I suppose there are people out there who are so organized and efficient that tax season is sort of fun, where sudden bonus money funds an April filled with drinking in bars alone while your friends struggle over W2s at home. But sure, if you’ve got a pretty simple return and the government owes you money, what better way to spend that fat refund check than a nice trip out of town?
So, where to go with those long-forgotten dollars? Perhaps you should reinvest in the US economy and travel stateside. Or perhaps you’d prefer blowing your whole refund abroad, because you can. Wherever you want to go, the folks at travel app Hopper can help you decide by taking historic data from literally billions of airfares, crunched the numbers like high-paid CPAs, and predicted the destinations -- both at home and abroad -- where fares will drop the most this April.
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Domestic
I’ve been writing these cheap-flights articles for a minute now, and a 63% drop is the biggest discount I’ve ever seen. California’s Long Beach apparently prompts this, which is fortunate because it is a nice place to be in April. You can go whale watching and scope some gray whales wrapping their migration from the Arctic, or catch the Long Beach Antique Market on April 21. On April 28th, the Long Beach Yoga Festival sets up shop at the Pike Outlets and lasts all day -- tickets start at $75, for those of you who are very into yoga (and, y’know, relaxing in the springtime).
1. Long Beach, California -- $201 (63%)
2. Houston, Texas -- $188 (55%)
3. Denver, Colorado -- $171 (43%)
4. Pennsylvania, Philadelphia $174 (42%)
5. Tampa, Florida -- $216 (41%)
6. New Orleans, Louisiana -- $251 (40%)
7. Palm Springs, California -- $261 (39%)
8. Washington DC -- $168 (39%)
9. Buffalo, New York -- $171 (38%)
10. Norfolk, Virginia -- $273 (36%)
International
So, Spain. April already sits squarely inside the springtime window when you’ll find the country at its most pleasant, with a lot of excellent events in both Barcelona and Madrid. Both will celebrate Semana Santa -- Catholic Holy Week -- from April 14 through April 21, and if you are someone for whom Easter is meaningful, then Spain is a good place for you to be this month. And April 26-28 in Madrid means Mulafest, a festival of not just music and art, but skateboarding, tattooing, and BMX; tickets start around $17. Looking at this list, you may also correctly guess that April 2019 is a good month in which to visit Southeast Asia -- if you’re headed to Bangkok, try to be there April 13-15 for Songkran, the Thai New Year and water festival. There’s also a huge annual music festival S20, featuring artists including Fatboy Slim, Tiesto, and Steve Aoki.
1. Barcelona, Spain -- $432 (48%)
2. Seoul, South Korea -- $595 (38%)
3. Madrid, Spain -- $476 (37%)
4. Tokyo, Japan -- $699 (36%)
5. Bangkok, Thailand -- $558 (35%)
6. Bali, Indonesia -- $566 (35%)
7. Guatemala City, Guatemala -- $360 (35%)
8. Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago -- $443 (33%)
9. Zurich, Switzerland -- $576 (33%)
10. London, United Kingdom -- $448 (32%)
Hopper’s price-drop predictions have historically been about 95% percent accurate, which is to say it’s reliable for this sort of thing. To take advantage of the cheap flights, download the app if you haven’t already and then input the cities you have your eye on and the dates during which you’d like to go. After that, kick back and just … wait. That’s it. You’ll get notifications from the app when prices for your flights have dropped as low as they’re expected to go. Don’t forget your sunscreen.
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