A year before booking my trip to Thailand, my best friend told me about how her mom and sister had booked a trip to Asia for a very cheap price through Groupon. Of course, at first, I was a little skeptical because I was like it is impossible to be able to book a trip like that with Groupon. Fast forward a year later and we were booking our 9-day trip to Thailand flying from NYC for $999. This included flights, hotels (with buffet breakfast included), and transportation. It was a 9-day trip that included two nights in Phucket, two nights in Phi Phi Island, two nights in Krabi, and two overnight flights.
So how does this work? Basically you are buying a Groupon from a travel agency that will take care of booking your flights from your chosen departure city and will book all transportation and hotels. If you do not like planning trips this will be a great option for you since they will even book and coordinate your transportation between hotels and cities.
Usually depending on where you are going especially if it is Asia the options for departure cities are most likely LA or NYC. Therefore if you do not live nearby any of those two cities you will have to book a separate flight to LAX or JFK and that would be an extra cost. Also, you will be choosing departure dates provided by the travel agency. For high season, expect the prices to be higher. When we booked our trip, we did it for September (low season) which is still monsoon season but every day the sun was out, so do not get scared about that.
Also, when booking a trip like this through Groupon the price of $999 is for two people traveling together and sharing a room ($999 each), if you are booking just for yourself there will be an additional fee. They do this since by putting two people in a room it becomes more affordable. This is how they are able to keep their costs so low.
If you do not like those tours with an itinerary like me make sure you look for a Groupon that has “no itinerary set”. This means that you will have an itinerary for when the buses or ferries will pick you up in each destination to take you to the airport or hotels but the remaining of the time is “free time” and you can do whatever you want. I like exploring on my own and not being in big groups with many tourists, so I cannot do any guided tours. I like to experience places more like a local so for me this was perfect.
Another tip, do not get scared and think this will be a trip with older people because it is a “tour” done through a travel agency. When we got to Thailand and saw everyone that had bought the same Groupon, it was literally all millennials like us (20 to 35 year olds). To be honest, I never thought there would be so many young people on that trip and we actually ended up becoming friends with a few of them and did things together to save money.
If your dream is to visit Asia but are on a budget, I cannot recommend enough to book it through Groupon. For this trip in total, I spent $1,400 this includes EVERY dollar that came out of my bank account (flights, hotels, transportation, food/alcohol, and fun money).
Also, if you have any additional questions regarding how to book a trip through Groupon don’t hesitate to ask me in the comments or sent me an email or DM on Instagram and I will be happy to answer.
**Just as an FYI, in another post I will do a travel guide by city and show everything I did.
