Budget Travel - Cheap holiday getaway from NY/NJ?

It turns out I pretty much have two weeks off starting Dec 22. I could go home, or I could travel. What to do, what to do? If I can find an interesting place that won't kill my bank account, I'm up for some travel.

I can go with a flight between $500 and $1000 (but prefer to keep it closer to $500) and want to keep accommodations on the other side as cheap as possible. This kinda rules out London (as much as I'd like to spend Xmas there).

Any suggestions are most welcome!

Farecompare.com has a map feature that will give you some idea of the cheapest places to fly to from a given city. Then use kayak or similar to find and book fares.

The airfare JFK-SVO-DEL out in the MR forum right now is a helluva deal. about $830 all in and you can keep your costs ont he ground in India pretty low. That said fi you don't have one already, you'd need an Indian visa. I'm nbot sure what they run nowadays for a normal one. My 10 ear multi entry cost me $100 a few years ago. Definitely the best bag for your buck, though perhaps more than you want to spend overall.

peace,
~Ben~

I took a trip to Vieques on the cheap under similar circumstances years ago--i.e. from NY, booking around Thanksgiving, when everything anywhere at all warm or interesting was already overbooked and/or prohibitively expensive. Seems to me like you could still make that work, and although not exactly London, it was fun. Happy to elaborate if it sounds at all interesting.