New Zealand Mirror Travel

Archive for July, 2009

Have you ever experienced a serious disaster whilst on holiday? If not, it’s merely a matter of time. It has been said there are two kinds of travellers, those that have experienced a problem holiday and those that are still going to.

Tasked with identifying the top ten travel tips immediately got my mind going but an idea soon took shape. Why not use the experiences of the professionals, ask them to identify the more common causes of problems when travelling. Unbeknown to me this certainly dropped the cat amongst the pigeons, largely because limiting this to only ten became a problem, thank you so much to all those who were a part of the panel.

One of the most common problems and a unanimous choice of the panel were problems surrounding logistical arrangements. Largely related to reservations; dates and ticketing, these can be problematic despite the ease and simplicity of the internet. It is imperative when planning any holiday to any destination that all bookings are made well in advance, followed up either by e-mail or telephone a few days before your departure and still in time to rectify problems if discovered. After this has been done, prevent further problems by ensuring you have proof in the form of copies of any relevant document or reference number, this could be a receipt confirmation of a deposit paid or any item depending on your personal arrangements. This is one of those suggestions where prevention is definitely far better than cure.

Our second tip is all encompassing and covers the packing of essential items. Obviously these items might vary according to your personal plans but would perhaps include items such as passports and ID documents; applicable drivers licences; money – credit cards, wallets and other financial needs; mobile phones and camera’s, (get with it, preferably digital) are essential items nowadays, together with supporting items such as chargers and memory cards. On my personal list are always sunglasses, activity equipment, a few books, a pack of cards, a multi-purpose pocket knife and other smaller items or games which always come in handy.

How are we doing so far, the bottom line is that with tip numbers one and two you can go almost anywhere in the world and if you have forgotten anything else you can purchase them en route.

Tip number three is so absolutely boring you might well stop reading at this point but it remains one of the most common causes of holidays being cancelled. Before you leave home ensure that all domestic matters are resolved and tucked in to bed. These will again vary but will certainly surround adequate locking up and security issues; paying all accounts, in particular municipal services; cancelling any deliveries; ensuring access is available to a trusted friend or relative in the event of a fire or emergency; ensuring pets are adequately cared for and that someone responsible is able to contact you in the case of emergency during your holiday. Yes…boring….but oh so often the cause of having to either come back early or returning to face a smelly deep freeze or worse.

The basics are covered and now we can move onto the fun part, tip number four surrounds choosing the right holiday for your needs and enjoyment. To haul three children under ten years old to a game reserve for ten days will stretch your patience and theirs, you might enjoy spending half an hour looking at a bird or waiting for an Elephant to come to a waterhole while sipping a Chardonnay, they certainly wouldn’t. If you have had a really stressful year and are going on holiday for a time out, a few days in London followed by a few in Rome and a low cost flight via Moscow to save a few cents would mean lots of flights; too many airports and complicated transit arrangements. Our panel suggests taking a few extra minutes to analyse the real needs of all travelling partners before selecting your holiday destination.

You have analysed your own needs and decided on let’s say a scuba diving holiday as an example. Tip number five stays with destination choice and is all about research. That’s easy I hear you saying, once you’ve decided what type of holiday you want. However, you could also end up on a scuba diving holiday in monsoon season, perhaps to a great destination at most times of the year but in the month you have chosen, it’s infested with mosquito’s and a temperature of 45 degrees, is that what you wanted.

Perhaps you might be looking for a quiet and romantic getaway and choose a week in a Spanish seaside village only to find out it clashes with a local political election and the local school holidays. Time researching local conditions is well spent, beware particularly of special offers or discounts, these are usually offered for a reason and often due to seasonality or other sub-optimal characteristics of the destination at the time the offer applies. This same principle applies to discounted flights and packages, it’s important to be fully aware of which items and costs are included and not included in the price.

How far have we gone so far, in summary we have the logistics and essential equipment under control, chosen a stunning destination to ensure our needs are covered and we have selected the dates to suit the destination characteristics.

Tip number six is about the modern day wonder of the travellers’ world. You guessed it, the internet. This modern tool enables you to ensure you are fully au fait with all and any information you might need. From disco’s to dive centres, museums to mausoleums, cathedrals to camping grounds, the information is easily available to you from the comfort of your home; office or failing which, an internet café. Referring back to our Spanish village, if you want to know the history, what to see and do while you’re there, the internet provides this service. Even once you’re there, if you want to send pics and news to someone at home, the internet has really made this simple. I read recently that in excess of 70% of all travel arrangements are now made on-line, wow, that is an awesome number and it is no doubt climbing, not without reason.

