NBTMV - Book air and hotel, then explore city on your own

After you have taken one or two escorted tours and feel comfortable traveling around, you can start booking just the air and hotel from a travel company and explore the city on your own. In this video, I give you some pointers on doing this yourself.


This approach is usually good for a major city. You’d book the air and hotel from one of the same travel companies that you used for guided tours. Some offer choice of hotels at different locations for different prices, so you’d have to read up a bit and try to pick a hotel at a convenient location or just go with the lowest cost one. After you book, remember to get the visa, if you need one.


You’ll be exploring the city on your own, so you also must take care of the transfers between the airport and the hotel. You should search and see if there is a train, metro, or bus available for the trip from airport to the hotel and take it, if it’s available.


To plan for sightseeing on your own, you should get a guidebook for the city and study it a bit before you depart. If you are unsure about what to see, a good option is to take a half- or full-day city tour and get an overview of the major attractions.


Mastering the local public transportation options is also helpful. We usually take metro or tram as much as possible.


You should develop a rough itinerary as well. I typically divide the day into two halves and just allocate activities to each half-day, along with times for lunch and dinner. Remember not to cram in too much in a day. If possible buy tickets online (before departing on the trip) for any museums or other sights that require tickets. That way, you can avoid any long lines for the tickets and save some time.

We also consult Tripadvisor to find some restaurants that we may like to try. After returning from the trip, you may want to post your own reviews, as we have done in our own reviews on Tripadvisor for any hotels and restaurants we try out.

That’s about it. With a little bit of peparation, you should have a great time exploring the city of your choice on your own.

Here's some more information to help you...

You can use this approach to visit many prominent cities around the world. Here are some candidates: London, Paris, Rome, Florence, Venice, Barcelona, Madrid, Budapest, Istanbul, Prague, Lisbon, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, and many more. Browse the Independent Vacations in Gate1Travel for more ideas. Another option is to pick a city and then look for Flight+Hotel packages on travel websites such as Expedia and Travelocity.

Pick up a travel guide for the city you plan to visit and study it before the trip. Check out the map to pick a good location for the hotel. Here are some possible travel guides:

Tags: travel, world+travel, Budapest, Barcelona, Rome, Madrid, Paris, London

NBTMV - Start your world travels with some guided tours

In a previous video I mentioned that you can start your world travels with some guided or escorted tours. Here I provide some pointers to doing just that, based on our experience with guided tours originating from the United States.
The nice thing about a guided tour or escorted tour is that the tour company takes care of everything -- air travel, hotels, travel between cities, transfers from airport to hotel, all the sightseeing, and even most of the meals -- plus you have at least one English-speaking guide. It’ll be in a group setting, so you’ll meet some interesting people as well.
First thing you’d want to do is browse the guided tours offered by online travel companies such as Gate1Travel, Smartours, or others such as China Focus Travel that specialize in just one destination, China. As for where to go, you may initially think of Europe or South/Central American countries as safer choices, but it makes more sense to go to a far-off destination such as China, India, Vietnam, Cambodia, etc. because those are the trips where a fully guided tour makes everything simple. Think of the weather as well when deciding when to go. For example, it can be very hot in India, Vietnam, etc during the summer. To minimize time off from work, you may also want to pick dates that span a weekend and holiday.
After looking at the itineraries and selecting one, you can book online or call a number to book. The quoted price is usually for one or two selected departure cities such as New York or San Francisco. You have to pay extra if you depart from other cities. There are also some other extra costs such as fees and taxes. You pay some deposit up front and pay the rest sometime before the trip.
If it’s a trip to countries such as China or India, you also have to pay for the visa. You can get it yourself or through the travel company.
You do typically have a half-a day or a whole day all to yourself in major cities, so you should get a guidebook for the cities and prepare to explore a bit on your own. In future videos I’ll tell you about specific escorted tours that we took.
Hope you can get started soon!

Here are some more things to help you

Browse the offerings from some online travel companies such as: Gate1Travel, Smartours, and China Focus Travel. Note that some travel companies such as China Focus Travel specialize in tours to just one counrty, in this case, China. You may also want to read reviews by previous customers.

To budget for the trip, look up the advertised amount, then add the taxes and fees, any visa fees (for countries that require visa), and additional airfare if your departure city is different from the default offered by the tour company. You should then add the cost of any meals and estimated expenses for the days that are on your own. Also, remember to include any tips for the tour guide.

Most credit cards charge a currency conversion fee, so you should take along and use a credit card such as the one from Capital One that charge no such fees. Thebest way to get foreign currency would be to wihdraw from ATMs using your debit card. Banks would be the next best place to get foreign currency. The worst place to change currency seems to be the airport and the various currency exchange places (they often display good rates, but charge huge commissions).

Here are some books that may help you plan for that one or half-a-day when you are on your own or on overcoming the inevitable jet lag:

Tags: travel, world+travel, China, India, guided+tour, escorted+tour, Guatemala, Kenya