The Affordable Season Between Low Season and High Season Can Save You Money

If you have ever bought a calendar on January 2nd or a dozen roses on February 15th, you probably paid half what the other buyers did a week or even a day earlier for the exact same item. There's a similar situation in the travel business, where "shoulder season" can mean a substantial discount on perfectly good rooms and flights.

When it comes to airline tickets, hotel rooms or rental cars, timing can be everything. The most dramatic price hikes occur each year in places where everyone is headed at the same time: the ski resorts in February, the tropical beaches in the spring, Europe in the summer, and New England leaf viewing towns in the autumn. You'll pay top dollar just to join the crowds.

Low season is often no real bargain, however. The prices are at their lowest for a good reason. This is when hurricanes blow through Florida and the Caribbean, when the lakes are too cold for swimming, when clouds hide the Mountains, or when the weather is too cold and miserable for walking around the historic cities of Europe.

Which brings us to "shoulder season," that stretch of weeks or months between high season and low season. Shoulder season offers you the chance to find a bargain while the getting is still good, when you get quality time at a better value.

Rates for lodging, airplanes and tours often drop at this time of year for reasons of demand, not weather or intrinsic value.

• Spring skiing is still great at many resorts and the prices drop by half, but many people are tired of winter by then, so they don't go.
• Europe is still very nice in the fall, but the college kids and family vacationers have returned home to school.
• Mexico and the Caribbean still have excellent weather during April, May and June, but prices fall because Spring Break is over and it's warming up back home.
  

Here are five tips for finding a shoulder-season deal.

1. Most country-specific Web sites and guidebooks have a "When to Go" section that tells the ideal time to visit an area, as well as the worst time. In between those two seasons, you'll get the most for your travel dollars.

2. Most rental homes and villas clearly list prices by the season. Just moving your planned vacation by two weeks in one direction or another can save you dollars. Moving it by a month or two can cut the rent in half.

3. FareCompare.com and Farecast.com, along with other Airfare prediction sites, can give you a rough idea of how flight prices fluctuate and will also show you the best deals from your own airport in any given month.

4. The travel websites that move unsold travel inventory can present fantastic shoulder-season deals when hotels are struggling to fill their rooms. Try Priceline.com, Hotwire.com and SkyAuction.com -- or just pick a place and call direct to start bargaining. If it's a spur of the moment trip, try LastMinuteTravel.com to get a cheap package deal.

5. Consider where the crowds are going, then plot a different course. Spend the busy summer break in a U.S. destination that's off the tourist radar, or in a lesser known part of a nearby country like Canada, Mexico or Guatemala. You can ski in Chile or Argentina in July, for instance, or visit the tulip fields of Holland or the green hills of Ireland in the spring -- before much-higher summer airfares kick in. Or, take an African safari — June to August is actually the shoulder season in Kenya and Tanzania.

Your vacation has two big variables: timing and destination. If you can't change one, then change the other. And remember, it's always shoulder season somewhere.

Top travel bargains for 2008

Asia

Vietnam. Its touristic cost of living is remarkably low, and its shopping prices are minor miracles (like custom-tailored suits made in Hoi An). A great many independent travelers simply book a direct United Airlines flight from San Francisco to Ho Chi Minh City (via Hong Kong), and then pick up accommodations as they tour the country.

China. Despite a slowly strengthening currency, China remains available at unbeatable rates (including airfare) from Chinafocus.com, Chinaspree.com, Rim-Pac.com, RitzTours.com, PacificDelightTravel.com, China-Discovery.com (Champion Holidays), ChinaTravelService.com and many others.

Bali in the South Pacific. Its cordial attitudes toward the visitor, coupled with its low price structure, have restarted the flow of tourism, overcoming the long-ago effects of two terrorist attacks on beachside nightclubs.

Central America and Caribbean

Nicaragua and Honduras. Both are coming up fast as favorites for adventurous tourists. Honduras' offshore island of Utila (for scuba diving) is the latest discovery. Nicaragua's prices for lodgings and meals surely are among the lowest in the area.

Panama. It's the fastest-developing country in Central America, receiving ever-growing numbers of cost-conscious vacationers, as well as U.S. retirees looking for a cheap second home. The skyline of Panama City is beginning to resemble Hong Kong or New York's financial district -- except that those skyscrapers are residential condos.

Costa Rica. It remains immensely popular, and though it's gaining swanky accommodations, it remains inexpensive for the tourist who searches out low-cost lodgings, like those available from Bells' Home Hospitality in San Jose.

Dominican Republic. Home of the low-cost, all-inclusive hotel. Giant crowds simply looking to laze about in the sun are flocking to properties where all you do is eat three enormous buffet meals a day and doze in a chaise longue.

South America

Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Santiago, Chile. Both benefit from currencies that are weak against the U.S. dollar. Large numbers of Americans are also starting their South American stays in Buenos Aires, and then journeying farther south to the natural attractions of Patagonia.

Europe

Eastern Europe and Croatia. In countries that haven't yet adopted the euro, prices remain much lower for Americans than in Western Europe.

Sicily. Its price structure is markedly lower than in the rest of Italy; its method of touring is self-driving a low-cost car, making a complete circle of the island along its coastal road, stopping in places like Erice, Agrigento, Siracusa and Taormina.

Miscellaneous

Vacation homes and vacation apartments. People are awakening to the advantages in both cost and convenience of renting an apartment/home instead of a hotel. Go to Homeaway.com, VRBO.com, EVRentals.com, Rentalo.com or to numerous local rental agencies in America's Sun Belt.

The vacation exchange. Live for free, simply by swapping a stay in your home for your own stay in someone else's home. The Hollywood film, The Holiday, has directed multitudes of Americans to this logical, sensible, efficient method of economizing on the cost of lodgings. Go to HomeExchange.com.

BikeToursDirect.com. Shunning the high-priced, escorted, group bicycle tours for nonescorted, do-it-yourself biking along a prescribed route has become a major, budget-price vacation activity.

Discount cruises. Though cruise-line executives will deny it, a giant number of cabins are being sold at discounted, rock-bottom rates. Go to Vacationstogo.com, CruiseWizard.com and CruisesOnly.com, and you'll find stunning, low-cost cruises.

The U.S. National Parks. A drop-off in foreign visitors since 9/11 and high gas prices have reduced traffic to the most famous of the parks: Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Great Smokey Mountains.

Free hospitality services around the world. CouchSurfers.com, GlobalFreeloaders.com and USServas.com, are awash with members offering free accommodations to other members.

Go-Today.com. Its low-cost air-and-land packages to capital cities all over the world remain a potent source of bargains in travel.