Japan Travel page 59

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I want to travel to japan some info plz?

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Now this is a story all about how my vacation needed bucks, my budget got wound. I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there, and I'll tell you exactly how I want my summer vacation to bear. Alright, seriously here's the story. I currently live in a US Base in Japan, but I want to go to Australia, then go to the states. This is simply multi-flight planning. Now, I am a very conscious person when it comes to money, and I want to save every dime possible with my summer vacation plan. School ends June 13th and that's when the countdown starts. - I want to visit my cousins in Australia for 3 weeks, - then go to Washington D.C. to meet up with my mother there. I then want to stay there for one month [probably one week more]. - After that, Washington D.C. back to Japan. Simple enough, except for the fact that I'll be a 17 year old with half a job [I bag groceries for tips on the weekend... not exactly stable]. My parents said they'd both help me with the cost, but I don't want to hit them with a $1000+ bill each, and they have too much pride to ask my relatives for financial help. Now, I really want to save every single dime possible. I did the calculations so far, and it turns out to be $3155 dollars for the entire trip. I think I can spend less than that. Here are the factors I took into account when planning this... - I did economy all the way. I couldn't care less about first class. Hell, I'd ride in the cargo bay for $100 cheaper if I had to. - I don't care what time of day I had to go. I'll go at 3 AM if I have to, I'm used to staying up that late anyway! - I did 3 main sites: tripadvisor.com, orbitz.com, and expedia.com, with tripadvisor.com giving me the cheapest tickets. - I only put down 1 adult, since I will be the only one riding. - I realized that going 1-way separately each was cheaper than using the "multi-stop" feature. So I did one from JP to AUS, then one from AUS to US, then one from US to JP. Much cheaper than the "Multiple flights" feature they had. These are all the factors that I did. I know [estranged] relatives and travel agents that have a knack of finding cheap tickets out of nowhere, and I need to know their secret. I know I can decrease this insanely huge price, I just need some help. If anyone can help me calculate, or give me some tips on how to make this flight cheaper, I would be extremely glad. I will also repost this over the course of the next few months [not that often though], until I buy my tickets to get as much help as possible. Many thanks!

I looked around a bit, and I think there's good potential for you to save big here. Some thoughts in no particular order: - air fares don't make sense. I found that a round-trip from Tokyo to Sydney, plus a round trip from Tokyo to Washington, is usually the cheapest option. Look into that. - compare week-day vs. week-end air fares. depending on who the flights cater to mostly (tourist vs. business), one is often cheaper than the other - check if it's cheaper to first go to the US, then to Australia. Assuming that this would be an option - I find kayak.com to be very useful for searches - not all airlines are represented in the big search sites. use wikipedia to find out which airlines fly out of a given airport, and they check the airlines own website for fares too I found that you could to a round-trip to Washington in June for around $1200, followed by a round-trip to Sydney in July for about $900. That would be about $2100, i.e. $1000 less than what you've found so far. Good luck!