Learn Our Cost Saving Ways We Plan Our Trips

Planning a trip takes a lot of time.

The first step is, of course, picking where you want to go. Beach vacation or road trip in Europe? African photo safari or Australian outback adventure? Once you pick a destination,it is time to start looking for how you are going to get there.

The time of year that you will be traveling will affect the price of tickets. If you are going to be vacationing at peak times like summer or holidays, you will be paying premium prices. Our favorite time to travel is in September and October. Schools are back in session so there are far less families traveling and you can take advantage of off season pricing in most places. We look at prices for tickets to different cities to see which place has the best price and then we build our itinerary from whichever city we are flying into for the lowest price.

Airline tickets change price all the time. We start looking for flight deals at least six months in advance. Google flights will help you look for deals and is our preference because it allows you to book directly with the airline itself and enables you to use any points you may have accrued. The third party booking sites, like Expedia and Travelocity, can be helpful as well but be aware that it may be much harder to cancel if you need to.

The next step is to decide where you will stay. Hotel or AirBnB? When deciding on where to stay, you will need to research what is around your accommodation. Restaurants? Grocery stores? Subway stops or train stations? Being close to your desired spots to visit saves you time. It can also save you money if you don’t have to travel large distances to get to them.

We tend to do half hotel or apartment hotel and half AirBnB. Since we only do carry on when we travel, an accommodation that has a washer and dryer is a necessity at least every few days. Having a place with a kitchen, or at least a kitchenette with a fridge, means we can also cut the cost of the food budget by not having to eat at a restaurant for every meal. AirBnB in the US can be fairly expensive with all the extra fees they tack on (i.e. cleaning fee, damage deposit) but those fees are way less common in Europe. Most of our AirBnB finds will be near the city center and are usually less than $150 a night. Another great option is apartment hotels such as the hotel brand Adina. They have all the amenities of a hotel with the feel of an apartment with kitchens and washers and dryers. Their rates can range from around $80 for a studio to around $300 for their largest two bedroom apartment. These rates, of course, depend on which city you are looking at and the time of year.

The third step is arranging transportation.Will you be renting a car or taking public transit? Our itinerary determines whether we rent a car. If we will be visiting a lot of small towns or out of the way places, we rent a car. Rental cars in Europe are pretty cheap. We usually can find a rental for around $30 a day for an economy car. Be aware that most of the rentals will be manual transmission, there will be a significantly higher cost for an automatic. We always opt for very small cars because if you are visiting the older sections of cities, the streets are very narrow and parking is a challenge.

Trains are also a great option. Traveling between larger cities by train can be a scenic option and is very affordable. Tickets will usually be less than $100 per person and since there are high speed rail options, you can travel to the next place in just a few hours. Airline tickets within the EU are also fairly cheap with very quick flights but then you have to deal with the hassle of an airport.

About a month or so before we leave on our trips, is when we start deciding on the activities we will be doing. This is the time when we start buying all the entrance tickets to museums or locations that have an entrance fee. Buying your attraction tickets ahead of time will save you time and money. Popular tourist destinations will have long wait times for people that are trying to buy their tickets at the window. The Eiffel Tower, for instance, when we went, had a three hour wait to buy a ticket and then another hour at least waiting in the line for your time slot before you could go to the top. With our pre-purchased ticket, we went straight in and only had to wait for our time slot to ride the elevator.

We build in some times in our itinerary that are open slots, in case we find something along the way that we want to do and hadn’t been aware of. Most of our trip will be very planned though, in order to see as much as possible. Steve’s previous military time always shines through with the itinerary, making it feel like we are on a campaign. It is up to you how much you want to do and see. We like to be very busy but that may not be for everyone. On your first trip don’t plan too many things each day or you may find that you don’t actually have the time to do them all. Your budget may also determine what all you are doing. Walking around and looking at all the beautiful architecture is free and we do a lot of that.

Depending on our budget and what we have spent on tickets or accommodations, we sometimes choose to do a splurge activity or stay. For example, on our first trip to Paris we stayed one night at the Waldorf Astoria located on the grounds of Versailles. We had dinner at Gordon Ramsey’s restaurant and it was an incredible experience. That is not the norm for our trips but an occasional splurge, if able, can add a special memory to your trip. That splurge could also just be a really nice dinner or tickets to an amazing show.

Once you have all the details planned, now its just a matter of waiting to leave. We start gathering all the items we will be bringing with us about a week ahead of time. That gives us plenty of time to get everything together and hopefully prevent us from forgetting anything. Don’t stress if you do forget something minor like a toiletry item or clothing item, there are always stores around to buy anything you forgot. Just make sure you have your wallet and your passport and you will be fine.