Start Booking That Vacation Now – For Winter - TravelPulse

If you're still thinking about booking a summer vacation, well, sorry my friend. That ship has probably sailed. Literally.

This is an extraordinary summer we have on our hands due to the pandemic. There is so much pent-up demand for travel and a wanderlust among virtually age group that it's going to take a papal dispensation to squeeze in a reservation somewhere.

Case in point – for 12 years I have taken my boys down to Rehoboth Beach, Del., to the same place. There were years when I literally called just days prior to leaving and was still able to book a place.

Not this year.

And no papal dispensation for me, either, even though I went to 14 years of Catholic schooling.

So perhaps the best advice is to listen to Andrew Hickey, of the travel website Scott's Cheap Flights.

Book opposite, Hickey says.

Book your next summer vacation during the winter, and book your winter vacation during the height of the previous summer. "If you only start thinking about summer flights once summer is almost here, your odds of getting a cheap flight are not great," Hickey said. "Much like how swimsuits are cheaper in the winter and coats are cheaper in the summer, so too are summer flights generally cheaper when you book them in the winter."

Hickey said the reason is because of the Goldilocks Windows.

"While there's no cheapest day or time to book flights —'Tuesday at 1 pm' is a myth — there are periods in advance of travel when cheap flights are most likely to pop up," Hickey said. "I call these Goldilocks Windows."

If you're traveling domestically, the Goldilocks Window for when you're most likely to see a cheap flight is one to three months before flying. For international flights, it's two to eight months in advance. But if you're hoping to travel during a peak time like middle of summer or around New Year's, you'll need to add a few months. More like three to six months for domestic flights and three to 10 months for international travel.

The bottom line is: once again it can't be reiterated enough that this is the time to listen to travel advisors. The pandemic has changed things. How we fly, when we book, how much we pay … it's all different. We're walking on blue grass and looking up at green skies. It's a new world.

And we need to know how to navigate it.

I can't tell you how long this is going to last. Maybe forever. Maybe not past this year. I don't know.

What I do know, at this exact moment, is to rely on the advice of the experts.

It's the only way to travel for right now.

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