Planning your holiday?

poppy_f1

first i normally check to see who flys where on the dates im looking for then deciding where to go

tronski

I'm currently looking for a family package holiday.

I start by sorting out the date I want to travel on and how long for. I also want to go all inclusive. Not fussed about destination - just want to see what the prices are like. So I find that I need to go back to the home page to amend my search and go through all the locations listed.

I'd love a site where you don't need to specify a destination, it just brings up deals based on the date/location you wish to travel from.

DJSKYLINE

Wow many thanks for the further input. There are some more greats posts here that will be a great help to me!! Thats a perfect format of answer Merlinormartin, thank you!

And thanks everyone else equally, I am very grateful for you taking your time to answer this and help with my research!

SteveJW

Don't forget to factor in where you want to fly from / where you live. We are 30 minutes from Humberside Airport, compared to couple of hours to Manchester. Cost of fuel etc can negate any saving made on the holiday price

ScottySmog

Can't believe nobody's mentioned this as step 1:

- Agree dates off work with employer.

Unless you're all retired or lottery winners

pelirocco

Book flights
Book Hotel

Check booking a day or two a head

Find out i am actually flying a day earlier then I thought ( This has happened more times then i dare admit )

Do some hasty rearranging , chuck clothes in bag , and leave lol

pelirocco

SteveJW wrote: »

Don't forget to factor in where you want to fly from / where you live. We are 30 minutes from Humberside Airport, compared to couple of hours to Manchester. Cost of fuel etc can negate any saving made on the holiday price

This is a big thing for me , My first choice is BA from terminal 5 , because i can be at the airport in less then and hour , and I would rather pay a few £ more then trek off to gatwick , or god forbid Stanstead

Indout96

Don't forget to factor in where you want to fly from

Its more a money thing for us, we are 20 mins from Leeds Bradford 1.5 hours from Manchester but the last few times have had to fly from Heathrow as its been £250 cheaper each !!!!!!!!!!

Agree dates off work with employer

Wife has to book hers 12 / 15 months in advance for the full year so they are set. I am the only one doing my job in the UK so whenever I am off makes very little difference to my department (I am still on line whilst on holiday for emergencies)

whatyadoinsucka

as per others i have a long list of places i want to go. (although its dwindling)
who do i go with friends, or partner.

can i get there easily from my airport or train, can i go to two cities at once look at trains, i like to mix it up city break, beach, mountain, eastern europe (cheap) or (expensive) scandinavia, whats my cash availability
what time of year do i go, will the weather be appropriate. are festivals on,
is it a good time to go, before the hawds or currencies.
croatia is going into the euro in 2013 (maybe not anymore)
so i planned to go next summer as it'll be far cheaper.
i book when i see cheap flights too.

i also use tripadvisor / look at magazines and google places
guardian travel is always inspiring

already booked next year
amsterdam short weekend
salzburg/fussen/munich
norway camping

if only the missus would let me book 3 weeks to albania/macedonia/montenegro/croatia.
flights only £185 return

and finally i must always have flights booked for my next trip before i get home

lynzpower

PompeyPete wrote: »

I always book the flights separately from the accommodation.
Then get to work on the accommodation in slow-time, using Travel Republic, Booking.com, Agoda or Sawadee.
Sometimes I'll leave a gap or two, so that we can just take a chance and turn-up somewhere we fancy along the way.

AND

If you plan on travelling around independently then most similarly minded folk will tell you lots of pre-trip homework is a must, and it's all part of the experience.

Definitely agree with this. ( although not trip advisor )

We have a list of places we would like to go to, and they are all ( pretty much) independent travel type holidays. That said we dont rule out packages either. I would say though we are pretty active on holiday and lying on a beach is really not for me. So like to go to places with plenty of activities and action, and to an extent a cheap destination where its not 5 quid for a coffee etc

We have had packages is when we went on a city break for new year to Amsterdam ( we could have gone anywhere, this was best price)

Grenada ( last minute sun fix: lame location, underwhelming but cheapish).:o

Orlando (good price crap hotel great location exactly what we expected for a barg price) :cool:

We are much more used to planned way in advance flight+accom+attractions etc all seperate, including hotel walkups or booking online in the country at the last minute ( some great prices like this!)

Madrid
Barcelona
Malawi
USA South
Malaysia
Las Vegas & deserts

next up is Hong Kong & the Phillipines ( won the flight) and I am all over the web on this one want to make sure we see everything we can in the short time we are there. Life is too short to eat in crap restaurants on holiday or be in a hotel miles away from your perfect location.

When researching destinations I ( should say we but its me)
*get guidebooks out from the library
*tripadvisor
*lonely planet thorn tree
*look at flight prices and play around with kayak etc
*other forums like frommers/ wanderlust
*go on google maps and look at the photos
*other blogs and forums like city data/roadfood / yelp etc for the US. now open rice for hong kong!

Planning a holiday is part of the holiday.

I was so impressed I managed to drive to our hotel in Nashville with no sat nav ( its failed) or map, all from memory of using googlemaps & streetview :j I had planned this trip really thoroughly and it worked like a dream, even without the sat nav;