What’s the best way to get to Budapest?

How do you do Budapest in a weekend? Well, it helps if you live in the greater New York City area, because as of this year Delta Air Lines (www.delta.com)—and staring next year, American Airlines (www.aa.com)—offers nonstop seasonal flights (in about 9.5 hours) from JFK to the rapidly expanding Budapest airport.

Off-season, you can still go, of course, but you will transfer somewhere like Paris or London and the journey will take up to 12 hours.

That might actually be a preferable way to go, because one thing those direct flights are not is cheap.

Coach class starts around $1,000 roundtrip (though I highly recommend their Business First service, if you have the scratch—I don’t, which is why I was only too happy to let Delta pick up the tab for me; speaking of which: yes, it’s perfectly natural to hate travel writers).

However, if you don’t mind transferring in Europe, you can get roundtrip plane tickets for as little as $650, including taxes and fees (found that fare on a LOT flight from New York via Warsaw usingKayak.com).

If you are already in Europe, however (or perhaps can snag an inexpensive fare to London; this winter they’re bottoming out around $397 roundtrip at www.AuroEurope.com), you are in luck, since Budapest is the home base for the low-cost airline Wizz Air (www.wizzair.com). Flights from London’s Luton airport run as little as £25 (about $40) including taxes.

Even better, once you get there, everything in Budapest is pretty inexpensive.