How to choose your destination and organize your trip?

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We propose to answer some of the questions that are regularly addressed to us on Instagram and by email. Of course, there is no miracle solution to travel regularly cheaply and without running a few neurons for the organization 😉! What’s more, many blogs already address this topic and will probably give you other tips, so we will not be original but this article may be useful to “novices”.

We also wish to discuss with you the subject of the few remarks, sometimes annoying, that we can hear. Here is a small anthology: “How many weeks of vacation do you have? »,« You are always on a trip so say! “You have the means to move around the world, you are lucky! “Do you think about the baby too? »And so much more … So yes, having a lot of time off (which is not the case!) And saving money for traveling can go a long way towards satisfying our passion for traveling. Nevertheless the price of a trip is partly a matter of choice in the comfort you want. Although money makes it easier to travel more often and to have superior comfort benefits, having a small budget does not exclude travel as such, However, it will be necessary to make choices both on the periods and the accommodation or even the modes of transport. All this is a question of choice that must be respected🙂

The choice of the destination:

The first step is to define your budget and the season you want to leave. For the budget, do not forget to count the expenses related to the whole trip: plane tickets, car rental, accommodation, meals and activities.

These two sites are very useful to us because they propose a list of the destinations to be made according to the season but also the average budgets for each destination. We also have a habit of browsing the forums of the following sites: the backpacker, travel-forum and of course many blogs that we discover through the search engine . Also , we decide regularly following a few questions we ask ourselves: What do we want to do? Do we have this desire to meet nature? in the sun, under the snow? or discover the lively and cultural atmosphere of the big cities? So many questions that allow us to know what one and the other want to see. When we do not agree, we put our ideas on paper and put them in order of preference and then we discuss … 😀and Amandine often wins!

We offer some examples of destination to do according to our seasons in France:

December-March : The West Indies (Guadeloupe, Martinique, etc), Asia (Thailand, China, Vietnam, etc.)
April- June : Costa Rica, Brazil, Peru: Central and Latin America and Eastern USA
July-September : Indonesia, Iceland, South Africa, Europe.
October-December : Argentina, Japan.

We also offer some ideas of destination specific to the discoveries you want to make, this list is far from exhaustive:

Nature & Nature : Costa Rica, Reunion Island, Iceland, Argentina, Alaska.
Beaches & nautical activities : French Polynesia, The Antilles, Maldives, Seychelles, Corsica.
City & Animation : New York, London, Amsterdam, Berlin.
City & Culture : Budapest, Prague, Rome, Paris.

Of course, if you want to leave at the ideal period, you enter the so-called high season , with prices at the highest (flights and accommodation are 2 to 3 times more expensive than in low season) and tourists by thousands ! So if you want to do the destination but without paying the high season prices, you can go in low season or at the beginning or end of the high season.You will probably have some savings and the time may not be so bad … For example, many friends go to Thailand in the summer while the season is not the most conducive (high season is from January to March) in terms of weather, but prices are a bit cheaper and the weather can sometimes offer nice surprises. Concerning us, we try to leave in the seasons called “high” but either at the beginning or at the end . For Guadeloupe and with the Promovacances agency, Amandine paid “only” 700 euros for her stay (flight, accommodation and car rental) for a week in early December, which is the beginning of the high season, or even the end of the low season where it can sometimes still rain.

The choice of guides:

As you can see in the photo that illustrates the article, we use different guides according to our travels such as The Backpacker, Lonely Planet, Le Petit Futé, Michelin, Evasion, Cartoville …. We do not necessarily have a guide of predilection. In fact, everything depends on the destination. In all objectivity, it sometimes happens that the guide of the Routard, rich in good addresses, is not always very well updated, it is however airy and therefore easy to browse. The Lonely Planet defends itself very well too, with fewer false notes in terms of actualization but we sometimes find it a little less fluid in its reading. One advice in our opinion: go to the travel bookstores or major retailers to leaf through the different guides to choose your travel companion.

The choice of plane tickets:

After choosing your destination, the important step is to book your tickets. Several tips :

Join the aerial agencies newsletters are like Lufthansa that offers a lot of promotions for Asia and North and South America and the Gulf airlines like Emirates or Qatar to destinations in South Asia . It was via the Lufthansa newsletter to which we subscribed that we were able to take advantage of a promotion for Japan with an A / R for 500 euros per person in November. This promotion was only valid for 72 hours ….
Please ask for are companies say lowcost (Easyjet, Ryanair, Vueling) but also the airports concerned with its flights. We went to some European destinations with these companies especially for the time of a weekend. The sometimes very low prices can be interesting even if it is true that the airports are often eccentric (with Ryanair in particular).
Compare the tickets via the Skyscanner or Liligo flight comparison websites. If you still want to buy your plane tickets directly from the airline’s website, be aware that most of the companies’ websites use the Ip Tracking technique . What is Ip Tracking?The site in question will detect that you are a potential buyer for a specific flight. It will then keep this information by linking it to your IP address (the Internet address of your Box). And on your next visit and search for the same flight, the price of the flight will then climb artificially, and so make you believe that prices are rising rapidly to make you hurry to buy your tickets in the end that expensive than expected.
- Our tips to avoid the pitfalls of Ip Tracking:
  - look at the prices on a computer and then book from another computer (for example in the office) or from your smartphone
  - compare your tickets from the flight comparison sites (listed above). Once your flight is found, these sites will redirect you directly to the airline’s website to finalize your purchase.
If by bad luck you miss or cancel your flight, you are entitled to claim the refund of airport taxes even if your ticket is not refundable. It’s your right. For more details, click here .