Last week you could read part I of ‘how to get the most out of your holiday’. Today you can read some more tips on planning your holiday to get the most out of it!

Planning a holiday is so much fun to do! It’s a big part of the trip for me… I look up so many things that when I am actually at my holiday destination, I almost feel like a local! Well… that might be a bit exaggerated, but you get the point 😀

Here’s the link to part I of this post where you could read the first 7 tips. Below you find 7 more.

8.Book tickets in advance/make a reservation

When you’ve set up your hopes to visit a certain museum, event, castle, exposition,… it can be very disappointing to see the queue at the ticket office or to find out that everything is sold out! Sometimes it does pay off to buy your tickets in advance and in some cases it’s even cheaper 🙂

Also for restaurants it’s often a comforting thought when you make a reservation.

On previous travels, I have booked in advance on several occasions: a visit to Highclere Castle, Buckingham Palace, a musical, afternoon tea at the Ritz Hotel, a sports event, the Leavesden Studios (Harry Potter),… any place or event that is bound to be sold out actually 🙂

Picture above: if we hadn’t booked our Buckingham Palace tickets in advance, we would never have been able to have these lovely scones with Sandringham pressed apple juice in the Queen’s backyard (it was a bit too hot for tea that day!!!).

Picture below: enjoying a pre-booked lunch at Ralph’s in Paris.

9.Entrance fee

Entrance fees can be pretty high sometimes. To avoid surprises at the ticket office, I look up in advance how much a ticket costs. My kids usually have to pay less upon presentation of their student card, so I make sure they bring it with them!

Picture above: the entrance fee at Highclere Castle was pretty steep… but as I had looked it up in advance, I knew what I was in for!

10.Check the public transport

When you’re in a big city, it might be best to rely on public transport. Check out whether they have travel cards or tourist passes. Check out the website of the city you’re travelling to. This will have all the information and links needed!

11.Accommodation

 

Sometimes you find the perfect accommodation… it’s got everything you need and the price is more than ok!! But before booking, make sure to check out the location: is it close to amenities and to the places you want to visit? Or is it off the beaten track and is that the reason for the lower price?!

It can be worth paying a bit extra for your accommodation to avoid driving around for miles and miles everyday to get to your self-catering house/hotel or to pay an arm and a leg on public transport.

12.Bring supplies for your first meals

When you rent a self-catering accommodation (like we do most of the times) you might want to take some food supplies with you to cover the first evening and morning.

We usually arrive at our destination quite late so we don’t have time to go to the supermarket to stock up for our stay. For the first night we always take some spaghetti with us. We just have to boil the pasta, heat up the sauce and we’ve got a decent meal in an insant!

For the first morning, we usually bring some milk, cereals, bread and cheese and our first job is find the nearest supermarket to buy some groceries (I look up in advance where to find that supermarket… or what did you expect 🙂 ).

13.Hospitals and local services

Because of my husband’s medical condition (he’s got a transplant kidney), we always want to know where the nearest hospital is, preferably a hospital with a nephrology department. It’s just a comforting thought I think in our situation.

So my advice is, if you’ve got some kind of medical condition or when you’re travelling with kids, make sure where to go in case of emergencies.

I also check where the local petrolstation and garage is… it’s just reassuring for me to know these things beforehand!

14.Leave room for spontaneity

As I mentioned last week, planning a holiday doesn’t have to mean that you can’t be spontaneous! Enjoy your holiday, colour out of the box, do things you’d never do and just make the most out of your vacation.

But if you’ve done a bit of research, you know that you always have a back-up to fall upon for when your spontaneity gets a bit lost 😉

Love, Kathleen