Teacher Travel: Flexibility is your Currency 

One of the great ironies in life is that teachers have lots of time to travel but limited funds to do so. But as you’ll see in this post, when you start using flexibility as your currency, a whole new world opens up for more teacher travel (literally). 

This post contains affiliate links; I may earn a commission if you apply through these links.  

I recently booked a business class seat from Boston to Istanbul for 65,000 points (that’s less than this sign-up bonus on my favorite travel card!!!). Do I live in Boston? No! Had I ever dreamed of visiting Istanbul? Not really! BUT, do you know what is only a one-hour and $35 flight away from Istanbul? My favorite warm weather country— Greece. 🙂 

I got this deal because I used flexibility as my currency. We will take a short, cheap “repositioning” flight to Boston. Spend the day touring this historic city then sleep lying down (!!!) aboard Turkish Airlines all the way to Istanbul. Though Istanbul was never really on my radar, after a bit of research, I’m getting so excited about it! We’ll bop around there for a bit and then head off a Greek island. We are still throwing ideas around for that part of the trip, but that’s the fun of it. 

When you have flexibility, you can truly score some amazing travel deals to places all over the world and even open up new destinations that you’ve never even considered! 

Here are my best teacher travel tips for using flexibility as your currency: 

Set Dates but Flexible Location 

One of the perks of being a teacher is that you get lots of breaks throughout the school year (because no one would do this job without them, lol). In my district, teachers get:

• 2 months off for summer break 
• 2 weeks off for winter break
• 1 week off for fall break 
• 1 week off for spring break 
• Long weekends off for labor day, Thanksgiving, midwinter, etc. 
• 2 personal days off per year

So, let’s say you want to take a spring break trip. Your dates are set, but if you are open to any destination, you can save a ton of money!

For example, my husband and I had 5 days in May that we were both free to travel. So, I put in our dates and hit “explore” on Google Flights. The cheapest flight available was to Boston. We love Boston, but I was looking for something different (plus we will go there next May for the Turkish Airlines flight!). After a bit of brainstorming, I discovered that Portland, Maine is only a two-hour scenic drive from Boston. 

This was a new state for us, and we absolutely LOVED it! My husband said it’s one of his top trips, and I planned it in about 2 hours, ha! The vibes were just so great, and I love that I discovered a new favorite using this travel hack. 

How to use the Google Flight explore feature with set dates but flexible location: 

1. Go to Google Flights 
2. Put in ALL the airports you are willing to fly out of 
3. Add your dates
4. Leave the destination blank 
5. Hit explore!!! 🙂

Set Location but Flexible Dates

Ok, now let’s say you have a DREAM destination in mind and you don’t want to be flexible on that. The next best thing is being flexible with your dates. Sometimes moving a flight just ONE day can save you hundreds of dollars. And when you are willing to travel either on fall break, winter break, spring break, or summer break, now you are using flexibility as your currency!  

For example, I’m weird and love the cold. It doesn’t bother me to visit places in the fall or winter, and I’d actually prefer it to the blazing heat! So last fall, we booked a trip to the Scottish Highlands for $1,245 (for two round-trip tickets) which was about half the price of going in the summer. Plus, I used my credit card points to completely erase the purse, so we flew economy for FREE (see video above for how easy this was to do!).

How to use the Google Flight explore feature with set location but flexible dates: 

1. Go to Google Flights 
2. Put in ALL the airports you are willing to fly out of 
3. Put in ALL the airports near your destination
4. Leave the dates blank
5. Hover of the calendar and open it up 
6. Browse through the months and look for deals
7. Set alerts to get notifications if the price drops! 

Flexible Location and Flexible Dates

Both of the strategies above are going to save you money and make more teacher travel possible. But when you combine them? Get outta here!! (again, literally lol) 

How to use the Google Flight explore feature with flexible dates and flexible location: 

1. Go to Google Flights 
2. Put in ALL the airports you are willing to fly out of 
3. Leave the destination blank
4. Leave the dates blank
5. Hit explore!!! 🙂 

So, there are all my best Google Flight strategies for more teacher travel! Sometimes I’ll just set and scroll around Google Flights on my phone like it’s social media. As I wrote in this post, I’ve had major wanderlust ever since I was a child, so sitting around dreaming of new destinations is fun for me. As an avid thrifter, finding deals gives me the thrill of the hunt!

And thanks to points, I get at least two flights a year for FREE! I go more in depth here, but in short, I use this credit card like a debit card. I pay for everything using this card then pay it off monthly. You’ll be amazed at how quickly your points can get you free flights, especially with the fat sign up bonus! 

If this post has been helpful and if you are considering using points to travel more for free, then I’d love for you to use my referral link. You’ll get a huge bonus, and I’ll get 10,000 points for referring you which will go far in funding both our travel dreams! 🙂