Want to plan a trip? Start here.

So many people work backwards when planning travel.

What do you do first when you think about planning a trip? Pick a destination? Decide your dates?

That’s the most expensive way to do it.

Try this instead:

Go to Kayak explore, or Google flights.

Just like shopping at Target… You don’t go target with a list, you let Target tell you what you need.

Go to google not knowing where you want to go, and it will tell you what deals are out there.

More interested in direct flights? I love to use FlightConnections.com to see what routes fly direct from my home airport. Check it out:

There are some other cool tricks to using search engines…

On google you can find deals for an entire continent.

Or pick a length of time and search deals for that amount of days.

Does that feel like too much work? Here are my favorite subscriptions that have computers do the work for you, and email you alerts.

• Just Get out of Town (Lounge coaching program)

• Scott’s Cheap Flights

• Thrifty Traveler

• Straight to the Points

• NextVacay

Try these tricks and let me know where you’re headed next!

-Steph