My daughter went to Indonesia then Thailand, Cambodia, loas… Getting her to Indonesia we just played around with the travel sites but ended up using a company that was more specific to Indonesia… Dealing with them was interesting since they always don’t speak English or understand it but reading their website and just following the steps helped us… Sometimes it’s the luck of the draw if a special flight pops up… Good luck. It’s a great experience.
It is good advice to check other departure airports. It was $1300 to fly round trip to Her study abroad city in Europe from Phx but less than $600 from Chicago. The cost to get D to Chicago was far less than the difference in those ticket prices, and she got an overnight with her sister as well.
S will be studying in Japan from March through August next year. We were advised that he should have a return ticket in hand due to the length of his trip. Since the return dates fall in the middle of the Obon festival I went ahead and booked a round trip a few weeks ago.
I agree that checking departure airports is a very good idea. We live on the west coast, closer to San Francisco than LA, but the price difference between flights out of LAX vs SFO was striking. If I drive him down to LA the day before his flight and the two of us stay overnight in a hotel near the airport, it will be cheaper than if he flew out of SFO directly. He could also save money by getting a cheap commuter flight from our small city to LAX and then transferring to the international flight but we’re thinking that getting in the night before will be less anxiety-provoking for him.
The golden week 2019 is April 29 - May 7. Your daughter don’t want to leave Japan at the beginning of the golden week. It would be hard to travel around in Japan during this period. However, if your daughter wants to stay one location (not a vacation place) and spend time with Japanese (who is not traveling around), it would be the best time. I expect you are able to find inexpensive tickets leaving Japan at the end of the golden week or a week after.
Back in 2005 when our kid studied abroad, we knew he and his friends planned a two week trip when their studies ended. So…we bought a round trip ticket with that in mind.
And that’s what they did…traveled from London to Spain…had a great relaxing time in the warm sun.
Travel in Europe was planned while they were in Europe…very inexpensive at the time.
Then they flew back to London, and flew home from there.
In our case, the university study abroad Office arranged the travel. We just had to pick the departure/return city and return date. That was easy peasy!
Glad we didn’t have to fuss making reservations.