I’ve not visited a travel agent for a few years, actually since my trip to Spain in 2002, where I spent a few hundred pounds on what was supposed to be a quiet, relaxing holiday, and I ended up staying next to a building site for the week – you risked your life laying near the swimming pool as debris from the site was landing near or in the swimming pool.

Since then I decided to organise and book my own DIY (do it yourself) holiday – okay it takes you a little longer than going into the travel agents, but you’ll save money, and you’ll be satisfied that you have done as much research as possible on the hotel prior to departure.

Flights..

Book your flight as early as possible, and do so before booking any hotel or accommodation. Rather than booking with a travel agent go direct to the airlines website, so if your wanting to fly to Faro, Portugal, and your nearest airport is Leeds & Bradford, find out which airlines fly there – in this example it would be Jet2.com

The later you leave the flight, the more expensive it will be – also try and depart and arrive back on a week day as this reduces the cost considerably. Personally, I don’t like arriving at my destination in the evening, or early the early hours, so I pay that little bit extra and depart in the early afternoon. If your not bothered about when you fly though you can save more money by booking a late night or early morning flight.

Travel Insurance

Thousands of people forget that even though they are booking a long weekend trip, or weeks holiday abroad, that they don’t need insurance – don’t be a fool – buy travel insurance, it is so cheap nowadays and if you shop around you can get some great deals.

Remember the holidaymaker who visited Turkey on a relaxing holiday, got himself injured and hospitalised, and ended up with a £16,000 medical and hospital bill – it’s simply not worth all of this hassle and stress.

Make sure you take our adequate insurance – for example if your going skydiving, take our insurance that covers such an activity – if your injured through this your insurance company won’t pay out unless you have taken the correct insurance, and always read the small print on the insurance documents.

If you a European resident than make sure you apply for the European Health Insurance Card, this means you’ll get free or discounted health and medical care whilst you are in a European State destination – more information can be found on my European Health Insurance Guide.

Hotels & Accommodation

I cannot recommend strongly enough that you research your destination – I actually enjoy doing this and it gets me excited about the holiday. Have a think about whereabouts you want to stay, for example, when I was organising my trip to Paris, I wanted to be near the Eiffel Tower, so I looked for hotels that were located close by.

Get a list of five hotels that you like the look of and then visit www.local.google.com and you can see exactly, how close to the attractions, or beach, etc your hotel is located. If you view the map in the satellite view, you’ll see everything from the trees to the cars parked up on the streets! This is a great way of viewing the local area near the hotel.

Once you have the list then visit hotel review websites like www.tripadvisor.com, www.travel-library.com and www.travel.yahoo.com and enter the name of the hotel into the searching facility, you will then see reviews from other travellers who have visited the hotel – you’ll get to see what the hotel is really like, and if it has some bad comments about it.

Some of the travellers leave photographs, which gives you an better view of the hotel, than from the hotel pictures that are probably dated on the hotel website(s). Once you’ve narrowed it down to one or two hotels you can then visit Google and do a search on the hotel name, just to see if any bad press, and in some occasions I’ve found that the hotel has building work nearby – so it pays to research your destination before you travel.

Airport Transfer

Package holidays are now including airport transfers in the price of your package holiday, no longer do you get free transfers from the airport to your hotel destination. When you are booking your holiday yourself, then you need to be aware that you are left to your own devices to find and get to your destination hotel.

You could go on the public transport system, i.e. tube, bus or train, or take a local taxi which could be expensive – the best way I travel is to book a transfer when I am booking for my holiday, and I have used a number of airport transfer companies like www.resorthoppa.com, www.holidaytaxis.com or www.shuttledirect.com

The advantage of using this type of company is that you have someone waiting at the airport with your name on a piece of card – you then jump in a car, and then are taking straight to the hotel, you’ve paid before you have travelled, so no hassles with getting money changed.

A lot of the drivers speak English if your in a non English speaking country, and it’s a great way to learn more about the destination, or if the destination has any dangerous districts which you should keep away from.

Finally..

Booking your holiday independently, means you are going to cut out the “middle man” and you can sit back at your hotel, relaxing knowing that you have booked the holiday, and made the right decisions - if you have a problem with your hotel, you can depart to another hotel knowing that you’ve only paid for the period you’ve stopped there, with a package holiday it is much more difficult to do this because you have paid for 100% of your holiday up front.

• What’s good for me might not be for you
• Travel powered by the Internet
• Where’s our Airport Transfer?
• Be Safe - Get Travel Insurance!

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