Trip planning: what's your favorite method?
 

Everyone has such fantastic travel advice and insight here that it is addicting reading! I have a basic question for all of you: when planning a nice trip, for example to Hawaii, where do you start? Do you use a travel agent, call the hotels/resorts directly, or start searching online? What are your favorite online travel sites?

Thanks in advance!

I keep a mental list of places in the world I want to visit and bookmark favorite sites on my computer for these places. When a great price combines with opportunity I jump on it. Then the research begins. I haunt Google, Fodors and peruse all the travel books at the book stores. With Hawaii in particular, I started with general details, i.e. which island to visit, narrowing that down to which side of the island, then to which hotel, to which room, etc. Once the flight and hotel are locked in I start to plan where to eat, what to see and so on. I don't use a travel agent because no one knows our preferences better than I, nor would anyone else spend the amount of time planning our trip than I do. For me the anticipation and planning are as much fun as the trip itself.

I go to the library and check out several travel books; usually buy one from a bookstore. I write to the local visitors' bureau to get information. I surf the net. Usually we make our own arrangements, but do use a travel agent for cruises.

I also visit the travel section of a book store to peruse options and usually buy a book or two on my destination. I like to have a book handy when I go somewhere. I also use the internet extensively. No agents, no special web sites.

I too have a mental list of all the places I want to see (it's looooooong!). Here's what I do:

1) I cross off all the ones my husband has seen and really doesn't want to go to (he was born & raised in Switzerland so it's hard to get him to vacation in a lot of European spots - huge bummer for me, but I have seen most of the western European countries so I can't complain).

2) Then I check my list of frequent flyer miles, hotel award points, etc. and see where we can get to and/or stay at for free - often times our travel is dictated by what is available (from my dream list, of course). My husband travels a ton for business and we reap the rewards. Plus we - and I highly recommend EVERY traveler does this - charge everything, and I mean everything from utilities to groceries to clothes to dining out, on our Amex for which we get Membership Rewards points which are redeemable for travel benefits. I book 11 months in advance, since that is when flights go on sale and the minute they go on sale, those few precious free seats get snatched up.

3) Then I research the location online - fodors, frommers, and any random websites that come up when I plug the location into a search engine - the more general travel info and "real people's opinions" I can get, the better.

4) For any other stuff I have to book, smaller flights, hotels, car rental, etc. I use mostly use orbitz.com, but I always check all-hotels.com, hotels.com, luxres.com, quikbook.com, travelocity.com or travelweb.com for competetive prices. And only travelocity.com (I think) has travelers reviews, so I check those too.

Note: I never use a travel agent (I might when we book a cruise). Plus we have time share in Mexico which we sometimes use and which we sometimes exchange through RCI so sometimes where we go depends on what they offer us.

Some examples:
We have a week in Marbella, Spain at a time share resort next summer so in September I'll book our free (points) flight; plus we'll spend another week somewhere else in Spain (depending on where my research leads me and/or where we can get free hotel rooms; we have a friend with a house in Barcelona so we'll probably spend a few days there and arrange the rest around that); then we'll spend a few days at my in-laws in Zurich on the way home, like we always do.

After spending a month in Australia we both really wanted to go to New Zealand (and my hubby had never been there!) so 11 months in advance I booked a free flight in/out of Auckland. We knew we wanted to travel around in a motorhome (his parents had done it and so many others said it's the best way to see the islands), so after researching/asking people how much we could see in two weeks we decided to stay on the North Island only. We didn't want to be in a motorhome in the "big city" of Auckland so I used some award points for two free nights that we'll tack on to the end of 10 nights in the motorhome. We will stay at the Hyatt Regency which is probably more of a business hotel, but who cares - it's free and nicer than Motel 6!

Another trip coming up is Kauai (this month!): We really wanted to spend a week this summer at a tropical beach, didn't want to fly too far (we live in Arizona) and have been to Mexico three times recently and have been to Maui & Lanai and are going to BI in 2005 (with his family) so that left Kauai (gee, bummer, huh?). I got 6 free nights at the Sheraton (yeah, I read all the rants & raves too late and discovered it's not a great place, but I'm not going to spend my vacation in my room...I'm going to see the island - and, again - it's free!) But we are staying for 8 nights so I got on the above mentioned websites and booked (on orbitz) the first 2 nights at the Aston Islander. One of our flights was free (Hawaiian points) and we paid for the other one. We have a free car rental for the week so we can sightsee. Now all I'm waiting for is some restaurant recommendations from my posts and we're ready to go!

In general, when we have points/awards we end up in the big chain hotels, but when we have to pay we end up in smaller boutique style places or splurge for a few nights someplace really great. Like if we know the time share resort won't be spectacular (sometimes they aren't) we'll add a few days somewhere else in a great resort. I doesn't hurt to pay a fortune for a few nights when the rest were free...

Oh, and I used to ALWAYS buy and take with me a fodor's book, which I LOVE but I found that with the restaurants they listed it was such a craphoot. So this time I just went to the fodors AND frommers websites and cut & pasted bits and pieces of their writing AND travelers advice into a word document which I'll print out and take with me.

Wow-you guys are incredibly organized; I'm very impressed, especially with Stachi! It can be difficult trying to coordinate accomodations and airfare in a very nice, but not outrageously expensive place, especially when there are 2 adults and 2 children, ages 4 and 7. In the past, after hours and hours of online and book research, I have usually given up and called my travel agent! Many, many thanks for sharing your techniques.

Stachi, It was fun to read about your planning. I think half the fun of traveling is in the planning! You learn so much doing the research and get a good frame of reference for the actual trip. The trip itself is the icing on the cake! I have many trips I've planned but we haven't gone on, but I have been enriched by my research, either way!

We stayed near the Sheraton on Kauai and the Sheraton looked great! Also, we have friends who stayed there and loved it. It's on the best beach in Poipu and has a wonderful pool. You will have a great trip!