Posts Tagged ‘Travel Planning’
This really has been the week of Eyjafjallajökull, but since you’re now tired of pronunciation jokes and the rather old news of it all, I won’t list any of the great commentary written about it last week. Ahem.
Luckily there’s still a truckload of excellent posts out there to spotlight this week. And with those, tips galore!
To wit:
Getting to and around northern/northwestern Europe is a difficult to nearly impossible feat at the moment with inactive airports, train bottlenecks, unavailable rental cars and a traveler’s malaise darker than the ash cloud that threatens your plans. Even if you manage to get there, expensive hotels, crowds and unfavorable exchange rates will only push you closer to the brink. But if you simply adore Europe and don’t want to miss its charms simply because of unfortunate geography, I’ve assembled a few great alternatives to keep that European sizzle inside your veins.
Here are the 7 best Europe-like places in the world that won’t force you through a volcanic zone to get there:
In order to get to the world’s remote locations or else simply to get the best prices, connecting is an unavoidable inconvenience. The time-consuming nature of landing an airplane, the de-boarding, re-boarding and making sure your bags follow can add up to a ruinous day. Stops may be a necessity but the headaches will usually rise in correlation with the number of times your plane touches down.
Here are the world’s worst places to route through, and why:
You may not realize it in a phone conversation but Justin helps his clients from his flat in Sao Paulo, Brazil; he’s one of AirTreks’ 8 travel consultants living outside of San Francisco. Being in Brazil may explain his desire to see more of the South American continent on his dream trip. He’s also including a country that’s proving to be very popular with the agents here: Maldives.
To Justin I posed the Your Agent’s Dream Trip question:
“Without having to state your reasons, and if cost was of no importance, what would be your dream around-the-world trip in 10 stops or less.”
Here’s what Justin came up with, starting in Sao Paulo:
It sounds like a country-western song, but you need money to make it on the road. Food, lodging, transportation, activities, each require you to pay and pay alike. Unfortunately, to best know how to spend your money practically requires a degree in economics. With fees, limits, percentages and acres of fine print it’s extremely difficult to avoid being nickled and dimed.
Here’s your how-to for avoiding the dreaded “fee fatigue”:
Dream...
The travel consultants currently employed at AirTreks have a vast pool of travel experience. Today we start a new series entitled “Your Agent’s Dream Trip” conceived to bring the readers of this blog planning suggestions and possibly some dreams of their own.
The question was put to the travel consultants, “without having to state your reasons, and if cost was of no importance, what would be your dream around-the-world trip in 10 stops or less.”
Image credit: Ghost of Kuji
Working with travelers over the years helping set up their trips-of-a-lifetime, I’ve managed to pinpoint some of the more problematic issues they subject themselves to before they come to us. Most of the time their research is been spot on and the trip looks wonderful – they have realistic goals and are honest about their expectations. Other times a little work is needed to get a solid, cost-effective itinerary, one that won’t end up driving them crazy in the long run.
In order to avoid itinerary problems before they come to the fore, here are a few of common mistakes people make during their trip planning stages and how to see yourself out of them:
Image credit: mason bryant
Ah, the 21st century. It doesn’t seem possible we made it through the stone ages of the nineties without the online conveniences we currently have. But we did, and now here’s a list of great travel tools for the modern international traveler.
Make your traveling life a little easier and bookmark these 10 essential websites:
A handful of optimists out there are saying the Great Recession is winding down. But for many of the penny-pinching masses life still isn’t all caviar and yachting. Quite the contrary—budgets are still very much in fashion. But since travel never seems to be far off the lifestyle radar, how people 
travel has been angling more toward the new era. To help those who are augmenting their travel funds with ramen-noodle and tap-water dinners, I’ve put together a list of top places where the US dollar will make the most noise, the ones with the highest bang-for-buck quotient.
Generally speaking, your first-world money tends to deliver best results in developing nations, places like Central America, South East Asia and destinations such as Eastern Europe and India, where the local economy must support people who make less money. Of course some will argue that traveling to these places creates an ethical disparity since you may be contributing to the economy only to take advantage of it. I tend to disagree – most of these places are downright stunning. But even with the uneasy philosophical arguments echoing, in terms of traveling experiences, they really can’t be beat.
Subscribe
Around the Web
