If you can plan in advance you can save plenty of Euros by booking online at bahn.com. This is the German Railways (DB) website in English, and it is easy to use.

I booked a ticket from Essen to Amsterdam for 29 Euro. The price at the station on the day of travel was 55 Euro. That ticket had to be booked in advance, so it was helpful that I knew my itinerary. Once you have made your booking, you will get a printable PDF file which is your ticket.

Booking online was a saving of nearly 50% compared to buying at the station on the day.

Getting cheap train tickets in Germany from Nomadic Notes Travel Blog

An example of an AirAsia promotional email.

Since I have been subscribed to the newsletter I have picked up some ridiculous bargains, such as:

Kuala Lumpur to Melbourne for 234 MYR ($75 USD)
Kuala Lumpur to Delhi for 60 MYR ($19 USD)

The flight to Delhi was free plus tax, and $10 of that was for checking a bag.

AirAsia fly all over Southeast Asia, China and India as well as Australia and the UK, so there are plenty of travel options. Even if I am not travelling to Asia for some time, it just makes me happy getting offers to go to places like Padang, Penang and Phnom Penh.

Subscribe to the AirAsia newsletter for cheap flights in Asia from Nomadic Notes Travel Blog

Amsterdam Schiphol Airport

My criteria for flying in Europe is to book flights that are on sale to places I haven’t been. Occasionally though I need to fly to specific places within a given time. Having locked in travel dates can mean having to fly on expensive tickets. You may be able to save money though by using alternative airports close to your destinations.

For example, I was in Amsterdam and I needed to be in Budapest on a certain date for work. At the time of booking there was no low cost airline serving this route (SkyEurope used to, but they have since closed).

I checked the usual farefinder sites and the cheapest flight I could find was €250! There is no way I’m paying that much for an Inter European flight, so I looked around for alternatives.

A good tool for finding nearby alternative airports is harefares.com. Enter the two cities you want to fly between and it will also show you the nearest airports, ranked in distance.

Flights from Netherlands to Hungary

The next nearest airports to Amsterdam are Rotterdam and Eindhoven. Hungarian low cost airline WizzAir serve the Eindhoven – Budapest route and I found a fare for the date I needed at €50.

Eindhoven is listed as 105km away, which may sound like alot, but it is only 80 minutes from Amsterdam by train. This is about the time it takes to me to get from Central London to Stansted or Luton anyway.

The train from Amsterdam to Eindhoven costs €17, and it’s another €3 to get the bus from the Eindhoven Train Station to the airport.

So my total cost for the airfare and train ticket was €70, a saving of €180 had I have settled for booking a flight out of Amsterdam.

WizzAir at Eindhoven Airport

I have been in a similar situation where I needed to from London to Strasbourg, France. Strasbourg is the seat of several European institutions, thus flights to the city are expensive. The best option was to fly to Karlsruhe-Baden Airport which is a short train ride away in Germany and a couple of hundred Euro cheaper than flying to Strasbourg Airport.

When you are considering using an alternative airport, make sure you research if you can get to the airport easily enough as well.

I usually book flights well in advance, so I don’t often have to do this. It is a handy travel hack to know just incase your travel plans aren’t so flexible.

Save Money on Flights Using Alternative Airports in Europe from Nomadic Notes Travel Blog

LCCT is on the other side of the runway of KLIA, so you can’t walk between the two terminals. There is a shuttle bus that connects KLIA and LCCT if you intend to transfer to a low cost airline.

[LCCT to KLIA shuttle]

LCCT Airlines
The biggest airline at the LCCT is the AirAsia group, with AirAsia, AirAsia X, Indonesia AirAsia and Thai AirAsia operating flights from here. Cebu Pacific and Tiger Airways also fly here.

[AirAsiaX on display]

Internet
The LCC Terminal has free wifi.

[Free wifi]

Eating
The terminal might be basic but there is plenty of eating options. There are restaurants, cafes and a basic supermarket inside the terminal, and another food court outside the terminal near the bus stop.

[Food Garden food court]

[LCCT Supermarket]

Getting There
The cheapest and easiest way to and from Kuala Lumpur is with the Skybus or Aerobus, which departs from the bus stop outside the terminal.

Airport Guide: Kuala Lumpur Low Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT) from Nomadic Notes Travel Blog

Singapore does not allow a direct bus service as the government view Senai Airport as competition to their own airport.

Air Asia have a hub at Johor Bahru so if you want to go to Singapore it may work out considerably cheaper to fly to JB. A saving of a couple of hundred dollars on a flight makes it worthwhile for the time it takes to transfer from JB to Singapore.

[Air Asia at Johor Bahru Airport]

How to get from Johor Bahru airport to Singapore
At Johor Bahru airport take the bus to Larkin Bus Station, which is the bus terminal in Johor Bahru. You can buy tickets for the bus in the arrivals hall. Tickets cost RM8 one-way and journey time is approximately 45 minutes.

At Larkin Bus Station get the Causeway Link Express Bus (look for the yellow bus). There are two services that run to Singapore:

1. CW1 Larkin Bus Terminal <--> Kranji MRT Station
2. CW2 Larkin Bus Terminal <--> Queen Street

[Causeway Link Bus]

The Queen Street service is the most useful bus for visitors but you can get on either service to start with.

