Every single one of our travels starts off with thorough “investigation”. Along the best things to do and see in a certain location, it’s very important to book your accommodation, tours, car rental etc. in advance. I’d even argue that this is the first thing you should do after booking your ticket, as availability is limited and you want to be able to grab the best deal as early as possible.
This is why my travel planning process looks like this:
1. Book tickets to the destination.
2. Research the best area to stay at and find accommodation.
3. Book car rental.
4. Book any day trips/excursions that we want to go to.
5. Research the best things to do in this location and create a detailed travel plan.
6. Create a packing list and buy anything that I might be missing (for example we had to buy a lot of polar fleece clothing for our winter Iceland trip).
6. Bon voyage!
Here are the platforms I use when planning a trip.
Accommodation
- Booking.com – one of the best accommodation platforms where you can find anything from hotels, villas, rental apartments and more. Through booking you can sometimes get extra discount on some properties or book a place with a free cancellation policy.
- AirBnb – a great alternative to the regular hotels. This is a platform where actual home owners provide their properties for short-term rental to travellers, usually at a better price than a hotel room.
Car rental
- Discover Cars – a platform where you can compare the prices of different car rental companies. We’ve used it a few times on our travels and haven’t had any issues with them.
- Top Rent a Car – reliable car rental company in Bulgaria, if you’re looking for something local
Tours
- Get Your Guide – one of the best online platforms that I regularly use to book any museum tickets, day trips or excursions whenever I’m travelling. For example, this is where we booked our Paxos and Antipaxos boat trip during our stay in Corfu, or the tickets to the Vasa museum, as well as the archipelago boat cruise in Stockholm.
- Viator – another super popular platform for booking museum tickets, day trips etc. Sometimes you may find something on Viator that’s not on GYG, and vice versa.
Photography equipment
Coming soon!
