Travel planning can be overwhelming and stressful especially if you are planning to travel with children and the elderly. Regardless of how many people are off with you on your next vacation, you need to plan it to perfection, and it’s going to take research across more than one travel website to get the best deal for your trip. You want to be able to make the mode of travel, the accommodation, tours and attractions, and the spending money easy to find and easier to manage.
You deserve to go away and plan your trip while creating the priceless memories without any of the stress and a part of that is going to be in the planning. Below, you’ll find seven tips for booking a summer break that goes off to perfection.
Choose The Destination
The most important aspect of a vacation is in where you’re going. Without knowing this, you can’t book flights, go online to rent a condo, set up an itinerary, ensure your interests meet your travel budget – there’s a lot to do and you need to decide where you’re going first. Whether you are planning a romantic trip for two overseas or you’re choosing to stay on land with the family and go to a new destination, the whole point is to have fun, relax and make some memories that will last you a lifetime. You need to know how much time you have because if you only have a week or two work vacation each year, you need to plan your trip around that. Weather and how busy it is will play a part in your decision about where you would like to go, and for your chosen destination, you need to decide whether you go in the high or low seasons: it makes a difference!
Booking Flights/Travel
You may not need to book flights for your trip, especially if a train or a road trip could take you there. This is your big vacation for the year, and you don’t want to spend a minute of it being any kind of uncomfortable. You need to shop around for flights early and make sure that to get the best deals, you need to clear cookies on your web browsers and search a fresh webpage every time, and your computer won’t recognize the websites and searches you’ve previously used.
Book A Place
Where you sleep is a major travel expense for you, and you need to consider the travel party as a whole before you book. Some of you may want to think about the cheapest accommodation, but you want to get the best value over choosing somewhere dirt cheap. You don’t even have to book just the one accommodation style for your trip. You could start out in a hotel, then choose to move to a condo via Airbnb. Families, especially, always prefer the extra facilities of having a living room separate from bedrooms when booking their vacation accommodation, as they have somewhere to relax without the children in the evening. It’s a big decision but your accommodation choice will make the difference between a happy vacation or one filled with difficulty.
Transport
When you’re at your destination, you need to know to get from A to B without any issue. You may be okay, driving to your destination or hiring a car while you’re out there can get you around with ease. If you’re going to be driving in a city like Melbourne, for example, the idea of paying to keep the car in a place like Parkhound Melbourne Parking space may be something worth considering. This can reduce stress when it comes to trying to find a place to park. Additionally, if you don’t drive, you need to look into the public transportation system or get to know the local taxi and Uber drivers! Some places need you to have specific travel cards – such as the Opal in Sydney or the Oyster in London. There are always ways to get around on your vacation, but you will need to put the time into researching it all to make sure you get it right.
Things To Do
Tourist attractions get busy in peak seasons, so when you plan your trip, you need to know which ones are the busiest for the time of year that you are travelling. It’s always nice to just show up and explore but it’s even nicer to sit down and get an itinerary sorted out from top to bottom so that you can book your attraction visits early and escape the crowds. Research and organize all of your ticket before you go and you won’t be stuck in queues trying to get the best deal.
Places To Eat
Dietary issues? Planning ahead is crucial. You can learn so much about a destination through the food and drink that you can buy culturally,and you can plan an entire trip with restaurants as your guide if the mood takes you that way! For some people, the cuisine is their favourite thing about travelling. Discovering new bars and restaurants is just part of the fun of a vacation, so make sure that you plan the food places you want to visit and research the best places to go while you’re at it. TripAdvisor is excellent to help you to make your choices.
Check Your Paperwork
Passports, tickets, boarding passes – all of these things are of high importance as you cannot get on a flight without them. You need to ensure that you have all of them before you get on the plane to your destination, and don’t forget to print off your accommodation invoices, any seating payments and anything you may have booked in advance you need to print off. If you have all the paperwork with you, there is no big scramble to find the emails at the gates of the attractions that you visit. Your paperwork is important for your vacation, and the more attention that you pay to your paperwork, the less chance you have of delays.
Going on vacation is supposed to be a fun, enlightening and uplifting experience and the better you plan it, the more of an exciting experience it will be for you and your family.
