College Students: Planning a Trip Home Already?

It's only September and you're already thinking about coming home... as well you should! The best time to get travel fares is inside of two to three months of your scheduled departure date. If you wait until two or three weeks to book travel fare you'll find that you will have an obscure seat at a high price; that will make you question if home is where your heart really is or not.

There are ways to travel home without breaking the bank or the little money you did make with your on-campus job. Mom and dad don't have to break the bank either getting their sweetie pie home. With a little research and a little bit of timing there are a number of options you can utilize to get home safe and sound and still have enough to buy something when you get home.

Here are my recommendations:

1. If you are 350 miles away or more, I recommend flying otherwise rent a car, catch a bus, or ride the train. I figure a 350 mile trip through the air shouldn't take but an hour, if that long... so if your plane ride would be longer than an hour it's worth the flight. Driving that distance can take up to 5 hours; actually, make it 6 hours if you count rest stops and eating. Anything longer than six hours, you need to find alternative means of transportation. Check sites like hotwire.com or priceline.com for car rentals and airfare tickets. I like orbitz.com also for airfare. For trains check Amtrak.com and for buses check greyhound.com or megabus.com (for trips less than 10 hours).

2. If you have college friends who live in the same area as you, consider hitching a ride with them. Sometimes in college you'll meet friends who live close to your city, if not in your city. Consider pooling your resources and get home together. It'll save you on gas, car rental, and everything else. You'll have to coordinate day and time to leave for home and arrive back on campus.

3. If you know for sure you're coming home for like Thanksgiving and Christmas... book travel home before you leave for school in the fall. Start in August booking travel for November and December. If you have a spring break around March or April, start booking travel in December or January at the latest. For summer trips home, start booking about February or March. The idea is to give yourself about three months time in order to get a decent fare and a decent seat. Especially if you're returning home for a holiday season, those seats get taken up way ahead of time so it's imperative to get your seat in quickly.

4. If you do fly, take an early morning or late night flight. Airplane fares are cheaper at more obscure times. For example, a 6am flight or an 11pm flight will be cheaper than a 7pm flight or a 10am flight. The majority of people are flying within a 12-hour window - between 8am and 8pm. Stay outside of that window and you should get a good seat and a good fare... perhaps even a row to yourself. If you're flying a red-eye flight (overnight) you can sleep on the plane and wake up at home a few hours later. The same goes for trains and buses. If you know your land ride will be longer than eight hours, consider a ride at night where you can go to sleep.

5. If you rent a car, try and rent a car for a week instead of a few days. Sometimes rental cars are cheaper by the week than they are if you get it for four days; it depends on the specials that a car rental company is running. You can also consider downgrading a size and not taking as much insurance if you feel comfortable taking that kind of risk. Don't worry about pre-purchasing gas either, you'll come out cheaper if you fill-up before you return the car when you get back to the place you rented it from.

6. If your city has multiple airports, check into the one with the cheaper flights. Chicago, for example, has two major airports: O'Hare Airport and Midway Airport. If you want cheaper flights, your best bet is to fly into Midway Airport. The companies that fly into Midway are Southwest, Airtran, and flights like that. If you are going to more prominent cities, you'll probably come into/fly out of O'Hare Airport. At O'Hare you'll find United, American Airlines, and a host of international airline companies like British Airways, Mexicana, and more.

Hopefully with these tips you'll be able to save some money and enjoy your time back home. Now, get back in those books!