and Michelangelo’s David will still be showing his manhood to the world.

Our ability to see the world in a relatively affordable fashion is unique to human beings of the last fifty years. The thousands of generations who proceeded us were earthbound. Don’t miss your opportunity to celebrate this great freedom. The bargains are there for those willing to be flexible and creative, and to invest a little time in order to save a whole lot of green.