The year's best time to travel: 'Dead Week'

Not Just the Great Cities
I have had similar experiences on Maui and in the Caribbean. On Maui I surfed a perfect swell on the west side with about three other people in the water while a friend went off to visit a famous artist at his house studio. A "cold call" email exchange revealed that his studio had been quiet for a few weeks, and he was uncharacteristically happy to have a visitor.

The Caribbean trip was planned, purchased and completed in about five days, and we wound up with one of the best waterfront rooms on the west side of the island for under $100 a night. This year, we're staying on a pier over the Pacific Ocean in California at what the proprietor admits are "very off-season" prices. "We're empty," he said when we booked our stay. "Do you know which room you would like? You have your pick." The sound of the ocean, sunsets over the Pacific, a swaying pier and the best room -- all that and holiday decorations too.

Best Prices of the Year
Late last week, I did an extended round of airfare searches for the first two weekends in December, and found nothing but fantastic airfares: $262 roundtrip cross-country to southern California, $195 RT to Seattle, $224 to San Francisco, $433 to London, $512 to Paris, $524 nonstop to Rome -- probably the best prices of the year to these destinations. And I did everything I could to stack the deck against success; I didn't even do these searches from the "cheapest" airport in the region.

It was far more difficult, almost impossible, to find expensive fares than to find great fares. I even did searches from the West Coast to Europe: $442 nonstop roundtrip from San Francisco to London, $605 to Rome. The SFO-Rome fare was the highest I could find on any of my searches, and you fly 14,000 miles for only 600 bucks!

Add to this some of the best lodging prices of the year, and you almost can't afford not to travel. (Don't ignore package deals either; already low airfare and lodging costs can be even better when bundled together at additional discounts by packagers.)

More Holiday Considerations: Attractions and Shopping
A few weeks before the holidays, very few venues or exhibits are closed, and some even have extended hours to coax museum-goers into museum shops. Additionally, many hotels, attractions and merchants are rolling out the red carpet to entice holiday revellers, and you may get better treatment at this time of year than any other.

There's another benefit to traveling while everyone else is mall-hopping: you can do your shopping somewhere else besides the same stores everyone else is scouring. I'm not much of a shopper, but I've come home from every Dead Week trip I've taken with a few showstopper gifts for people who deserved them -- and didn't have to storm the store entrance throwing elbows at midnight on Black Friday, or park a half-mile from the mall entrance, to get them. I just kept my eyes open while walking around in my travels, and the gifts almost seemed to find me.

So if the notion of strolling while you should be shopping makes you nervous, you might just find the right gift where you least expected it: out on the road. And you might also find the whole process a heap more pleasant walking the streets of Paris, paddling over reefs off Maui, checking out Christmas preparations in Rome, beachcombing in the Caribbean ... it's Dead Week, so take your pick!

The Independent Traveler is an interactive traveler's exchange and comprehensive online travel guide for a community of travelers who enjoy the fun of planning their own trips and the adventure of independent travel. You can access our wealth of travel resources and great bargains here at www.independenttraveler.com, or at www.bargainbox.com.

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