Sudden cheap travel?

You don't have to seek out some special place for last minute deals. There are plenty of websites that do this - just search for "last minute deals". Alternatively, you can just go to your favourite airline's website and see where you can go tomorrow within your budget, then go to your favourite hotel chain's website and see what they have for that destination.

Only a couple of months ago, I booked up a 5 day trip to Paris, direct via the airline and hotel websites. I booked it all on Tuesday morning, and on Wednesday morning was sitting on the plane.

On that trip, while I was at the airport, I asked my airline whether it would have been possible to buy my ticket at the airport. The answer was a yes subject to availability, but they would expect you to have some idea of a destination first.

It then occurred to me that I could use the free wifi at the airport to book the ticket. The only danger I can see is what would happen if there was no availability within budget (then you have wasted a trip to the airport), or only Iceland is available and you've only packed swimming trunks.

If you google 'last minute travel deals', you'll find plenty of sites, including lastminute.com, which have deals like this.

I also subscribe to travelzoo, they have a last minute section too (eg for the UK), where I once got a crazy cheap flight from London to Vancouver, Canada with mere days of notice.

I tend to use SkyScanner to search for flights- it will let you choose where you fly from/ to (airport/ city/ country, etc) or you can specify where you want to fly from, and leave the destination empty to search for all flights from that location. I have found some pretty good deals through there- UK to various places in Europe for under £100 return, London to Bangkok for ~£400-£500 return, etc.

Edit

This is the sort of results page I get when searching for flights from London to Anywhere:

If I click on one of those options, it gives me a list of the available flights for that destination (in this case, cities within the country selected):

If I then select a flight (city) for that destination, it gives me a list of flight comparisons for different airlines:

There are also Virtual Assistant services that will add a personal touch to this and can help you go through the masses of options out there so you dont have to, just tell them your requirements and your budget and let them do the hard work on your behalf.

AnyHelper and ButlerBobs.com are two of the bigger ones.

Disclosure: I am the founder and owner of ButlerBobs.com