The bus then takes you to Johor Bahru Customs where you will alight to clear Malaysia customs.

Once you have cleared customs return to the bus park and get the next Causeway Link bus using the same ticket. This will take you across the causeway to the Woodlands Custom terminal in Singapore.

Once you have cleared customs in Singapore exit to the bus stop and get on the Causeway Link bus. This time you will need to get on the correct bus number (CW1 for Kranji MRT Station or CW2 for Queen Street).

By now you have two more stamps in your passport and the bus will take you straight to Queen St bus terminal.

All up you will need to allow for around three hours from arriving at Johor Bahru Airport to arriving at Queen Street Terminal in Singapore.

[Causeway Link Express Bus]

How to get from Johor Bahru airport to Singapore from Nomadic Notes Travel Blog

[Budapest to Munich]

The tickets aren’t apparent to find online. I only knew about the ticket offer from billboards in Budapest and there is no indication of the special price tickets online. I had to get a local buy the ticket on my behalf before I arrived.

Tickets available from Budapest include:

€29: Venice, Munich
€39: Baden-Baden, Berlin, Hannover, Hamburg, Zurich, Strasbourg
€42: Frankfurt, Mainz, Bonn

The best way to book this ticket is to use the German Railways booking site bahn.com.

The train from Budapest to Munich is operated by ÖBB of Austria. I was happy to find powerpoints and fold out tables available for laptop users.

[ÖBB Power Point]

29 Euro train tickets from Budapest to Munich from Nomadic Notes Travel Blog

[Blue Lagoon - Iceland. (From Iceland Tourist Board).]

Booking Flights To Iceland
Flights deals from to Reykjavik often turn up on flight finders like Skyscanner and Lastminute.com.

Another way to find Iceland flight deals is to subscribe to the newsletters of Icelandair and Iceland Express.

Icelandair is the flag carrier airline of Iceland that serves destinations in North America and Europe. Their website provides details on stopping over in Reykjavik enroute to your destination.

Iceland Express is a low cost airline from Iceland that flies to destinations in Europe and north America. They have the occasional cheap flight sale and often their combined flights from New York to London via Reykjavik is the cheapest Transatlantic option.

Iceland as a Transatlantic stopover from Nomadic Notes Travel Blog

First time visitors to Europe may not be aware of different spellings for city names. Some name changes are obvious enough as only a small change is made. Roma becomes Rome for example, or an umlaut or accent is dropped, so Zürich becomes Zurich.

Some aren’t so obvious though. You might be Eurailing through Germany on your way to Cologne, not realising that you should have got off at Köln (which can also be written as koeln).

It is not just English that changes names to suit. Most languages will spell a city in their own way to make it sound phonetically correct to them. For example London can be spelt around Europe as:

Londen (Dutch)
Londra (Albanian, Italian, Maltese, Romanian, Romansh, Turkish)
Londres (Catalan, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Ladino)
Londona (Latvian)
Londonas (Lithuanian)
Londyn (Polish)
Londýn (Czech, Slovak)
Lontoo (Finnish)
Lundúnir (Icelandic)

Here is a list of some European cities in the original and English spelling.

European City Names and why Köln is Cologne from Nomadic Notes Travel Blog

For European residents there is the Benelux pass from InterRail, and for non European residents the Benelux pass is available from Rail Europe. This pass can be bought at the international ticket department of major train stations, but it may be more convenient to order it before you travel to save time buying it when you arrive.

Plan Your Travel

As with any rail pass you should do some homework beforehand to make sure you will save money from buying a pass.

For example the Benelux pass Adult 2nd class is €139 and is valid for 5 days travels in 30 days. That works out at €27.80 per day of travel. Next you need to look at the map of Benelux to see where you would like to go. If you are only visiting a few places then it will not be worth getting a pass. If you plan to visit many towns and cities then the pass becomes worthwhile.

Next you need to plan how to make the most of the pass by planning your travel days. Making the most of your pass include doing your long distance travel in one day or visiting a few different small towns in one day that require lots of train travel.

Starting your Benelux Pass Travel

People arriving from outside Europe will most likely arrive at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport or Brussels International. If you are coming from another point in Europe then it might work out better to start at on the edges of the region. Some starting points could be:
- Luxembourg Airport
- Charleroi Airport (known as Brussels South)
- Groningen Airport in the north of the Netherlands has flights from Ryanair.
- Maastricht Aachen Airport

Visitors from the UK can also get the Dutch Flyer, which is a combined ferry/train ticket from London to Amsterdam for from £25 one way.

[Ready to start my Benelux Pass at Gare Centrale Luxembourg]

Train travel with a Benelux Rail Pass from Nomadic Notes Travel Blog

The airport is a small regional airport so I was surprised to see 747′s at an airport serving a city with a population of just over 75,000 people. These Jumbo’s though are cargo airlines.

Luxembourg has positioned itself as a cargo hub and it is one of the worlds busiest. During the day you will see 747 cargo planes flying over the city.

[Luxembourg Airport]

Train
Luxembourg has its own state railway, CFL. There are direct international services from Brussels, Paris and Trier in Germany.

Eurail Passes and Interrail are also valid in Luxembourg.

[Gare Centrale Luxembourg]

Bus

Luxembourg has international services by Eurolines.

How to get to Luxembourg from Nomadic Notes Travel Blog