It's not too late to get great rates

I'm an expert on vacations. I'd become a travel agent if there was any money in it. All day and night, I plan cheap and exotic vacations with the little time and even less money that I have.

My biggest source of inspiration is the Sunday Travel section in The Washington Post. They have a section called Deals, which consists of the cheapest flights, hotel packages and cruises in the upcoming weeks from the D.C./Baltimore area.

In a recent issue, Spanair offered complimentary tickets from Dulles to Madrid if you came to the airport wearing a flamenco costume. Another special consisted of a free weekend of food and lodging. The catch? You needed to book a flight on Virgin Atlantic to Brussels any Thursday from May thru June.

I advise checking the travel section regularly on Sunday mornings and calling as soon as you find the vacation for you. Like other people who want a great holiday with minimal expense, the flights, hotels and rental cars always seem to sell out very quickly, especially for any decent travel date.

Other things I check regularly are the e-fares and e-savers available online from all the major commercial carriers. US Airways routinely has rock-bottom prices on flights from Baltimore-Washington International Airport to the Caribbean from as low as $300 with taxes during the off-season of February and October.

United Airways fares to East-Asian destinations hover around $600 sans taxes, for round trip service from Washington. Be careful when purchasing tickets for these fares because they have lots of clauses regarding travel dates and can't be combined with any other promotion.

If you don't need to buy your tickets more than a week in advance, these tickets are ideal. Check the Web sites Tuesday morning for airfare for the following two weeks. If you have time to kill, you can head out to the airport and try to go on standby. Since the escalated security measures have changed standby policies and all the airlines have been consolidating flights, it's difficult to find these seats. Nevertheless, all airlines have them and you just have to be boisterous and find a nice person in customer service to sell them to you.

Hostels do exist in the U.S., although they are difficult to come by. Many YMCAs rent rooms out at discounted prices as well. If you're a member of your local YMCA, check out possible options of staying there when you travel.

When traveling overseas, word of mouth is the best option. Hostels International operates a Web site, but doesn't give you a great idea of the neighborhood of the hostels or the likelihood that some drunkard will steal your stuff in the middle of the night. Regardless, hostels are the cheapest and easiest way to sleep legally. The only thing to consider is that many won't let you enter the facility after midnight. This means all partying and sobering up must be done early, to avoid getting locked out of the hostel at night.

Lastly, insurance is something to think about. Getting sick isn't fun, especially when on vacation. Check out the Johns Hopkins University health policy, specifically for international travel. Most U.S.-based insurance companies don't offer extensive coverage if you get sick overseas. The Hopkins policy is cheap and works as a second layer of security, if nothing else.

Good luck finding some inexpensive, interesting alternatives to going home and crashing with your parents during Spring Break.