Four Simple Travel Planning Tricks To Save For Later

Travel websites are spammed with marketing techniques that try to fool us into thinking that we are getting the best deals possible. Is that really the case? I’m one of those people who will tirelessly dig until I know I have exhausted all of my options before booking plane tickets or hotel rooms.

It’s a small, but valuable list… These are four travel planning tips that I think you’re going to like.

 

Clear cookies or search incognito

If you have the patience to search, you can find plenty of travel deals. However, sometimes if you’ve been hunting for an hour or two, Google might start catching on. In my experience, if I’m continually searching for flights to and from the same destination, the displayed prices keep rising. As a rule, I always choose to go incognito (when using Google Chrome) to prevent this from happening.

 

Ditch your regular booking routine

Sometimes it takes a simple change to find exactly what you’ve been searching for. Where are you planning to go? Have you looked into the airlines from your destination country? For whatever reason United States airlines charge exponentially higher than foreign airlines (from my experience). Always double check. This helped me score a round-trip flight to Brussels for $466 directly through Brussels Airlines.

 

Take price forecasting with a grain of salt

A new trend emerging seems to be price forecasting for airlines. Airfare prediction technology isn’t always the most reliable. At the end of the day, it’s up to your discretion of how good a deal the fare is. I will admit that apps like Hopper seem handy, but it’s unclear where they are pulling their data from. There is also Kayak’s price trend chart, which provides the likelihood of searched airfares rising or falling within the next week. The data incorporates year-over-year trends to determine when it’s the right time to buy. Kayak’s previous studies showed that the best time to book is 21 days out from your trip. Anything after that, you’ll have to bite the bullet and pay up.

Everyone is clueless as to how high or low airline prices will go. Airlines don’t even disclose how the fares are being calculated, so how reliable can “farecasting” truly be?

 

Beware of ‘top results’ in your search

I may be young, but I’m old enough to know that Google isn’t what it used to be. Don’t assume that anything on the first page of your search results, whether it’s a search engine or travel website. Top results, more often than not, scream “I paid to be here.” Or, it’s just a way for the company to prioritize its own services… That’s how Google got in trouble with the European Union. Go the extra mile and do extra research to verify that they really are the top pick.

Sticking To That Long Travel Check-list Will Ruin Your Next Trip

Time flies when you’re having fun, apparently so will your vacation if you over-plan. In an interview with Jenni Avins of Quartz, Marc Whittman, psychologist and author of Felt Time explains the phenomenon of time in relation to travel; an over-booked schedule will make time fly faster than you wanted it to.

I’m guilty of the offense. Once I have my airline tickets booked and my calendar marked, I go into full trip planning mode and make long lists of my ‘must do’s’. I can’t help it- my Type-A tendencies force me to plan out what I want to see and experience. I obsess over making sure that I will make the most out of my trip. Turns out, this could be doing exactly the opposite of what I intended.

According to Whittman, the key is to go into a trip with minimal planning and a flexible schedule. By opening up our travel calendars, the trip might feel longer and a heck of a lot less stressful when it’s time to head home.

If we go into a trip with a set itinerary for every hour of the day, we will be relying on the next step and anticipating the next activity. Basically, you’re planning your vacation away.

In Wittman’s words,

“Planning also speeds up the passage of time. Because there you’re always already in the future. You have this future perspective of your mind, and then you are actually not attending to what is happening right now.”

Have you ever noticed that you recall your emotions more clearly than the events themselves? That’s a big key in memory formation, which makes mindfulness an important practice during travel. Focusing your attention to your surroundings and maintaining a degree of self-awareness can lead to a more memorable trip.

Our gut reaction is to plan heavily for trips, thinking that it’ll reduce our stress upon arrival. However, the takeaway here is that if you want those precious moments away from work to last, less is more.

Three Overlooked Insecurities of a Long Distance Relationship

When the viability of a long distance relationship comes into question, usually it’s about jealousy or suspicion. I’ve been in a LDR with my incredibly patient and loving boyfriend for about 9 months. Most of the time I get questions from people asking if I’m worried if he’s being unfaithful while I’m away, to which I reply: not in the slightest.

And I’ll tell you why. Long distance relationships are destined to fail if you have the slightest concern that the other will break your trust. Some anxieties about your relationship that you will face aren’t so obvious. Like,

How open should I be about my relationship in the workplace?

I was extremely hesitant about sharing my relationship status with coworkers because I was afraid my boss would view me differently as an employee. That maybe they would get the impression that I’m not 100% committed to my job because my significant other lives on the other side of the world. The reality is that, at some point, one of us has to move. Could I be overlooked for a promotion if my boss thought that I wasn’t with the company for the long-haul?

Am I getting too comfortable with my independence?

One positive for couples in a LDR is that your separation gives you a lot of “me” time. Something that couples who live in the same city might not experience enough of. You both live separate lives and aren’t always depending on each other. Your personal identity is very much intact. On the flip side, when does that distance become too much? Sometimes, you spend so much time apart that you worry if you’re becoming too independent; too used to being without the other.

What is the right thing to do- for us?

Simply put, I’m young. Long distance relationships, if well intention-ed, need to have an end goal. With all of the time and effort you put into it, you want to make sure you’re both working towards something that will last. I’ll be honest; it’s an internal struggle. There’s some back and forth about if my relationship will only lead to missed opportunities, or if the effort is worth the reward. One thing that I know for sure: no precious thing is achieved without sacrifices. And that, in life, there is no guarantee.

It takes a lot of confidence to be in a long distance relationship; confidence in yourself, as well as the bond between you and your significant other. Even still, confidence can only go so far and insecurities are bound to arise. At the end of the day, though, the communication with your partner is the most important thing. I have learned that there isn’t any topic in my relationship that is taboo. As long as you can say what’s on your mind and hash out the details, your relationship will continue to grow stronger.

Once November rolls around, I’ll be reminded once again of how withstanding the distance is worth it.