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Sunday, February 17, 2013

Travel Planning: Moving Daydreams to Dates

We’ve been living in Hawaii this last month – watching palm trees sway before an azure sea and sky; a most pleasant change from the dark, gray (and very wet) winter days that exist at our more-full-time Pacific Northwest home.

VeniceSanJuanIsl 248But no matter where we are, January is a time to get serious about the year’s future big-trip travel plans. 

We used our laid-back days to move our daydreaming to dates on the calendar.

As all travelers know, nabbing frequent flier seats and booking rooms on hotel points, isn’t something that can wait until the last minute.

And travel – despite continuing dire economic reports in the media -- is on an upswing. If you don’t believe that, just take a walk through Waikiki – or book a hotel room there (and prepare for sticker shock).
 
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I’d set my sights on Greece for a spring trip and so focused on it were we, that quite frankly we hadn’t been thinking about fall until The Scout found us an incredible deal while Web surfing. 

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A springtime trip to our favorite places in Greece was my day dream for celebrating my summer ‘Big One Birthday’.  The Scout has nailed down the frequent flier miles and purchased tickets that will get us to Athens and back. We are using the ‘where the wind blows us-or the ferry sails’ approach to travels after reaching Athens.

And then there’s the Fall trip. . .you won’t believe where we are headed or the deal that we got! I’ll tell you about it on Travel Tip Tuesday. 

In  the meantime, a number of you’ve asked how we go about finding deals.  To check The Scout’s favorite resources, visit our Deal Finder page.

5 comments:

  1. Hello Jackie and Joel

    How fabulous that you are going to Greece. I will certainly be looking forward to hearing all about it.
    Have a great week

    Helenxx

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    1. It is such a beautiful country and we've found so many wonderful people there that we can't wait to return! I promise lots of reports. Thanks again for your visit Helen!

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  2. You almost lost me with "living in Hawaii" because it's been a tough winter in Minnesota. I love to travel in off-seasons because of the deals you can get and the fact that you don't have to plan too far ahead of time.

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    1. Evan, you are so right about those off season travel deals. I had a reader tell me that they rented a car on Maui on Jan. 2nd and was told if they could wait until Jan. 3rd (non-holiday time) they'd save $300!! Timing is everything with travel. Thanks for writing!

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  3. This post comes as a good reminder to start planning for the year sooner rather than later. Another example of the benefit of this is what happened to us last year with our trip to Peru. We had the plane tickets and hotel reservations all confirmed,but bureaucratic inefficiency led to a very long delay in getting the Machu Picchu train and entrance tickets secured. You never know what you'll run into!

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We have been having problems in recent weeks with our comment section and I am not quite sure how to fix it. Thanks for letting us know. Some comments have been coming in as emails, so I will respond to those as I get them.