Vacations
For most trips, airfare is the most expensive part of the trip. While prices for transatlantic flights have gone down in recent years, they can still put a sizeable dent in any travel budget.1.Deciding the destination: The most important pre requisite for a budgeted vacation is to decide on your destination and do the flight bookings well in advance, atleast 2.5-3 months from the date of travel. One of the most efficient way of doing this is by using google flights. There are 2 steps which needs to be followed.
1st is on the search engine of google flights, put your departure city and travel dates, but leave the destination as empty. 2nd drag the map across to find the ticket prices available for those destinations. This will give you a quick headstart to funnel down on your choice basis the budget & the destination.
For eg, if you are looking to travel towards western europe drag the map towards there and look for the best options.
This also helps you decide in your port of entry for a particular country you wish to travel to.
2.Be flexible with the dates: Airline ticket prices vary greatly depending on the day of the week, time of year, and upcoming holidays, such as Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Thanksgiving, or the Fourth of July. June-August are big months for traveling around Europe. One of the easier solution is travel during off season. But if this option is not what you can work with, then the day of travel makes a difference. Travel during mid week generally have lower fares, but still you need to try and search with multiple options.
3.Flight Options: Prefer connecting flights than direct ones and there are 2 reasons, most importantly, they are less expensive and 2, they are convenient, coz a long flight takes a toll on the body and before reaching you are already exhausted. But ensure the lay over is between 2-3 hours. While choosing the flight also choose the one which lands your destination not later the mid day, as this will enable you to utilize the day to explore and also you pay for the room for the day.
4.Port of Entry & Exit: One of the most critical decisions is to have an apt port of entry and exit, so that you can easily travel through the destinations of your choice without much hustle. I prefer travelling from 1 corner of the country to another one. Another important thing to remember is that these ports should be well connected. Also avoid to keep port of entry and exit as the same, since this will lead to repeated travel at 1 destination along with the time being wasted in traveling. For eg, while preparing Switzerland itinerary, we decided on entry from Geneva & exit from Zurich, two of the busiest airports and very well connected. This helps us covering various demographics along with travelling through the heart of Switzerland. You can also do the reverse, viz. entry from Zurich & exit from Geneva, this is not only convenient but also helps in making a good budget trip.
5.When to Book: Airline fares will keep rising the closer you get to departure, but there is a sweet spot when the airlines begin to either lower or increase fares based on demand. Don’t wait until the last second but don’t book far, far in advance either. The best time to book your flight is around 6–8 weeks before your departure, or around three months before if you are going to your destination during their peak season.
How to finalize the itinerary
So for starters make sure that you are not travelling with your luggage to lot of places, ensure that during 8-9 day of vacation make 2-3 bases and do day trips. Coz packing and repacking is a lot of hassle and more than that is travelling with luggage. And ensure these base cities are centrally located and have good connectivity to make day trips.
Mind you, there is sooo much to see in any country and any itinerary will not fit in everything. But we tried to do best of all the destinations, because it is important to soak in and enjoy fewer places rather than rushing through to cover all.
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