Friday, October 02, 2009
Going abroad is quite a challenge especially when it comes to air ticket prices and hotel bookings. Literally you scour for the BEST prices via the internet. You start looking out for airline promotions, hotel promotions, travel agencies promotions etc.
You have to think about whether you are willing to compromise the comfort of travelling via commercial airlines for the low prices of the budget flights. Or you are willing to pay just a bit more for some 2-to-go deal.
Then you go online and ‘research’ on the hotels available, you go to say, trip advisor, and then fill in the advanced search forms with all the criteria:
You have to think about whether you are willing to compromise the comfort of travelling via commercial airlines for the low prices of the budget flights. Or you are willing to pay just a bit more for some 2-to-go deal.
Then you go online and ‘research’ on the hotels available, you go to say, trip advisor, and then fill in the advanced search forms with all the criteria:
- Cheap (not more than SGD $100)
- Near to city area
- Convenient with public transportation readily available, because you want to safe that money for shopping or eating
- Clean rooms and toilets
- Preferably somewhere kind of fashionable (– in a sense that the hotel does not have those late 80s/early 90s sort of décor, in my POV)
While searching for the suitable hotel room (that fulfils your multitude of requirements), you also look at the reviews that the hotel has garnered. Of course, the ones with a high rating and large number of reviews, while fitting into your criteria, would be right at the top of your shortlist.
After which, you cross reference the hotels with other reviews on other booking/advisory sites (which are abundant in the cyber world), and through the process of elimination, finally derive the single, most value for money hotel. But that’s not the end! You will then need to cross reference the pricing with all the different website to get the lowest pricing for that particular hotel of choice.
When you’re finally done with booking of the air tickets and hotels, you’ll then have to plan your itinerary. There are a host of very good websites that provide you with heaps of details on what’s there to see/do/eat etc. Websites like travel-wiki, lonely planet etc will give you a good idea of what are the attractions at any one particular country.
After reading through all these websites, by then, you’d already have a list of activities which you want to partake in; you should come up with a spreadsheet of the activity, the cost involved, contact details etc. From there, you can plan on your budget and stuff like that. It also helps when you get to the airport; you just take all the tourist brochures you can, because there might be some good discount coupons etc in them.
While you are engaged in all the searching and cross referencing, you also need to bear in mind that the plan should be agreeable with whoever you’re travelling with. The difficulty of travelling with another person or persons is that; while you might be willing to fork out more money for certain aspects of your trip, your partner/group might not be. Certain activities that appeal to you might be boring to others. So while planning, there needs to be a consensus on what you want to do/see as a pair/group. Of course, you can make life easier for yourself by travelling with people who are of the same travelling style as you. People who are interested in the same things as you are. That way, no one’s toes are getting stepped on. Everyone will just enjoy as much as the other person. :)
Ladies and Gentlemen, that is how I plan for my holidays. With people I enjoy travelling with. Namely Bubbles (travelled most often with her) and possibly King Kay.
Bubbles: looking forward to our Perth trip! Woots. Can’t wait to see god-ma again and eat all the yums Italian food. Freo crepes babe? And Little Creatures too!!! :p
King Kay: HK HK HK!!!! I’m glad we booked JJ, now we need to see if it lives up to all the reviews man… :)
After which, you cross reference the hotels with other reviews on other booking/advisory sites (which are abundant in the cyber world), and through the process of elimination, finally derive the single, most value for money hotel. But that’s not the end! You will then need to cross reference the pricing with all the different website to get the lowest pricing for that particular hotel of choice.
When you’re finally done with booking of the air tickets and hotels, you’ll then have to plan your itinerary. There are a host of very good websites that provide you with heaps of details on what’s there to see/do/eat etc. Websites like travel-wiki, lonely planet etc will give you a good idea of what are the attractions at any one particular country.
After reading through all these websites, by then, you’d already have a list of activities which you want to partake in; you should come up with a spreadsheet of the activity, the cost involved, contact details etc. From there, you can plan on your budget and stuff like that. It also helps when you get to the airport; you just take all the tourist brochures you can, because there might be some good discount coupons etc in them.
While you are engaged in all the searching and cross referencing, you also need to bear in mind that the plan should be agreeable with whoever you’re travelling with. The difficulty of travelling with another person or persons is that; while you might be willing to fork out more money for certain aspects of your trip, your partner/group might not be. Certain activities that appeal to you might be boring to others. So while planning, there needs to be a consensus on what you want to do/see as a pair/group. Of course, you can make life easier for yourself by travelling with people who are of the same travelling style as you. People who are interested in the same things as you are. That way, no one’s toes are getting stepped on. Everyone will just enjoy as much as the other person. :)
Ladies and Gentlemen, that is how I plan for my holidays. With people I enjoy travelling with. Namely Bubbles (travelled most often with her) and possibly King Kay.
Bubbles: looking forward to our Perth trip! Woots. Can’t wait to see god-ma again and eat all the yums Italian food. Freo crepes babe? And Little Creatures too!!! :p
King Kay: HK HK HK!!!! I’m glad we booked JJ, now we need to see if it lives up to all the reviews man… :)
Labels: me
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 leaping turtles:
Post a Comment