Basics

When planning your trip you will need to research your destination. It is a good idea to visit your local book store to buy a guide. If you are visiting multiple countries there are bigger guides that will be less detailed but will give you valuable information on many countries. These guides are especially useful when traveling to Europe. Once you decide what countries, and cities you want to visit, and what sites you want to see it will be necessary to start crunching the numbers. If you want to have private rooms it will be more costly, but you will have privacy. Hostels are a cheap alternative but may be intimidating to those who are more private. I will describe the cons and benefits of both in a future post. To find great deals on airfare and packages I go to www.travelzoo.com It is a search engine that searches all major travel sites for the best deals. I bought my ticket to Barcelona for 600 dollars including tax and insurance. Time of year will greatly affect the cost of your trip as well. May through August are the busiest times of the year in many European countries, obviously high seasons vary depending on your destination. During high seasons there will be larger crowds and you can expect to wait to see many attractions. I devote articles on how to out maneuver the crowds. Once you figure out the finances and get closer to your date of departure it's on to the checklist.