The Best Time to Book Summer Travel Is Right Now

Travel experts advise vacationers not to wait.

Many of us are still catching our breath from the rapid sprint of getting our spring travel booked and paid for before prices hit their seasonal peak. Experts over at Going.com (fka Scott's Cheap Flights) alerted Thrillist to the fact that it is already time to start thinking about and booking summer travel.

The experts over at Going have identified the so-called "Goldilocks window" for booking summer 2023 travel. The Goldilocks Window is the ideal time frame to book your trip—not too early, not too late, but just right—to ensure that you get the best prices. For summer travel, which of course is a peak time, the best time to book is three to seven months in advance for purchasing domestic flights and four to eight months in advance for international flights.

With that time frame calculated, the ideal time to book flights, domestic or international, for a summer 2023 trip is right now and not for much longer. Based on Going's calculations, summer travel prices are about to skyrocket, making it harder (but not impossible) to find good deals on flights.

"It's the window when you are most likely to find the best deal, not the only time you can find a deal," a spokesperson from Going shared with Thrillist. "Think of it like a bell curve—when you're in the Goldilocks window at the top of the bell there could be many great deals available to you, but on either side of that bell, the number of deals goes way, way down. It's not impossible to snag a great fare outside of the Goldilocks window, but it is a lot less likely."

If you plan on booking later (some of those trip planning group chats might not have settled on a destination yet, let alone travel dates) the key to booking late is to be ready to book quickly. Summer travel deals will likely come and go very quickly, so you'll need to have your number out and a bank account balance that can handle a booking.

Looking for more travel deals?

Here's our running list of all the cheap travel deals you can book right now, and you can head here for all the latest flight deals plus cheap things to do and savings on hotels, cruises, trains, and more to help you plan for your next trip.

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Opheli Garcia Lawler is a Staff Writer on the News team at Thrillist. Follow her on Twitter @opheligarcia and Instagram @opheligarcia.