According to Europe Language Jobs, most people who live abroad visit home one to three times a year. Nomads can plan the same way. This guide helps you choose a number of trips and find a fare for your route. It also turns the total into a monthly amount you can set aside.
How to Plan and Price Your Flights Home
1. Choose how many trips to plan for
MBO Partners tracks US nomads each year. In 2025, the average nomad visited 6.2 locations, down from 7.2 in 2023, and stayed 6.4 weeks at each one. Those numbers describe moves between bases. A trip home adds more flights on top of them.
Distance affects how often people go home. A study in the Journal of Economic Geography looked at people who had moved abroad. It found that they travel home less often as distance and fares go up.
A simple planning rule follows from this.
- Home is under about 5 hours away by air: Two or three trips a year is a reasonable plan. Short flights keep each trip cheap.
- Home is 6 to 11 hours away: One or two trips a year is a reasonable plan.
- Home is 12 hours or more away: One trip a year is a reasonable plan, and a second trip is a bonus.
These numbers are starting points. Time off work, family events, and visa rules can all change them. Longer stays mean fewer moves, and fewer moves mean fewer flights to pay for.
2. Find a fare for your route
Search the route in both directions, because a fare from your base to home can differ from a fare from home to your base. You can check fares from your base to home on FlyBibe to see what your route costs.
Here is an example. Korean Air listed the lowest round-trip economy fares from US cities to Bali for trips between early September and early November 2026.
- New York: $886
- Chicago: $924
- Seattle: $1,011
- Dallas: $1,050
- Honolulu: $1,265
These are the lowest fares the airline had seen recently, so they show the cheap end of the range. A fare for a peak date will usually cost more.
Prices are also rising. GBTA, a business travel group, forecasts that economy fares will rise 8.7% in 2026 and 1.1% in 2027. A buffer of about 10% on top of today’s fare leaves some room for this.
For a Bali trip from the US, a planning fare of about $1,000 per round trip fits the $886 to $1,050 range for mainland cities.
3. Check the calendar before you set the budget
The date of a trip home can change the price a great deal. Fares for Christmas and New Year rise sharply.
Hopper’s analysis, reported by The Washington Post, found that US domestic flights for Christmas average $452, up 23% from 2025. KAYAK found that flying during Christmas week instead of the week before could cut international fares by up to 34%.
The booking window matters too.
- International flights in general: According to Going, the best time to book international flights is usually two to eight months before departure.
- Christmas trips: Google found the lowest Christmas fares about 56 days before departure, with a low range of 33 to 67 days. For Christmas 2026, Google points to October 27 to 29.
- Quiet months: The cheapest months to fly differ by region. ShopBack reports that May to early October is usually the cheapest window for US to Bangkok fares.
If you want to be home for the holidays, booking early is especially useful.
4. Lower the cost of each trip
A few habits can reduce the total without cutting the number of visits.
- Routing a move through home: Fly from your current base to home, then from home to your next base. The visit replaces a move you were going to pay for anyway. Two one-way tickets fit this plan well. KAYAK found that two one-way tickets cost up to 30% less than a round trip on some international holiday routes. Round trips are still usually cheaper overall, so compare both.
- Fare alerts: Alerts watch your route for you. According to Going, its alerts have caught deals such as $63 flights to Chile and $202 flights to Japan. Our list of the best apps for tracking flight price drops can help you pick one.
- Points and miles: Points can pay for part or all of a ticket home. A travel credit card with a sign-up bonus is one way to build points before a trip.
- Family visits to you: Some nomads invite a relative to visit instead of flying home. Whether this costs less depends on your route and how many people travel.
5. Turn the total into a monthly amount
Use this formula. Multiply the planning fare by the number of trips, add 10%, and divide by 12.
Here is the math for a planning fare of $1,000.
- One trip: $1,000 plus 10% is $1,100 a year, or about $92 a month.
- Two trips: $2,200 a year, or about $183 a month.
- Three trips: $3,300 a year, or $275 a month.
To adjust the numbers for your route, search one quiet month and one holiday week. Average the two fares and use the result as your planning fare. For example, if a quiet-month fare is $900 and a holiday fare is $1,400, the planning fare is $1,150.
The ticket is only part of a trip home. A full budget also has a line for local transport, gifts, and a place to stay.
If your income changes from month to month, a fixed monthly amount can be hard to keep. Our guide to budgeting with a variable income shows one way to handle this.
A Common Mistake: Budgeting for an Average Month
A common error is to take the lowest fare seen online and use it for each trip. The family visit then falls in late December, when fares are at their highest. KAYAK found that a shift of a few days around Christmas can change international fares by up to 34%, which shows how large the difference can be.
Pricing each trip on its own date avoids this. A quiet-month trip and a holiday trip can have very different costs, even on the same route.
Some visas and residence permits also limit how long a holder can be outside the country. It is worth reading the rules before booking a long trip home.
Plan the Trip Home
A realistic plan for flights home is one to three trips a year, priced on the dates you will actually fly. Add a buffer of about 10%, then save a fixed amount each month so the ticket price does not arrive all at once. A small monthly amount set aside early makes a large fare easier to pay. When your route and dates are clear, search flights home on FlyBibe and compare fares before you book.