Where in the world to start when booking a holiday

Whether you’re a first time traveller or a regular looking for a new place to visit, this will hopefully give you a helping hand on where in the world to start!  I’ll dive into continents, budgets, weather and some more activity-based holidays too for my adventure seekers.

The first big decision when thinking of your next trip is what kind of holiday you fancy; whether it’s a chilled out, sunny holiday or a tourist adventure, narrow down which one suits your vibe and what time of year you’re planning to visit.  The time of year may have an impact on what holiday you can book, for example if you can only get a week off for the summer holidays (UK) then a ski holiday probably isn’t going to be top of your list.  Another key thought is regarding the length of time you could be away for, this will narrow down the distance you may want to travel, if you have 10 to 14 days, it gives you opportunity to travel that little bit further and still spend a good amount of time in the country but if you only have a long weekend spare it would be more worth your time to travel closer.

Once you’ve decided what type of holiday you want to book and the time of year you are planning to go, it’s time to come up with a rough budget on what you’re willing to spend, consider if you’d prefer a luxury holiday or if that isn’t as much of a necessity for you and you’re more focused on the location.  When looking into hotels, there will be full board, half-board and B&B options which will vary the price massively, take this into consideration for your budget as an all inclusive will pretty much be the full price of the holiday however if you go half board or B&B you will have additional costs for food and drinks.

For the people looking to stay relatively close, Europe is of course the obvious option for someone from the UK!  With plenty of tourist spots in almost all European countries but also plenty of luxury options and forecasts to suit everyone’s preferred weather.  If this is the case for you, have a research of the weather across Europe for the time of year you’re planning to go and then work from there… use my Europe blog posts to give you an insight of each country.  If you’re looking for a tourist holiday, Paris is always my favourite!  It has great weather, lots of luxury hotels and can also be done on a budget.  A Mediterranean cruise is also a great option for anyone looking for a mixture of sun and exploration.  Being all inclusive makes it a great way to budget and allows you to see lots of European spots in a short amount of time.  

For anyone looking further afar, my go-to recommendation will always be Dubai, I have plenty of Blog posts on hotels, what to do and general info so have a read before making rash decisions, I know there can be a lot of bad rep for Dubai being a ‘stricter’ country but rest assured, I’ll give you all the top tips.  A cheaper further-afar recommendation of mine would be Thailand, there are so many different islands and hot spots to visit that you could really take your time exploring and spend far less than your average holiday!  Another recommendation for my explorers would have to be South Africa, I have linked below the best travel agent for getting into great hotels and safaris all around Africa.  This may require that extra bit of time but if you have the opportunity, I know you won’t regret it!

Finally, if you don’t know where to start for booking the holiday, there are lots of approved package holiday companies around that will do it all for you and allow you to divide your payments over a couple of months before you leave.  My top 3 for a European trip would be Expedia, Booking.com and Jet2Holidays (Linked above).  For a ski trip, I always recommend Crystal Ski when booking but for locations, have a read of my ‘My favourite ski resorts and why’ post! 

 I hope that some of this post gave you a little bit of support when struggling to find where to start when booking a holiday and hope that wherever you end up is a perfect trip!