Travel Tuesday: 5 Tips for Planning Your Perfect Vacation

Travel Tuesday: 5 Tips for Planning Your Perfect Vacation

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Happy Travel Tuesday! Today I thought it would be great to talk about how to book your perfect trip in five easy steps. I tried to think of all the things I do when I book my trips and the sites I use so hopefully I compiled a great list for you to reference in the future. Enjoy :)

1. Research

The first thing to do is research where you want to go. Explore top destinations, think of where you've never been, places you've only seen in pictures and then look them up! Make sure to ask yourself: Is it doable? affordable? available? It will help you narrow down places and make sure that you're staying in check. 

My favorite place to research is on TripAdvisor. It has everything you need and everything you never thought you did. It's a great way to read up on places, explore new destinations, get other opinions and find an array of hotels, flights, vacation rentals, restaurants as well as helping you find the perfect destination! I mean, what more could you want? 

2. Read and Review

The next thing to do on your narrowed down list of places you want to go is read and review. This is also where TripAdvisor comes into place. You can read up about anything and everything on here. The hotel, the food at the hotel, places to eat, stay, hang out, go out -- anything! It's always good to hear other opinions on the matter (good and bad) so you know what you're in for. When I went to Grand Cayman, I researched all around the island for what was good and what we should do. TripAdvisor is a really great travel tool.

3. Budget

Now that you've narrowed down your list of places to go, count everything up (like hotel, flights, food, car rental and other expenses) and make sure you're within your budget. There's nothing worse than booking a trip and spending all your money so you have zero left over to actually enjoy your time on said trip. 

4. Compare 

Once you've found your ideal destination for your vacation, it's time to start comparing prices. Make sure you have enough time before you need to book so you can compare prices over the week. They change daily and the best days to book anything (hotels/flights) are Tuesdays. Travel Tuesday, am I right?!

Also make sure to clear your cookies. Travel sites will bump up prices when they know you've been searching around. So find the best places with the cheapest fairs on Tuesday with a clean computer. 

5. Book

Now it's time to book, woohoo! Below are my favorite tools and websites to book online:

Flight: I love using Google Flights (read more about it here) because it's just really intuitive and gives me the ability to easily search and pick out my flights.

Hotel: Wyndham and Hilton are great go-to's because they're affordable and available almost anywhere you want to go. 

Travel Sites: TripAdvisor and JetSetter and great resources for one-stop shopping when traveling. 

Booking Sites: Hotels.com, Booking.com, Priceline and Expedia are all great places to book as well.