A list of top ten tips would definitely be incomplete without a reference to the importance of adequate packing. Notice we say adequate as it does vary according to destination and travel method. A car trip to Port Alfred with a trailer and roof rack is a far different scenario than a flight to London. Tip number seven is to pack early; to pack correctly and most of all to pack according to a well prepared list. One often makes the mistake of packing too much, leaving little room for error and no space to include a few souvenirs or that tee-shirt that looked so good in the market. On a personal note our family has a rule, what you pack you carry; this has a fantastic effect of ensuring no one packs without a plan.

The boring battle of the budget. We all have dream destinations we hope to get to one day; this is unfortunately not a reality for most of us. Tip number eight is to ensure you remain within your personal limits of expenditure. Interest rates are high and could get higher; credit offered by banks can be easily obtained by utilising the credit card options so often available. You don’t want to spend the year after your holiday stressed out about how you’re going to pay it back during the rest of the year. Plan adequately before and during your holiday. Whilst it’s certainly fun to spoil yourselves during a holiday, we suggest you allocate a daily allowance to each person and to the whole group; this will certainly help control costs, particularly in an international destination when one is not fully conversant, it can come back and bite quite hard.

The members of our panel are all seasoned travellers, local and overseas. In conversation we certainly learned that all had on occasion bumped their heads or made often silly mistakes. Our unanimous tip number nine is to enjoy South Africa. As residents of this beautiful country we are all absolutely blessed to live within a reasonable distance from either a beach; lake; mountain; game reserve or whatever it might be that appeals to your family. Too often we feel the need to travel far and wide when it’s all on our doorstep. We might travel to an exotic dive destination but haven’t yet experienced Aliwal Shoal; sit on a Mauritian Beach when our coast offers some of the most beautiful beaches in the world, perhaps even camping in France when you’ve never been to the Drakensberg or Clarens.

It might be a cliché but we really do have it all in one country. We certainly hope that our leaders will take every action to ensure that it stays that way. We in turn need to appreciate it and invest in local tourism and the job creation it offers. Our panel felt that we need to market ourselves as a destination a little better than we do, encouraging local travellers that Cairo is perhaps not always better than Cape Town. Local is lekker, it has its place alongside braaivleis, biltong, sunny skies and all the rest.

This might be our last tip of the ten we were confined to but it is the simplest and most important – have fun! You’ve worked hard, you deserve your holiday, please don’t forget to enjoy it. In most cases when on holiday, one is surrounded by those your love the most, those dearest and closest.

What an absolute blessing to be able to spend quality time in a holiday destination with those you love.

Business travel has actually increased considerably in the last ten years as companies are able to sell more readily to markets all around the world; the Internet has ensured that even tiny companies can have a customer base that is truly global! It is business travelers though who are feeling the strain with increasing stress and fatigue levels. With that in mind, this business travel tips article highlights some useful information that could make your business journeys more pleasurable.

Sometimes for instance, baggage goes missing; that is an unfortunate fact of travel and whilst it is distressing enough on a family holiday, on a business trip it can be disastrous. An easy remedy to this is to pack as much as possible that you absolutely must have for you meeting, in your hand luggage.

This means that even if your main luggage is lost your trip does not have to be wasted; your meeting can still take place despite any inconvenience that has been caused. Regular travelers know that the main business travel tip when packing is to keep things simple by only including exactly what you need for the journey and that way you won’t go far wrong if luggage goes missing.

If you only take enough business clothes for the trip and then all that is left is some casual wear for the evenings, just two pairs of shoes; one casual pair, and one pair for business should be enough. The remaining items to pack will be toilet essentials and any other work related documents that aren’t important.

A clever business travel tip, to reduce the size of bag you require, is too roll your clothes up instead of folding them; apart for taking up less space they are not so creased when they are unpacked. The last thing you want on a business trip is having clothes laundered because something was spilt on them, this can easily be avoided by wearing dark clothes which are able to absorb stains more easily.

Of course if you are working to a tight schedule and the inevitable delay happens then you want to know you can attend a meeting at a moments notice and the way to freshen up is by using those hand and face wipes that come in travel packs. Cell phones and other related equipment normally have good battery life but don’t forget to take a charger if you are going to be somewhere for more than a few days.

