When making big travel plans, what is your preferred method?

Has your method worked for you, and what advice can you give about making travel plans?(horror stories would be fun, too! ) Asked by *Poppet* 45 months ago Similar questions: making big travel plans preferred method Games & Leisure > Travel.

Similar questions: making big travel plans preferred method.

Well... Given a choice, I prefer to make all my own arrangements. Every time I look at a vacation or cruise "package" deal, there is never enough information available to tell me whether it’s what I need. 1."Your airline booking will arrive about two weeks prior to departure.

" To me that means that I’m going to get bumped around the country on the cheapest flight they can find and take 15 hours for a trip that should take 3. Sitting next to the stinky rest room.2."Luxury Hotel". Means we don’t have one yet but when we get enough bodies we’ll see who we can cut a deal with...and tough squat if the quality, location, accommodations, smoking policy, internet service, handicapped accessibility, beds, etc. Ain’t what you need.3."All inclusive".Oh.

Yes. Of course. And I just fell of the turnip truck this morning.

Double the quoted price and you’ll come pretty close to what it’s really gonna cost.Duh.4. "Gourmet meals". See #3.Duh.

I use Travelocity for the basic planning. It’s easy to book the shortest/cheapest airfare and pick my seats. I can select a list of hotels and check TripAdvisor for real info and reviews (not the marketing weasel crap on the hotel sites).

I can search and book the cheapest rental car. They also list a bunch of activities/attractions but I can usually do better on that by myself with a little research. Sometimes, once I find what I want, I can book each separately and save a few bucks but usually it’s pretty close.

Or I can do what I usually do. Say "the hell with it" and go to Key West."A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. " Sources: http://travelocity.com/ JBENZ's Recommendations Travel Planning Online for Dummies Amazon List Price: $24.99 Used from: $3.87 Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5 (based on 6 reviews) Cruise Vacations For Dummies 2007 (Dummies Travel) Amazon List Price: $21.99 Used from: $10.66 Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5 (based on 3 reviews) Caribbean For Dummies (Dummies Travel) Amazon List Price: $21.99 Used from: $2.00 Average Customer Rating: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 9 reviews) Florida For Dummies (Dummies Travel) Amazon List Price: $19.99 Used from: $0.01 Mexico's Beach Resorts For Dummies Amazon List Price: $19.99 Used from: $4.993 .

Whatever gets me a deal... Sadly enough, I get more geeked about saving money and getting great deals than I do a vacation. So I usually stay tuned to my Travelzoo email newsletter for any great package deals. If I’m putting together a trip on my own, which is more often the case, Kayak.com and Priceline.com (the Name Your Own Price feature, not their regular prices) are my two best friends.

Also, back when Spirit Airlines flew my favorite route, Boston-Detroit, I checked them for deals often. Fodor's books and online forums are also very helpful for planning trips yourself. No horror stories so far--highlights include a 16-day, $2400 trip to France & Poland, several $40 nights in 3- and 4-star hotels, $700 roundtrip airfare from Boston to Italy... Google Map View Larger Map n^2's Recommendations Fodor's The Complete Guide to European Cruises, 1st Edition: A cruise lover's guide to selecting the right trip with all the best ports of call (Fodor's Gold Guides) Amazon List Price: $23.95 Used from: $14.73 Average Customer Rating: 5.0 out of 5 (based on 1 reviews) Fodor's Essential Italy, 1st Edition: Rome, Florence, Venice & the Top Spots In Between (Fodor's Gold Guides) Amazon List Price: $18.95 Used from: $9.78 Average Customer Rating: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 4 reviews) Fodor's Poland, 1st Edition (Fodor's Gold Guides) Amazon List Price: $19.95 Used from: $12.07 .

I have done all methods, including just get in the car and drive until you get somewhere you want to be. But when we planned to take our niece to Disneyland, I logged onto the Disneyland website, and bought a package deal. My goodness, compared to the trevious trip down south, that was living in the lap of luxury.

Once we got on the plane, Disneyland handled everything for us, including the souvenirs (a prize in the year of a million dreams promotion) from now on, that's how I want to handle EVERY major trip. For the horror story: the previous trip we drove down - couldn't find a hotel that had reasonable rates - had a two-hour nap in the pickup - drove 1500 miles from Oregon to San Diego essentially non-stop. Compare that to a two hour plane flight, and 1 hour in a shuttle van.

Not to mention on the second trip, we got upgraded to a park-view room, free of charge, and our niece was on her very best behavior for the entire trip. I can't talk about it without saying how proud we are of her for that trip.

Devil in details hello poppet, looking for travel deals and planning trips is my hobby. I'm always looking for stuff, especially cruise deals, but we do take land trips too. On cruises we save money by booking our own flights, but you can only do that when the ship is returning to the same port it left from.To ensure that we don't miss the ship due to air delays, we always get to the port of embarkation a day early.

This gives us time to see the city of departure. Otherwise, you just get to glimpse it out of a bus/taxi window from the airport to the cruise terminal. Of course, this entails finding a good hotel close to the harbor which I love to do.

I do my research on hotels. Com, select a hotel, google it and make our reservation directly w/the hotel. This way, we don't have to prepay the room months in advance.

If I'm not sure about a country, I use the U.S. State Dept. Web-site which provides warnings and info on the country in URL2 Sept. We're going to South Africa, but I'm already planning a trip to Hawaii (our 8th) for Jan. 2009.

See ya... Sources: vacationstogo.com/ .

This is a great question, here is my experience... I love to research and plan and book it all myself. I like the control and the process. I have done it both ways and had more success when I did it all myself.

I also take a lot of time really looking into it instead of accepting the rating system that package deals provide. We also have traveled by winging it. That really works as well.

What I would say is great about that is when you are in the mood,winging it is a terrific way to have an adventure. When you aren't in the mood, it is super stressful. Certain trips we do certain things.

When we take driving adventures, like from CA to Canada, Washington State, Oregon, etc. We wing it and then do enough research that we have some ideas of towns we might want to stay in or target as a resting spot. When we fly I always book it all ourselves now and book each thing individually based on our particularly. When we go to Hawaii, we even book our excursions online.

If you go to one of the stands they tell you they are giving you a good deal but in my experience if you use the internet you can get even better deals. So bottom line, the only way it doesn't work for us is when we book a package deal. All the other ways work well for individual reasons and I would recommend you try both ways and see what feels vacationy for you.

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I want to wish all of you a happy 4th of July. What are your plans, travel, visiting, barbecue, watching fireworks?

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