Wednesday, March 21, 2012

To book or not to book. . . . always the question!

This is getting real. A month from now, we will be somewhere in the UK. While we’re confident, there’s always questions. Did we actually budget enough money for this beast of a trip? Are we missing any vital vaccinations? Did we remember to cancel all the bills?

There’s also just some flat out unknowns. We’re going to get some travel insurance, but what happens if we actually need to make a claim off the coast of Malta?
Then again, if there’s no risk, there’s no adventure.
In general, we don’t book in advance, instead getting advice from travelers once we arrive or just walking up to a guesthouse and hoping. This is always a bit more problematic when first arriving halfway around the world.
My first trip I flew to London and had pre-booked. I immediately took the train in the wrong direction and eight hours later found the rain dumping down on me in front of Buckingham palace at 1am. I eventually found the place, but it was not a good location and a rough experience.
Landing in Bangkok, we took a taxi from the airport directly to our hostel. It was was out in the middle of nowhere under a freeway overpass. They had lost our reservation and were booked up. Thankfully, they found a mattress and we slept in an auxiliary room. The next day, we woke up, walked out the front door and found ourselves in a place that we would not recommend other travelers to visit. We proceeded to get ourselves lost going back to the hostel following evening. I used my horrible, horrible Thai to get a taxi to take us to a very close street and we did find the hostel, but not until we got chased by a possibly rabid wild dog.
Point being, the first step can be a doozy.

1 comment:

  1. It`s advisable to take care of everything before for the trip, have an interpreter now it's easy on a smartphone. Well, the question of insurance, I think this is an element of calm in the first place. My husband bought tickets and booked accommodation and motorbikes http://catmotors.net/lease-terms/ in Chiang Mai Thailand. This was done in order to reduce the stress of moving, changing the climate and the time zone. If there is a possibility that something can go wrong, moreover, experience shows that it happens often. It`s better to have a few reserve options, as carelessness can be transformed into higher costs, or worse, spoiled vacation is definitive. Take care of yourself.

    ReplyDelete