Craving for Holiday!

Discussion in the house lately is covering about holiday, which is kinda impossible since we're expecting for my labor within the next two months :-D Yet, it always brings excitement when talking about planning a holiday, since I love traveling. Even though we might not be able to have a proper holiday until next year, but we have planned to go somewhere in Europe next year then go to Bali and Lombok the year after. Yes, we do miss the beach!

There are different types of travelers, some people prefer to maximize their holiday time by visiting as many places as they can (which is very common for Indonesian) and the other would be more pleased if they could stay at one place for certain days to enjoy the surrounding without rushing. My husband and I are more into the second type, that's why we are not a big fan of joining a tour. After several experiences going on holiday with a tour, I always ended up had sore feet and unsatisfied feelings as they intended to hop on and hop off too fast at every tourism spot.

Fortunately, I love doing all the planning and research for traveling, so I usually comes up with a detailed itinerary for our trip, including booking tickets and accommodation, which places to be visited, activities that we could do, places to eat and places to buy some souvenirs. Since we have all the information we need on the internet, it is so much easier to plan the travel itinerary. There are some websites I usually use, which is quite informative and helpful, they are:

1. Trip Advisor
This website is recommended if you want to know the review from other customers regarding the accommodation or restaurants surrounding your holiday destination. I would feel more confident if I know that the hotel I plan to book has a good recommendation by others, since they give more objective reviews than the promotion on a hotel website or travel agent. I usually find recommendation for nearby eating spots from this website to have recommendation which are the must-try culinary surrounds the area. The information shown on the website is very complete, that you could have the address and telephone of each hotels and restaurants to be added to your itinerary.

2. Agoda
When booking for accommodation online, I use this website several times. Through the website you could obtain information about the prices of many hotels so you could compare several places to get the best rate. They sometimes offer price lower than the price stated on the hotel's own website, so don't forget to check their special offers. Of course you need to submit your credit card for payment, but I've booked several times from this website and there is no trouble with my credit card billing.

3. Momondo
I just found out about this website recently and I think that it is an efficient way to find the cheapest rate of airline tickets. Previously I should check from several airline websites in order to obtain the best rate whenever I want to book a ticket. But using this website, we could just input once the route and the travel date and it will show you all the available flights from the cheapest one to the most expensive. You could even find special offers easily just by choosing your current location and the month you want to travel and this website will show you what deals are offered at the moment. Even more convenience, you could access this on your smartphone.

4. Airbnb
I know this website since today my husband told me that he saw an advertisement on the office's bulletin board about a summer house in Provence that is available for rent. He sent me the link and apparently the owner put it on this website. Since staying at hotels are quite expensive when you travel, why don't you try to rent people's house instead, it is more affordable . I considered it as a good alternative to maximize your traveling budget. For sure you need to be extra careful in choosing the places rented since it might not be as nice as the picture, but you could read previous guest review to see whether the place is truly as advertised. I suggest to choose the place where the owner doesn't live in the house, so you still have the freedom just like when you're staying at hotel.

Hope the information above is useful for you to plan your holiday and traveling ;-)

Cheers,
Indispensable Lady