As it is possible to carry out work while you fly, by making the best use of this time you will be able to spend some time relaxing in the evening and perhaps a little site seeing. These tips make sure that no matter what happens when you travel on business you will be able to continue with your plans and will not be left wondering what to do next.

Business trips do not have to be boring and stressful if you apply the business travel tips in this article as they will allow you the opportunity to enjoy your free time even more.

The other day I overheard a conversation between two women discussing their summer holiday plans. One was telling the other that she had gone to her local travel agent and asked for a cheap package holiday in Spain. The agent had quickly managed to find a holiday that suited and the lady booked it immediately.

The other woman said that she wished she could do the same but had been unable to find a travel agent who could help. Apparently, someone she knew recommended Northern Cyprus to her. The description of its climate, fabulous beaches, beautiful scenery and welcoming local people deeply appealed to her but she had been unable to find any travel agent offering package holidays there. The person who recommended Northern Cyprus to her explained how it was possible to book flights and accommodation online but she felt apprehensive about not going through a travel agent.

I was quite taken aback at hearing this admission of total dependency on travel agents and ignorance of Internet travel sites. After all, this was 2008 in the U.K. where traditional travel agents have long since been marginalised by online travel sites. Yet, as the conversation developed it became apparent that neither woman knew anything about what resources the Internet offers in this respect.

It got me thinking about how many other people there were around who need tips on organising travel online and when I got home I decided to write down the following seven steps for them.

Step 1: Finding out about the travel destination

Open Google and type into the search box, the name of whatever country or general area you want to holiday in, followed by the words “travel information” or “travel guide”. For example; “Spain travel information”. Browse several of the sites your search throws up and then decide which ones give you the best travel tips relevant to your holiday needs.

Step 2: Deciding on the actual resort

Use the best sites you find from step 1 to decide which resort or locality offers you most of what you want for your vacation. For example, localities with secluded beaches or beaches with lots of facilities, resorts that have plenty to keep the children occupied or quiet villages in scenic locations, etc.

Having familiarised yourself with all that you want to know about the resort or locality, ascertain the nearest airports (or other relevant transportation centres).

Step 3: Finding suitable accommodation

When you have found some resorts that satisfy your criteria, look for suitable accommodation in them. This may require typing a new search term into Google because the sites you have looked at so far may not have sufficient detailed information about specific accommodation in a given locality. They may however have some links to other sites that do. If so, check the links out before starting a new search. If you do need to do a new search, the best search term to use would be something like; Name of resort or locality followed by the word “accommodation”. For example if after researching southern Spain, you had decided you liked what you had read about Mojacar as a holiday resort, you would type; “Mojacar accommodation”. Here’s a tip worth remembering: you may need to refer back to the other website pages that you have already opened so keep them open by doing your accommodation search in a new tab. In case you don’t know about using tabs, take a look at your browser tools options and learn how to set your browser up so that you can open new pages in new tabs.

Step 4: Checking cheapest flight availability

When you have ascertained that accommodation exists in your chosen locality, the next step is check out what flights (or other transportation) is available to get you to the resort.

Open another tab on your browser and this time type in the search term, “cheapest flights” followed by the name of nearest airport. If there are other, more distant airports that you would be prepared to consider, you might want to run separate searches for each airport.

Spend time on checking for flights because quite considerable variations in ticket prices exits, not only from flight operator to flight operator but also from one airport to another even when they are more or less the same distance from your departure airport and operated by the same company. Very significant price variations will also be found by trying different departure and arrival dates.

Step 5: Provisionally book accommodation

Assuming that you establish the availability of flights (or other transportation) at the time you want and within your budget, you will be in a position to provisionally book accommodation. Return to the browser tab you left open with the websites providing accommodation details and follow the instructions for contacting the person or organisation offering the accommodation. Sometimes this will be an automatic online process and sometimes you will need to send an email. Submit the dates you have decided upon from the flight availability research. You will not normally be asked for a deposit at this stage but if you are, inform the accommodation owner that you want them to provisionally hold the dates until after you have booked your flight.

Step 6: Booking your flight

Having received confirmation that the accommodation is available for you between the selected dates, return to the website where you found the cheapest flight deal and book your outgoing and return flights. Very occasionally you might be unlucky and the flights on the selected dates are no longer available. If so you will need to select new dates and redo step 5.

Step 7: Confirm Accommodation

Once you have your flight has been booked you are in a safe position to confirm your accommodation booking. Usually, this will require that a deposit is paid, either online or by bank transfer. Either way, the balance is usually paid upon arrival at the accommodation.