Search engines and online travel agents.

There are lots of transportation options in our days so I will post few articles on this subject, but in beginning I will talk about air travel.

So one of the first things I want to talk about in air travel are search engines and online travel agents.

So what’s good in search engines and online travel agents?

Search engines and online travel agents give you the chance to see a lot of different flight offers in one place which helps to get the cheapest price for your journey. But there don’t exist one perfect search engine or online travel agent for all of world’s people. Everybody have different needs and for some country’s some engines perform better than they perform for others. So for every person perfect search engine can vary. One important thing to take in mind is that there are not all of the air companies in one search engine so it worth to search in more than one. When using search engine or online travel agent important is to know that some of them have fee. So before buying ticket you should check does the site have extra fee for booking through them. And if there is extra fee you still can go directly to the air company official site and book it through them.

Other consideration when choosing from offered cheap flights is that cheapest flight in search engine won’t always be the cheapest in the end as the prices are displayed without extra fees like baggage. Even if you had flayed with the same air company once in your life you should check the rules of baggage again after a time as they like to change their rules time to time. The other important extra cost is getting to and from airports which can be costly as many cheap air companies land far from cities. So not paying attention to details can cost a lot of money.

So here is the list of sites for looking cheap flights:

adioso, airfarewatchdog, amadeus, cheapflightsfinder, cheapflights, cheapoair, ctrip, dearflight, dohop, ebookers, expedia, farecompare, google flights, hipmunk, kayak, lastminute, liligo, matrix.itasoftware, mobissimo, momondo, opodo, optionsaway, orbitz, priceline, skyscanner, southalltravel, travelgrove, travelocity, travelsupermarket, vayama, whichbudget.

Talking about these sites there are few futures I would like to mention which I found useful or at least interesting.

Amadeus trip tools.

airfarewatchdog, kayak and amadeus.

Airfarewatchdog and Kayak have great information about different air company baggage fees in one place so it could save you time. But Amadeus have trip tools like country phone codes, currency converter and other useful tools for traveller in need.

whichbudget, adioso, dohop and skyscanner.

Adioso destinations.

These sites could be useful when you are looking for the cheapest option from specific airport, but don’t know where you would want to fly. Whichbudget have the future of writing departure city or country and it already will show you in right corner cheap flights from city or from all of the country airports to different destinations starting from cheapest. But if you will write in search engine destination country or city it will show you the cheapest option to that place. But I have doubts of this sites performance as they showed me totally different price in featuring steps and it was not the fee for booking through the site. So after all I didn’t find it trustful.

Skyscanner.

Then there is Adioso which gives you option of choosing the flight from your city or airport to not only specific place but it can show you cheapest domestic, international, country, continent and so many other flight destination options.

Then there is Dohop with its interesting tool "Dohop away" which will show you the cheap flights from the city you are at.

Then there is Skyscanner which have option of choosing from country or city to anywhere or specific country and it will show you cheapest options from your given city, airport or country. Fantastic is the option to not only choose the exact date when to fly but ability to search flights for entire week, month or even a year.

google flights, liligo.

Other interesting future is Google flight map with approximate prices of destinations where to fly. The same as Google, Liligo have map too, except they have Luxembourg in there "where to go" map, but they don’t have few bigger countries than Luxembourg in their list flying from.

priceline.

They have interesting future which worth exploration it’s named "name you’re own price".  This literally means that you can bid for your flight price.

Priceline "name your own price".

optionsaway.

They have interesting price locking option. Which means that after finding you’re flight deal you can up to 21 day make your decision to buy it or not and the price will be the same when you locked it.

hipmunk.

This site has funny character which can definitely give you positive emotions while looking for cheap flights. They have funny and useful tool named "agony" so check it out if you search through them. Generally speaking this site is different from others as it had made flight searching more fun.

But there are more things I would like to mention, firstly it is believed that buying domestic flight 49 days before flight and international 81 days before flight will provide you with the cheapest option. Secondly it is believed that flying on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays the price will be much cheaper than flying on Fridays and Sundays. So it maybe help you when you are planning you’re next flight. For my next article I will compare all of here displayed sites by choosing different parameters which will show them in performance.

Quick questions to local in Latvia.

This is first article from series of questions to locals from not so popular and known places. The idea is to show that there are so many countries we don’t know so well, but they still worth that we know them. This is fast look from different angle to those countries. So quick questions will show how different country locals in their life have had contact with travel.

Fast facts about Latvia.

Latvia coloured in red.

Latvia is situated in Northern Europe. It is 64,589 km² big which is relatively small country compare to other European country’s. Latvia have land border with four countries, Belarus, Estonia, Lithuania, Russia. In Latvia live 1,997,500 inhabitants. Capital of Latvia is Riga and official language in Latvia is Latvian. It’s a member of European Union and NATO and have euro as currency. Latvia is in temperate climate zone and what is surprising is that it has one of the fastest Internet in the world according to speedtest.net data.

Collecting wild mushroom in autumn.

Name, Surname: Krišjānis Leitis.

Age: 28.

Gender: Male.

Home: Riga.

Which was the first country you travelled to?

Lithuania.

At what age was this journey?

Don’t remember. I think i was 10 years old.

What was you’re impressions from it?

I went to Lithuania with my family. At that age it was really big adventure for me and I got a lot of new emotions. 

Which country is you’re dream destination where you travelled or would like to travel and why it is your dream destination?

Place where I wanted to go all my life was Iceland and this year dream came true. And next place where I definitely want go to is New Zealand. I wanted from childhood to go there as it was far and unknown to me.

What do you like to do when you are travelling?

When I travel I like to compare impressions I get in different countries. I like to enjoy nature’s beauty from every country where I get.

What are places you suggest to see in your country to tourists?

Jūrmala beach, Sigulda, Latgale – land of the blue lakes, Kurzeme – land of the Kursland Vikings and of course Riga – capital of the Latvia.

What are dishes you suggest to tray in your country?

You should definitely try could soup and dessert locally known as black bread soup.

What are things you suggest to do in your country?

At spring you should try to collect some birch juice together with some Latvian, but at end of summer and autumn you can try to collect wild mushrooms – these two are like national sports here:)