Tag: Trip Planning

So you’ve decided you’re going to go travel somewhere.  Now what? Time to book your flight!

I have friends and family who shared with me that they aren’t sure how to find the best flight deals or even how to go about booking their flights. So I’m sharing my method and I hope it helps you in booking your next adventure.

I like to start with booking my flight. It gets me locked in and committed and gives me something to look forward to.  It’s exciting when you book your flight, there is a sense of anticipation. You feel like “hey I’m really doing this!”  It’s a good feeling.

Usually, you want to book your flight about one to two months in advance. However, this depends on where you are going.  I recently booked a trip to Europe and learned that it was better to book my flights well over 90 days in advance. In fact, I booked our flights about 5 months in advance and found that the prices only continued to go up from there.  

 

Another example is during my research on Thailand, according to my online research I discovered that if you go during peak season you should book up to 1 year in advance!  

It really does vary, but usually, you want 1-2 months minimum for most destinations, more is going to give you greater flexibility and pricing options. So if you are able to plan ahead, I’d start your airfare search earlier rather than later.

Easy Steps to Book Your Flight and Get the Best Deal!

1. Go to Skyscanner.com to find cheapest dates to fly
2. Check Expedia.com to see if bundling will save you even more money
3. Book your flight!

STEP ONE: Finding the Best Dates to fly using Skyscanner.com

Skyscanner.com is a great source for finding the cheapest flight.  You can search to see which destinations are cheapest to fly into.  You can search by month to see what dates are the cheapest to travel on.   Additionally, you can set up a saved search for your trip that will alert you of any change in the price of your flight.

Searching for cheap flights to “Everywhere!”

This tool is great if you don’t know where you want to go, but since we are at the “book your flight” step, I’m going to assume you do know where you want to go.  Even so, this tool can still be useful for you at this step in the process.

For example, I just recently booked tickets for a trip to Europe. I knew I wanted to go to Europe, but it didn’t matter to me which country I started out in, my goal was just to get the cheapest flight possible. So I used this search “Everywhere” tool to find out which country was the cheapest for me to fly to.  I discovered that I could get the best deal by flying into London.  This saved me almost $200 one-way on flights to any other country within Europe.

Searching by Month

Probably a more useful tool might be the ability to search for the cheapest tickets to your destination by month.  You may know that you want your trip to be in October, but this allows you to now search and find out the cheapest days in October to travel for your trip.

Skyscanner Saved Searches

You can create a saved search for where and when you want to travel and then you will be alerted if/when the price drops.  This allows you to start planning in advance and if you’re like me you want to check every day to try to find the best deal on airfare, this tool saves you so much time! You no longer have to worry that you’re going to miss the best deal, because when the price changes you will get an email, thus saving yourself hours of time searching.  

To do this, you just enter in your starting/ending destinations and dates and click search.  On the following screen, you will see a link to click for “Get Price Alerts.”

STEP TWO: Bundling with Expedia

So now that you’ve used Skyscanner to help you find the cheapest airfare and dates to travel, I recommend that you go to Expedia.com and see whether or not bundling your airfare with your hotel (and car if renting one) will save you money vs just purchasing the airfare by itself.

I found if you are flying in and out of the same destination that you can often save a good amount with bundling.  Even if you only stay at the initial hotel for part of your trip.

For example, on a trip to Japan, I saved money by bundling our flight with our first hotel in Tokyo and then I booked the rest of our hotels throughout Japan separately. It was cheaper to do this than it was to book my flight and Tokyo hotel individually.

Final Tips:

It is important to have a budget in mind prior to booking any part of your trip and a price point you’re willing to pay for your airfare.  That way when you find the price you want, just book it and be done with it. Don’t keep looking to see if you could have gotten a better deal.  That will drive you mad! (I happen to know something about this.)

As long as you found the price you were willing to pay, your time is better spent elsewhere rather than spending hours upon hours trying to save a few more dollars on your airfare.

STEP THREE: Book Your Flight

Let’s recap: Use Skyscanner to find the cheapest dates to travel, then see if bundling thru Expedia can give you further savings & finally, book your flight!

 

So there you go! It’s as easy as that.  

Now take some time to relax and begin thinking about the adventure you’re about to go on.  To get started booking go to Expedia & Skyscanner.  And for more in this beginning travel series check out Choosing Your Destination & Trip Planning For Beginners.

Happy Planning!

