Holiday on a budget - General Question

Amnesia180

Hi There,

I've got a bit of a question for you all...

My Wife and I got married in January and would like to go on our "honeymoon" in October. We're on a budget of approx £1.5k and were originally thinking TURKEY! We've always been there and like it... however, we want to do something different and were thinking maybe a city break like Venice, or Rome... even Ireland?

The problem we have is, we'll only be able to go for 5 - 7 days and would want to know what we're doing before we get there. We want to experience the things they show you on the adverts (i.e: lovely cathedrals, or particular points of interest).

Can anyone recommend any way of planning this or any good companies who arrange these types of holiday to a budget?

Any advice to start me off in the right direction would be great and then I may have more specific questions from there. Alternatively, if you need any further info from me to help answer, please ask :-)

Thanks!
Amnesia

zagfles

You're best getting an opinionated guide book (eg Rough Guide, Lonely Planet etc) for the places you're interested in, both for deciding where to go and what to do there. They tend to do specific city guides which will be more detailed than a book covering the whole country.

Incapuppy

Yes, as above, a good guide book will be invaluable.

It's a long time since I was there but ISTR that Rome is fairly walkable with loads of wonderful places to see.

jackieblack

I always get a variety of guide books from the local library for research. I have saved lots of ££ over the years by doing this.

Doshwaster

Amnesia180 wrote: »

Hi There,

I've got a bit of a question for you all...

My Wife and I got married in January and would like to go on our "honeymoon" in October. We're on a budget of approx £1.5k and were originally thinking TURKEY! We've always been there and like it... however, we want to do something different and were thinking maybe a city break like Venice, or Rome... even Ireland?

Venice, Rome and Dublin are all great places for a city break but I don't think I would call any of them a "budget" destination - though it all depends on how much money you have to spend and what you want to do. If you want to go out drinking in Dublin you'll probably need a second mortgage.

mummybearx

What about doing a few cities in Italy over the week? Fly into Pisa, spend two days seeing Florence and Pisa, then move up to Milan for two days, then onto Lake Maggiore?

Travelling internally by train and bus is really easy to do and fairly inexpensive.

But I'm biased, we are flying to Milan to head to Stresa next week, second time at the lake and we love it

We started by googling 'things to do in...' and seeing what came up. Took a note of anything I liked the look of. If there was lots of things I liked in one area, I looked into flights, see what dates had good prices etc.
From there, I looked at hotels in the area, again checking prices, adding in breakfast prices etc. Then added up the totals and see if we could afford it. We used Easyjet for flights and booked hotels with hotels.com (when we went to Lake Garda in May last year). In October last year and next week, we booked a self catering apartment through holidaylettings.co.uk, found a really cheap little flat just up the hill from Lake Maggiore, perfect for us as we were only sleeping and showering there, I had lots of day trips planned :-)

Look out for discount codes for your hotel bookings, and go through a cashback site!!

littlereddevil

If you love Turkey, how about Istanbul>
Fabulous city

getmore4less

£1500 will get you a cruise for 2 in Oct.

eg Venice to Rome 7nights from £303pp


http://www.ncl.co.uk/booking.php?stage=sailing_details&offer_id=72535

trailingspouse

For a honeymoon on a budget, I would suggest somewhere swanky close to home. We went to Nice in the south of France - our fortnight coincided (deliberately) with the Monaco Grand Prix, and (accidentally) with the Cannes film festival. We rented an apartment on the Promenade des Anglais, and promenaded with the best of them.
October is difficult if you want some warmth and sunshine - so I think you need to decide a) do you want a city break (where there's lots of inside things to do if the weather's not so good, or b) do you want somewhere where you're likely to get the sunshine (such as Turkey). Having said that, we went to Venice one year in January, and it was fab - dry, sunny, chilly enough for a jacket but no worse than that, few tourists, and no smell.

Bob_the_Saver

Incapuppy wrote: »

Yes, as above, a good guide book will be invaluable.

It's a long time since I was there but ISTR that Rome is fairly walkable with loads of wonderful places to see.

if you can avoid the pickpockets

Bob_the_Saver

littlereddevil wrote: »

If you love Turkey, how about Istanbul>
Fabulous city

Yep....................