If you are in the market for cheap airplane tickets or really cheap vacation packages overseas, Latin America (particularly Central America) and South East Asia are definitely parts of the world that you should check out.
Latin America is attractive to fly to because it is cheaper to fly into hub cities there and you will not have to deal with jet lag, which is a typical problem with overseas travel. To really take advantage of some of the cheap deals available you need to be open to flying on a budget carrier.
For example, Spirit Air offers fares frequently for less that $250 round trip from Fort Lauderdale, FL, to 14 destinations in Central and South America. Copa Airlines operates flights out of several U.S. cities to South American destinations through Panama City, a regional hub.
Although airline tickets to Southeast Asia cost more, once there you can fly cheap throughout the region using budget airlines. An added advantage of vacationing there is low prices for food, hotels, and entertainment.
You can apply the same approach successfully to Europe. Hamburg, Germany and Dublin, Ireland, are affordable hubs from which you fly cheaply to other destinations in Europe.