In a recent blog post, I mentioned that I would elaborate on the resources I used to book my vacation and so here I am doing just that. In this blog post, I will discuss the resources I used to research and book my upcoming vacation.
Youtube
As I said in my last blog, my research started with youtube. If you know your destination, I highly recommend using youtube to research where to stay, eat, book an excursion, etc. I created a playlist of the vlogs and when I had a moment, I sat down, with some tea and watched them all. While watching, I took note of resorts and activities to do additional research.
Youtube allows you to see the destination from various viewpoints. Some vlogs are not aesthetically pleasing because the reviewers are simply posting their experience for others like you and me who will travel in the future. On the other hand, some are a fullon production.
Cheap Carribean
About 6 years ago, my sorority sister informed me about Cheap Caribbean and it’s been a goto for researching and booking great deals. Cheap Caribbean offers amazing vacation packages to the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America. These packages include, flight, hotel/resort and transportation to and from the airport if you would like. It’s your one stop shop for booking your vacation at a great price. I booked my mother/daughter trip a few years ago through Cheap Caribbean. My mom and I both visited Cabo San Lucus for under $1,500. That included flight, an all inclusive resort, transportation to and from the airport and travel insurance.
Expedia
Expedia is where I booked my upcoming vacation. I’ve used expedia in the past to book hotels and rental cars but never a vacation. I was sold, however, when I was notified that I could save hundreds of dollars by booking both my flight, resort and travel insurance with them. Expedia Group, Inc. has several operating companies which include, Expedia.com, Vrbo (previously HomeAway), Hotels.com, Hotwire.com, Orbitz, Travelocity, trivago and CarRentals.com. I’m sure many of us have browsed travelocity, hotwire and expedia looking for the best rates only to find out that they were all the same. Expedia Group owns them all.
The Expedia Group mission is to power global travel for everyone, everywhere. By leveraging their platforms and technology, Expedia helps you and me find the best travel experiences both locally and globally.
If you know me personally, you know I love tech! To know that this company utilizes the new technology to offer myself and others the best options is a huge deal for me. This lets me know that they truly have a desire for their customers to have the most cost efficient vacation.
Hopper
Hopper is a mobile application that predicts flight and hotel prices. Don’t worry about the prediction being wrong, they have a 95% recommendation accuracy.
To use Hopper, download the application, enter your departing city and your destination and hopper will notify instantly when there’s a deal.
I highly recommend this application. When choosing to fly to your destination, your flight can be just as expensive as the hotel/resort if not more. So, do yourself a favor and SAVE with hopper and get the best deal for your vacation. The cool thing is you don’t have to book through the hopper app. You can book through another site such as Expedia if you would like to earn reward points.
Trip Advisor
Lastly, I love Trip Advisor. I use Trip Advisor for reviews and photos only. After I’ve gathered my top 5 hotel/resorts I head over to Trip Advisor to see what others had to say about their stay. I take time to browse through traveler photos and most recent reviews. I rely heavily on traveler reviews and photos. This allows me to truly see what the resort is like through the eyes of a traveler versus the eyes of a marketing executive.
In addition to that, Trip Advisor also has awesome recommendations on things to do. After my vacation is booked, I typically browse this portion of the site to book activities for my trip.
I hope this was helpful and please let me know if you would like more travel blogs in the future. Happy Traveling!
