I'm a planner & worrier by nature (the former project manager in me). I love to travel, but I hate to plan for travel. It really stresses me out. I thought I'd make it easier on myself by having a travel agent help me book hotels & the tour. Though after a few exchanges with a travel agent based in SF, I realized a few things:
- It's not cheaper to book hotels via travel agents. The travel agent added about 5-10% on top of hotel price and assured me that this was the cheapest rate, that it's high season, and I would not find anything less than what she found. Sounded like a typical sales pitch to me. After a quick check online on the hotel websites, I found much cheaper rates and plenty of availability.
- Booking with Travel agents means following the tourist herd... sightseeing, tour-buses, or very expensive private tours of the same type of thing. Very boring.
- To customize a fun (more adventurous) yet comfortable 5 weeks in Vietnam, I would have to do the planning myself.
My natural instinct is to book my hotels in advance. A balance of 3.5 - 5 star hotels... but there's a part of me that dares me to be a little more adventurous...
Things accomplished 3 months in advance:
- Dates: 5 weeks Nov-Dec
- Round-trip flights booked: SFO to Seoul to SGN
- Vaccines: Tdap & Flu
- Agree on rough itinerary
Things to do in the next couple weeks
- Apply for 3 month visa
- Book hotels w/ free cancellation
- Book Ha Long Bay cruise/junk boat tour
- Book domestic flights
No comments:
Post a Comment