I think most people have a bucket list of places they’d like to visit and this is usually the starting point when planning their next vacation. Budget is also a deciding factor when choosing where to go. And the last factor is time. The amount of time you have for your vacation and the time of year that you plan to travel. So let’s review these three factors when choosing your travel destination.

Bucket List Destinations:

For some people, this is Hawaii, Disneyland or even Alaska — the last frontier!  For me, I want to go everywhere! But I do have specific places that I want to visit that I have prioritized over other destinations.  

My husband also has places that he is more interested in seeing than others, and so we usually start going over these destinations together when trying to decide where we will go on vacation next.  We try to come up with our top 5 destinations that each of us would choose to go to next. So for example maybe it would be Thailand, Tahiti, Iceland, Alaska, Norway. Then we start looking at the other factors of budget and time.

Budget:

As much as we’d all love to have bottomless budgets for which to plan our vacations, most of us do not, and I find that budget is one of the most significant factors for deciding where to go.

I plan for years where I go on smaller trips locally or in the U.S. and save up to go on “bigger” trips every few years.  There are places like Tahiti, which are on my bucket list that has been pushed down the list as I know that it will be one of the most expensive destinations on my list, so it is a destination that gets saved for a later time, perhaps for a special anniversary or milestone celebration.

Timing:

My husband and I have wanted to visit Thailand for years, and from my research, I read that the best time to visit is November thru March, as the rest of the time is during their rainy and hot season.

So if we planned to take two weeks off in August, we probably choose to travel somewhere other than Thailand. As it’s unlikely we’d want to visit Thailand in the absolute hottest, rainiest and most humid time of the year.  Now if for some reason that was our only time to travel and that was “the” place we absolutely wanted to go, then we would go, and we would make the most of it.

So do your research and plan accordingly, and if you feel you “must” go to a place and you don’t want to wait for a better time of year, or maybe it’s just not possible for you to go any other time, I say go!  Just know what you’re going to be dealing with, pack accordingly and don’t forget to bring your adventurous attitude.

There are benefits to off-season travel, fewer crowds, and lower costs being the two biggest benefits. So it’s always worth considering that option.

Length of Vacation:

If you only have seven days for your vacation, then you will probably not want to spend 40 hrs round trip flying to say, Thailand.  You will most likely want to spend less than 10 hours total in flight time, 20 hours would probably be the max most people would spend with that short period of time.  

The traveling portion of a journey takes up usually two days of the trip, one day getting to your destination and one day returning home. So if you had seven days total and you are flying somewhere, then you only have 5 full days in that destination.

Typically if I will have 20+ hours round trip of flight time I prefer to have at least ten days at my destination.

Consider all the things you want to see and do and whether or not you will have enough time to really make it worth the trip.

A couple of other things to consider:

You will want to factor in whether or not you’ll need a visa or passport to travel to your intended destination, and if so, determine how long it will take you to get the necessary documents. If you are making last minute travel plans, this may play a big role when choosing your travel destination.

The more time you have to plan, the better you will be able to research what to do and the best deals.  Some destinations require more research and planning than others.

Some Final Thoughts on Choosing Your Travel Destination

It is essential to know who you are.

If you know you’re the type of person who hates the heat and only wants to go outside when it’s fair weather, then be honest with yourself and your traveling partner(s) and plan to avoid traveling in conditions where you are likely to only huddle inside your hotel room.

You can never plan for “everything.”

You can plan and prepare extensively, but life has a way of throwing us curve balls and sometimes things don’t go as we want them to, so you have to roll with the punches when this happens and choose to have a good time no matter what.  Remind yourself: “I could be sitting in a cubicle right now.” “I could be cleaning my bathroom” “I could be ____” You fill in the blank, but rarely are things so bad on a trip that you can’t find the positive and still enjoy your adventure.

Always keeping in mind that things can change unexpedtedly and happiness is a choice no matter where we are.

Hopefully, this helps you think through your options when choosing a travel destination. For more on how to start planning a trip, check out Trip Planning 101.

Or check out this article on Booking Your Flight.

Happy Planning!

This post is the beginning of a series of articles that I will write tailored towards the beginner traveler.  I have friends and family who are new to trip planning. Many have never planned a trip that involved booking a flight or planning an international trip.  In the beginning, this may seem scary and a little overwhelming. But rest assured, it is not as hard as it might seem.

