The best travel idea now

I mostly organize trips for business reasons, but when I want to move for leisure I need to find the best travel idea at the moment. What changes betweent the business and the leisure? For me the goals. Moving for meetings means to search for specific services and treatments, everything related to a tight agenda. If the trip is a pleasure, I need to be free and to enjoy the place. I like luxury and this means that I have to check a marvellous destination with good hotels as well.

First of all to find the best travel idea right now I start to make a list of my interests. What I really want from the holiday?

First of all I decide the period, in order to focus on the season. I love to see the sea during winter time, but in summer it is easier to swim and enjoy the place. Also the entertainment is better during the warm season. I also calculate the available days in my agenda. Then I need to search among my wish “right now”, so when I do my research.

Online

I start to check travel blogs and the booking, hotels and airlines websites. They offer experiences and advices. Certainly I don’t have to follow step by step their tips and suggestions, but use them. Exactly, their posts are useful to find good destination and see what the place can propose to a traveller. Difficulties, opportunities, popolarity of the attractions. For instance if I want to relax, I search for a less know place. If I want to increase my “culture” I will decide for a city full of art and museums. I did it also for my trip to Malmö.

I generally compare the sources, using Wikipedia, the mentioned sites and also some official guide. Why not read the tourism office web page. I also check the online pictures of the place, today it is easy using hashtags. In this way I have a real image on how it is the place. If on some website there are great pictures as advertisements, in some others there are the pictures of tourists. I like to compare the reviews as well, but I do not trust them so much, because they are sometimes fake.

Meanwhile I check prices starting from my loyalty cards. Infact travelling a lot I earn miles and points using airlines companies, hotel chains and related services. So I can spend them for my holidays. I can pay less for a specific destination. So the amount of miles earned can influence my choice as well.

The decision

How I can find the best travel idea now? Well, I resume the steps.

1. Decide the period and how many days to spend on holiday
2. Define the goals of the trip, according to the wish at the moment
3. Do a research online with my personal criterias (most interesting attractions, most luxury resorts, less known destinations, cheaper places… this depends on you)
4. Find and compare reviews and offers
5. Catch ideas from bloggers and travel websites, including offers able to inspire
6. Check loyalty programs to use miles and points to redeem them in a profitable way

These are the main elements that I consider to find the best travel ideas to decide where to go. What about you? How do you proceed? I will back to the topic with some other posts in next days, because I want to share some other hints, so stay tuned and follow me.