I get hotel/apartment reservation as soon as I have my plane reservations. I start planning itineraries, getting train passes, etc. at the same time.<BR><BR>If I wait until 1-2 weeks before departure, I end up with bad hotels and extra expenses. Anyway, all that planning makes my anal-retentive self so smug.

Hi:<BR>My planning begins as soon as i find a great fare to a destination I have been wanting to go to. This year an email from orbitz with a link to United Airlines secured me a great fare to London in October. After the dates were chosen, the hotel search was on. Then the theater, day trips etc are decided. I have planned as far as 1 year but the wait for air fares to go down was painful. Checking several times a day every day!!! Anyway, it all worked out.

Annie,
I think it's worth being patient, though, to wait for airfares to go down. Two years in a row, I got great prices to Paris -- $400 and $450 -- but last year, I panicked, as tickets were $1200 everywhere I looked. I finally jumped the gun and bought them for over $700. Then, later I saw better prices :-( I'll try to be more patient for our next trip, though I've already booked the hotel :-)

Sandy

We do long-term planing all the time: where do we want to go next, which cities/areas match best with which others, what can we do in 16 days or 22 days - I have a file with at least 20 trip options in it at the moment.

For a real vacation (2/3 weeks) we start detailed planning - checking plane fares and looking at hotels about 4 months in advance - and try to have all the reservations done by 6 weeks out. But sometimes - if a business trip pops up that we can add a couple of days to - we;ll do the entire process in a week

We've traveled to Italy twice and France once, each time booking our rooms over 6 months in advance. When we visited Venice in late April, I booked our rooms the prior August to ensure that I could get the hotel &amp; view that I wanted. Since you already have your flights booked, go ahead and book the rooms. We tend to stay in B&amp;B's which fill quicker than larger hotels - and I am a little &quot;focused&quot; (or psychotic as JB said) about my plans. We've had great luck with Karen Brown's Guides in both Italy and France for smaller inns &amp; B&amp;B's.

On the plane home from my current trip.

We are flying to Athens and back next June and I'm shocked at the high prices listed now - 1300-1500 roughly round trip. Are these likely to cycle down at some point? Oh, I love planning way in advance. Hotel and cruise are already booked.