Here are the 5 questions to ask yourself as you begin your trip planning.

1. Why are you going?
2. Where do you want to go?
3. When do you want to go?
4. How long will you be gone?
5. What do you want to see?

Why are you going?

Ok, so you should never need a “why” to travel.  You travel because in the words of Hans Christian Andersen: “To Travel is to Live.”

For many people, they are traveling to fulfill a dream, to take their family to Disney World or to celebrate a milestone.  Traveling creates those lifelong memories, the moments we look fondly back on, the ones that inspire us to do more and also give us the satisfaction of a dream fulfilled.  So take the time to figure out what you want to get out of it so that you can make the most of your adventure.

Where do you want to go?

With any trip, you must first decide where you want to go.  If you’ve got a bucket list, I’d say choose based on where you want to go most first. Or if you’re restricted to a specific time of the year, I’d choose based on which destination has the best weather or best deals during that time.  Or you could toss a bunch of places written down into a hat, and randomly pick one out and go with that! Most people don’t choose this option, but it doesn’t mean you can’t!

I am currently planning a two month trip through Europe where I will be traveling to different countries. I will plan each one as a trip in and of itself.  So for my “where” in this example, I will choose France.

When do you want to go?

My friend Moe and I decided to leave in September.  That was when we went on our very first trip together as teenagers, and so it is fitting for us to leave again at the same time.  Plus, it works out best for our schedules and our budget. Leaving in September will be a little cheaper, and as we move into the shoulder season, our costs should go down significantly from what it would be to travel during the summer or peak season.

You will need to decide “when” based on your own needs.  Traveling in the shoulder season or off season can be much more cost effective, but you may need to contend with colder or rainier weather and certain attractions not being open.  If you are okay with that, then I recommend you look at that as an option for deciding your “when.”

For example, I traveled to Italy in February, and there were a lot fewer crowds, and yet once you get down to Rome and further South, I didn’t even need a coat most days to go out, just a sweater or light jacket.

How long will you be gone?

This is often decided based on your work schedule and how much vacation time you have to take.  Just know that whatever amount of time you have, you can always plan another trip. So soak in everything you can on this one, but don’t despair if you don’t have the amount of time you would wish to spend.  You can’t see it all in one visit.

What do you want to see?

Okay, so we’ve got the when, where, how long and now onto the fun part, what to see, and do!

This is where you’ll want to start your must-see list.  For example, I’m planning a trip to France, and I know that my must-see list includes: Paris, Normandy, Loire Valley & Lyon.  I know that in Paris I want to see the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, The Louvre and so on.

There’s a good chance you already have a bucket list of places you want to see for your intended destination.  However, if you don’t, the next step will help create your list of must-sees.

Research your destination.

Do a search online and also pick out some books thru your library (and yes books are still useful), our library system has a vast assortment of Ebooks as well as printed.  I like to use both internet resources as well as printed books.

I will generally start by doing an online search of “France Itinerary.”  Then I will begin combing through the results to see what inspires me and sounds like a place I’d like to visit.

You want places that make you smile just thinking about them. Those should be on your must-see list.

So for my trip, I know the following:

• Why: To fulfill a bucket list dream and celebrate a lifelong friendship
• Where: France
• When: October
• How long: 10 days
• What to see: Paris, Normandy, Loire Valley & Lyon

It is just as easy as deciding where you want to go, when and for how long, then you make your list of what to see and you edit to fit your trip length.

1. 

Trip Editing

If you’ve only got three days in France, then plan on staying in Paris and maybe a day trip just outside the city.  But you’re not going to have time to travel to the Loire Valley or Normandy and give Paris any reasonable amount of time in only three days.  This would be true of any major metropolitan area.

The same principle applies whether it’s one week, two weeks, or two months.  You will always need to edit and make some hard decisions on what is important to you for this trip and what you will need to wait to see until your next trip.

This makes it especially troublesome when you only have one vacation per year, or you’re only able to do one major trip every five years and so on.  So I understand the need to make the most of every trip.  I also know that trying to cram in too much can leave you exhausted and frustrated.

This is an adventure, a dream come true, and it should be enjoyed and always remembered fondly.  So accept the limitations of each trip and then make the most of the time you have.

For more on how to choose where to travel next check out Choosing Your Travel Destination.  Or if you already know where you want to go next, check out the post: Booking Your Flight. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments below or send me an email. I’d love to hear from you!

Happy planning!