If there’s one thing about being a travel enthusiast, it’s that there’s always something new to learn. We’ve gone over some “I bet you didn’t know” terminology over the years:
Anyway, the other day I read about another travel term I had never heard of:
Travel dead zones
At first glance, I thought travel dead zones would be something like an area planes can’t fly over, like the 13 places in the U.S. that are no-fly zones. Turns out that’s not what they are. In fact, despite that aura of foreboding of the name, travel dead zones are actually a GOOD thing. Here’s why.
Travel dead zones are the times of the year when travel demand decreases, and the airlines, local hotels, and activities make up for it by sweetening the pot. That would typically mean better prices, discounts, etc.
Travel dead zones typically happen just after or between major holidays — think like the week after Labor Day, the first couple of weeks of December, right after the New Year, etc. Fewer people travel to certain places during those times, which means airlines and hotels often decrease their prices in an attempt to fill empty hotel rooms and put butts into seats.
There’s another advantage to traveling to places during their respective dead zones — there will be less crowds. That means you may have shorter lines to deal with, might be able to get reservations that are harder to get during busier times, etc.
Not all dead zones are the same
Of course, travel dead zones will vary, depending on location and other factors. For example, if a location is popular with people from the UK, crowds will vary based on when their kids are out of school, which differs from when kids in the US are in or out of school. Cruises will have different dead zones in the Caribbean vs. Europe.
How Disney overcame their dead zones
Walt Disney World has become the master of turning dead zones into popular times for visitors.
Back in the day, when we still lived up north, the week after Labor Day was OUR week to go to WDW. The crowds would disappear and all the lines were super short. Same thing went for the first 2 weeks of December, and even a good portion of the spring was relatively empty.
THEEEEEEN Disney got smart. They started offering their International Festival of the Arts for a good portion of the springtime, their Food & Wine Festival in the fall, and although Christmas was always a big deal at Disney, they turned it into a HUGE deal that extended the holiday season from early November into early January. And if there was any other “not quite so busy” time at Disney, they invited cheerleaders to have competitions for days/weeks on end.
So there are now NO dead zones at Walt Disney World. I suppose their stockholders are pleased.
The best way to take advantage of travel dead zones
Perhaps the most important way to take advantage of travel zones is to be flexible. Each travel destination (*cough* besides Disney *cough*) has its own dead zone, and just because you’ve asked for the first week of January for vacation, that may or may not be the most quiet time for some locations. Keep an eye on hotel prices and airfare to get an idea of when a location’s dead zone tends to be, and go from there.
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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
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