While the summer travel season is underway, it's not too late to find a vacation deal. Yahoo Finance's Kerry Hannon breaks down top travel tips.

Hannon believes the key to summer travel is being flexible: "If you can travel the last two weeks of August, that's going to be a good time. And it gives you time to book it right now and get some of the best advantages of that time gap in order to nail down some of these good rates." She adds that waiting to travel in September or October would be even better as prices continue to drop.

She notes that skipping popular destinations is also preferable, explaining, "Hotel prices are up about 10% particularly in the crowded cities. So I encourage people, maybe skip Paris, go to Lyon, skip Dublin, go to Cork."

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This post was written by Melanie Riehl

Video Transcript

Well, an estimated 13 million Americans are expected to jet off to Europe this summer according to Hopper data.

Now, if you don't have travel plans this summer, it isn't too late for you to book without breaking the bank to discuss how you can still find travel deals this season.

Yahoo Finance's very own.

Carrie Hannon is here with us.

Hey, Carrie.

Hey Brad, great to here.

Um Absolutely.

It is not too late.

Um But the, the hot areas, of course Europe is smoking hot this year, people are rushing to get there.

Uh Some of it's Paris, the Olympics, London so forth.

Um But, but we're also seeing Japan is big and one reason for that is that the dollar is so strong against the yen.

So it's become sort of a bucket list list place for people to get to.

But so we see, you know, and prices are cheaper than they've been than they were last year for sure.

They've come down, gas is cheaper than it was a year ago for sure.

So we're seeing for people who are traveling domestically, you've got your gas prices down airfares are great.

But again, the key to it.

Brad is being flexible and, and we've heard this before, if you can travel the last two weeks of August, that's gonna be a good time and it gives you time to book it right now and get some of the best advantages of that time gap in order to get nail down some of these good rates.

So if you can do that even better, the shoulder season season, if you can wait till September October do that by all means, set those track alerts.

You know, they're a hopper kayak, they, um, Google flights, they'll let you know like we've heard that you said in where you're gonna go, they'll alert you for the lower prices.

It's a great way to do it.

Um, even kayak has one I think called best time to travel.

So you say, oh, I wanna go to Geneva and they'll say, well, go in October Carrie.

You know, that's a good time to go.

Prices are lower and so forth.

So that's important.

Don't forget about your loyalty points.

All of those things from hotels to airfares to credit cards and make sure your credit card is one without foreign transaction fees.

So those are really important tips.

What might be more expensive this vacation season relative to years past?

Yeah.

No, absolutely right.

The dollar is marginally weaker than it was.

So it's slightly, uh, not as great as it was last year.

Hotel prices are up about 10% particularly in the crowded city.

So I encourage people, maybe skip Paris, go to Lyon, you know, skip Dublin, go to Cork.

You know, if you can pick, you know, off the beaten track destinations close to where you might wanna be, but get those lower prices there.

But because you're gonna see high hotel prices in those cities, you also might see, um, you know, just a general uptick in different expenses.

Like, hey, I wanna go to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Well, guess what, those have jacked up this summer.

So, is going to the Louver.

If you're in Japan and going to Mount Fuji, you're getting a, a thing.

If you're going to Venice, you're getting a charge to get into Venice.

So the entry points that, yeah, we're not talking a whole lot of money but it can add up.