Beach

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The Algarve, Done Right the First Time We almost booked the Algarve for the first week of August — peak heat, peak prices, and, as a friend who summers near Lagos warned us, “you’ll be circling for a parking spot at Praia da Marinha by nine in the morning.” We moved the trip to late September instead. Same warm sea, same gold cliffs, half the crowd, and a hotel that cost noticeably less. The coves felt like ours. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Antalya, Beach and Ruins in One Trip We almost skipped Antalya. The plan was a quick beach stop before “the real Turkey” further inland — and then we spent a morning lost in Kaleiçi, the old town, walking down crooked Ottoman lanes that suddenly opened onto a Roman gate and a tiny harbour ringed by cliffs. By lunch we’d torn up the itinerary. The thing nobody tells you about Antalya is that it isn’t a beach resort with some history bolted on; it’s a proper city where the beach, the ruins and the mountains all sit half an hour apart. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The Best Budget Hotels in Bali Are Hiding in Plain Sight I almost booked the wrong area. I had Kuta in my browser — it was the cheapest search result — and then a friend who’d spent three months in Bali sent me one line: “If you stay in Kuta you’ll spend the whole trip wishing you were somewhere else.” I closed the tab, opened a map, and spent the next hour actually figuring out where I wanted to be. The best budget hotels in Bali are not in the cheapest suburb. They’re in the right neighborhood, at the right price, hiding behind names like “losmen” and “family guesthouse.” That hour was the best planning decision of the trip. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The Best Budget Hotels in Cancún Are Not Where You Think My first search for a Cancún hotel returned exactly what I expected: a wall of Hotel Zone all-inclusives starting at $180 a night, each one glossier than the last. I nearly closed the tab and wrote the trip off as expensive. Then a friend who’d been three times leaned over and typed two words: “Book Downtown.” ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Bodrum, Without the Rookie Mistakes We booked our first Bodrum trip for the first week of August, because that was the only week the diary was clear. A friend who summers on the peninsula just laughed: “You’ll be circling for a parking spot, paying double for a sunbed, and queuing for the ferry in 35-degree heat.” She wasn’t wrong. We went anyway, learned the hard way, and the next time we came back in late September — warm sea, half-empty coves, prices that finally made sense. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Budget Travel Guide to Southeast Asia 2026: Everything You Need to Know Before You Go The first morning I landed in Bangkok with a forty-liter bag and a budget of forty dollars a day, I was convinced I’d run out of money by week two. Three months later I crossed back into Europe with cash still in my pocket and a hard drive full of mornings on empty temple grounds, bowls of pho that cost less than a London coffee, and ferry crossings past limestone islands that no travel article had adequately prepared me for. Southeast Asia in 2026 is still the world’s best argument for traveling on a real budget — but the numbers have moved, and you need the updated picture before you plan. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The Canary Islands Travel Guide for Budget Travelers This Canary Islands travel guide budget breakdown starts with the thing almost everyone gets wrong: the seven islands are not interchangeable. I booked a last-minute flight from London to Las Palmas in early November — €89 return — and landed into warm sun while half of Europe was pulling on coats. Ten days of papas arrugadas with mojo on plastic chairs outside a guachinche for €8, pine forests above the clouds, and black-sand beaches that looked like another planet. The catch? I nearly booked the wrong island entirely. The decision costs nothing to get right, and this guide makes it simple. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Cheap Flights from New York to Cancún, Starting Around $89 I came within ten minutes of booking the wrong date. I had the right week in mind — late September, shoulder season, the kind of week Cancún regulars quietly swear by — but I nearly clicked a Saturday departure out of habit. The Tuesday flight I’d been comparing was $94 one-way on Spirit, carry-on not included. The Saturday version of the same route, same airline, was $217. That $123 gap bought a full day on the Isla Mujeres ferry with cash left over for tacos. The lesson isn’t that Spirit is magic. It’s that cheap flights from New York to Cancún are genuinely available, and the difference between paying $89 and paying $300 is almost entirely about when you fly and when you book. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The Cheapest Greek Islands to Visit — and the Ones to Skip If Budget Matters I almost didn’t go. I had priced out a week on Santorini, watched the number climb past €150 a night for a mediocre room without a caldera view, and was quietly closing the tab when a friend sent me a screenshot of a Naxos guesthouse: €45 a night, sea-facing terrace, a fifteen-minute walk from the best beach on the island. I booked it that evening. That trip cost me less than two nights would have on Santorini, and I spent seven days on an island most people fly over on their way somewhere more famous. The food was better, the beaches were emptier, and I never once felt like I was paying a premium to look at a volcano. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Da Nang, the Easy Way to Do Central Vietnam We flew into Da Nang meaning to “use it as a transit hub” for a night before rushing on to Hoi An. We stayed five days. The airport spat us out ten minutes from a beach so long and clean it didn’t look real, the food cost less than a coffee back home, and every place we actually wanted to see turned out to be a short, cheap ride away. The city we’d planned to skip became the one we couldn’t leave. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Goa, Without the Rookie Mistakes We landed in Goa in late July, because that’s when the flights were dirt cheap. The first thing we saw from the taxi was a wall of warm rain and a row of beach shacks with their shutters bolted shut. Our host just laughed: “Monsoon. You’ll have the beach to yourself — and nothing to eat on it.” She wasn’t wrong. The hills were impossibly green, the sea was wild, and half of what we’d come for simply wasn’t open. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Koh Samui, Without the Wet-Season Surprise We almost booked Koh Samui for the last week of October, purely because the flights were cheap. A friend who’d spent a rainy season there talked us out of it in one sentence: “That’s exactly when Samui gets dumped on — you’d be watching the storm from the balcony, not the beach.” Here’s the thing most people miss: Samui sits on Thailand’s Gulf coast, so it doesn’t follow the same calendar as Phuket and the Andaman islands. When the west coast is drying out, Samui’s heaviest rain is just arriving. ...