Holiday Planning

Yesh, I am back from my trip and am now planning for my one last holiday in May before heading back. Planning for a trip is something I love and hate at the same time. I liked it because I can be in full control of where I wanna go and when I wanna go. And during the research you can learn more about the history and story behind the place of interest that you are going. But the researching and planning part can be a real pain in the ass.

To all my friends who are contemplating to plan your own holiday, here are some info/websites that I find very useful (might be more relevant for european countries). :)

1. Mode of transport. If you are planning to go to more than one city/country, then you can choose between taking a train, taking a coach bus, taking a plane or have a road trip. Do check out the rates of each mode of transport. Sometimes taking a train can be just as costly as taking a plane. If you wanna travel by train, then you have to book damn early to get the early bird cheap tixs. Otherwise you might wanna consider taking a budget airline. If you are traveling within Europe, you can checkout these airlines:

Easyjet
Ryan Air
Fly Be
BMI Baby

If you are planning to drive, then you can check out Hertz, Europecar or Avis. But before you set off please check the speed limit of the country you're going, how their speed camera looks like and do check to see if they have any restricted zones or peak hour surcharge. Do note that some countries have tolls and sometimes the tolls can be quite a substantial amount. To check out the toll, fuel charges as well as the estimated time taken and mileage of one location to another, you can go to Via Michelin.

2. Plan your route. Which cities and countries do you want to visit. I am a typical kiasu singaporean so I always try to go as many places/countries as I can. A good map would be useful to plan your route. Alternatively, you can log on to tour agencies (eg. tralfangler tours) to find out their route and take reference from them. After all the places they go to must be well worth a visit. :)

3. Places of interest. Wikitravel is a great help in this area. And also every country/city will have their official tourism website. They sometimes have suggested itenary or routes you can take which is a great help also. And most of the time they also have the map of the location, which has all the places of interest marked down, for downloading . And if you have a place of interest in mind but dont have the address or you dunno where it is located, you can search it in google map.

4. Hotels in Europe are rather costly. And sometimes they are expensive and yet crappy. For me and hubb, a comfortable room is important for a good rest after a long day of travelling. Hence we always book our hotel through booking.com. They have a wide selection of hotels and so far their prices are the most competittive. And they also have ratings for the hotels from guests who have stayed in the hotels before and the ratings are a good gauge of how crappy the hotel is. We usually book rooms with 7.5 and above ratings. A note when you are booking hotels in Europe: do make sure that the room you are booking comes with shower and toilet ensuite. It is common for hotels here to have shared bathrooms and toilets. And also if you are travelling during summer months, do check that the hotels have air conditioning. Most hotels have heaters but not all have air con.

5. Do check the weather forecast before you travel so you know what clothes to bring. Although it might be spring/summer, it can sometimes be quite cold when a cold front is passing through. And also you can plan for indoor activities on forecasted rainy days.

I think that should be all. I am no expert in holiday planning but all these are some of the tips I learnt while planning for my past holidays. Hope they help and may everyone enjoy their holidays!! :)

Oh My

Oh my. Sorry for not blogging lately. I've been busy with:

1. Planning for my UK holiday. Im setting off tomorrow and I've yet to finished my itenary!! But then I'm only left with the last destination and our program will depends very much on whether hubb got the tixs to see the MAN U match, which we will know the results by today.

2. Reading manga. One of the best thing I found on the web, it to be able to read mangas online. But sadly, the translation of the mangas I was reading were not complete. Hence I will have to wait for the translated volume to be out and god knows when. Seriously, I think reading manga is even more addictive than watching drama. To me at least.

3. Cooking, playing MJ, cleaning house and everything else.

Ok. That's all. Please pray together with me for blue sky bright sunshine at the places I'm visiting. :D