Holiday Planning Tips
Anyone who knows me, knows I LOVE holidays. As much as the holiday itself I also enjoy the planning. Here are a few of my tips to make sure your next holiday is top notch.
If I need flights I usually book these first. If you’re a bit more flexible check the accommodation before you book. Sometimes going different days means the place you want to stay might be available/cheaper at another time.
If you’ve seen a great flight deal, but you have to check with your other half/mates that the dates suit – you can hold airfares on Air NZ for 3 days by paying $10.
If you don’t have children at school then check when the school holidays are. You DO NOT want to be in Wanaka during the July school holidays if you don’t have to be there.
I live in fear of a bad meal (or worse having to cook) when I’m on holiday so I do all my restaurant bookings before I go. It doesn’t mean you have to use them all, but if you’re travelling in Wanaka/Queenstown in the school holidays with a group of 12 you will have no luck getting a last minute booking. Book in advance and then cancel any bookings you don’t need at least 24 hours before the reservation.
In order to work out where to book or eat I do a bit of desk top research first. For NZ I like to look at:
The Denizen travel reviews. They have guides on lots of places in NZ and are usually pretty up to date.
Urban List is also worth a look for some restaurants and things to do.
I don’t use Trip Advisor. The ratings are too easily manipulated and it’s too hard to work out what is your bag.
I’ll also do a Google of “Best restaurants in …” and see what comes up. Sometimes there is a good Herald or other travel article.
As we’re a family of five Airbnb, Holiday Houses and Book a Bach are great – it’s fantastic to be in an actual house and have some room to chill out. I’ll usually look at them all as some places don’t list on every site. I like to be in walking distance to town as a rule, but everyone has their own likes and dislikes. One thing I really like on the Airbnb website is you can search for the number of beds – trust me that no family of five is going to have a great break with only three beds even if the house says it can sleep 6.
Once you’ve found a house you like copy the first couple of sentences of text and put it into Google. Sometimes people have their own website or the rates vary due to service fees – this is a good way to find the cheapest place to book a house as most people reuse the same description on every site. It’s also worth checking the reviews to check it’s as good as it looks.
I am also a fan of Booking.com. Whilst they specialise in hotels they also have a good selection of apartments and holiday houses. The other advantage of Booking.com is that quite often you can book with an option to cancel at no charge up to a set date. Very handy for the holiday planning phase.
Next up – do you need a rental car? I have used Rentalcars.com, but currently I have a great corporate discount code with Budget that I use to get discounts on car rentals. It’s worth checking if your work or an organisation you belong to (the AA) has a discount code you can use for car rentals.
Finally there are the activities. If you want to do something popular on your trip then you might need to book in advance (the Onsen Hot Pools at Queenstown comes into this list). If you want to do a last minute activity then quite often you can get a good deal a few days out from bookme.co.nz.
Your final problem will be keeping track of everything that you’ve booked. I recommend TripIt. You just foward all your confirmation emails to plans@tripit.com and they make you an itinerary. How cool is that?
Hope these tips help and happy holidays!
