With summer approaching, a couple of days at a beach lying lazily in the sun or exploring foreign countries and cultures sounds perfect – but how to get out of Oulu when your budget is low? Sometimes Oulu seems remote; flights go through Helsinki and most of them are quite pricy. And that’s before accommodation, which gets more expensive the closer you get to the holiday season.

No need to despair: everything can be arranged and discovered online. Mirja Krause tells you how to travel for a reasonable price, and how to get accommodation for under a hundred euros.

The first thing that should come to your mind when you picture yourself at the beach recharging your batteries, or near the pool with a cold drink, is to book a package online from aurinkomatkat.fi, finnmatkat.fi (TUI), or detur.fi, which offer cheap deals to a couple of destinations each month. Check these out, especially if it is not so important for you which beach you are lying on within Europe or Asia. For instance, from the beginning of May, Detur offers flights directly from Oulu to Antalya and Alanya. You can book a hotel plus flight or a flight only.

Students with just enough money to pay a charter flight may be eligible for free accommodation abroad. The Hospitality Club (http://www.hospitalityclub.org/), a volunteer-based hospitality exchange network, offers free lodgings for members as long as you’re prepared to host foreigners in return. Not only that, you can also find guides if you want help to explore a place you’re travelling to.  

Membership is free and further information is provided at the webpage, though for some countries it might take a few weeks’ preparation to find people, because not every place has people registered to the club.

Another approach is backpacking. A lot of countries have special accommodation where backpackers can stay for a night or more, before they move on.  Type in your destination at http://www.backpackers.com/hostels, and check for hostels.  

“I went backpacking through Australia,” states Hanna Viersen, a German exchange student at Oulu University. “It was very easy and quite cheap. Not only that, you meet a lot of interesting people. So basically I had company most of the time by backpackers I had met in one of the hostels I had stayed at.”

If you’re looking for a cheap way to get around more then one country, Interail is a good idea. At http://www.vr.fi/ you can purchase train tickets to travel around in Finland, but at http://www.interrail.com/you can find out where the tickets are valid if travelling in one or more countries within Europe. Interrail tickets are available for students and adults. You can even travel first class, if you wish. 

The magic of cheap flights can’t wear off. Nowadays you can get anywhere with cheap offers, and who hasn’t travelled with Ryanair (ryanair.com) yet? More and more routes are available and some flights only cost one cent. Although you have to add tax and you pay twelve euros for each bag you bring, if you book early enough a flight with Ryanair suits every budget. Just dont expect any service.

A recent Oulu University newspaper article reviewed a couple of airlines like SkyEurope, Air Berlin, EasyJet, German Wings and Blue1,  but Skyeurope and Easyjet don’t offer flights from any town in Finland, and German Wings flies from Helsinki only to Köln, Germany. The two airlines with more to offer are Air Berlin and Blue1, but the destinations you can reach from Helsinki with AirBerlin are limited, and Blue1 directs you straight to the webpage of SAS (http://www.sas.com/) when they don’t offer the flights themselves, which means higher prices.

As a general rule, the more flexible your destination and time of travel, the less expensive. If you want to go to a certain place during a certain week, you most likely will end up paying a high price – so have a couple of ideas as to where to go, and a broader time range than just a week. 

Twice a year, Stockmann, the department store downtown, offers cheap deals especially to faraway destinations like Asia or America during “Hullut Päivät” or ‘crazy days.’ It is always good to keep an eye on those. The only disadvantage is that when you decide to purchase one of the offers, you should be in front of the door before they open, because you’ll definitely not be the only one wanting to buy a ticket.

If you want to stay within Finland and explore the country a little more, there are very good bus connections all the way up to Northkap in Norway.  You can find more information here: www.matkahuolto.fi/en.

So if you’re up for some adventure or just want to relax a little bit, there are many ways to Rome. Just invest a little time in planning!

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