Today, anyone with enough money can go on a trip to almost any corner of our planet. Of course, there are destinations that you should only travel through a travel agency. But most countries in the world can be visited independently by a traveler, even with little experience.
Independent travel has the main and obvious advantage - its independence. You can choose for yourself which museums and in what order to visit, how long to look at each painting and what not to look at at all, which hotel to stay in, etc. This type of tourism is perfect for families with small children who find it difficult to adjust to the frantic rhythm of group excursions. It will also appeal to those who are used to managing their own time, want to explore a country in more detail, or simply lovers of unusual and non-standard experiences.
Another advantage that you will discover if you decide to organize your vacation yourself is savings. You can choose a more economical mode of transport, a hotel at a low price, and you will not have to pay for the services of a travel agency.
How to plan a trip
So, if you decide to plan your vacation yourself, you first need to solve several questions:
1. Direction of rest. You need to select the country and city of your holiday. Or perhaps you decide to go on a multi-country tour? The choice of the place where you will go on vacation will depend on many factors, including the composition of the group of vacationers, budget, availability of foreign passports and visas, etc. Before you finalize your choice, read several articles on the Internet, an encyclopedia, or a guidebook about the place where you are going to go. Pay special attention to the climate, visa regime, rules for entering the country (if it is abroad) and other important details.
2. After you have decided where to relax, you need to draw up a rough travel plan. Write down the main attractions of the area where you will be vacationing. If you plan to visit several cities or even countries, print or buy a map and mark on it the places you want to visit.
3. Once the plan has been drawn up and approved by all travelers, it’s time to start processing paperwork for the trip. If a visa is required to visit the country, then find out how and where to submit documents to obtain it. For different countries, obtaining a visa can take from 3 days to several weeks, so try to pay maximum attention to this issue.
4. Booking tickets. Booking tickets will allow you to fix their cost for a while. In addition, booking tickets is often necessary for obtaining a visa.
5. Solutions to the housing issue. A huge advantage for an independent traveler is the ability to choose where to stay. There are a huge variety of accommodation options in all countries - from luxury five-star hotels to campsites, hostels and even in the homes of local residents (the latter option, by the way, is the most economical and most interesting).
Once these basic issues have been resolved, you can move on to the fun part of planning your trip - starting to plan the details of your trip.
What you should definitely know before your vacation
Here are the nuances you can find out in advance so that your trip is filled with truly unforgettable experiences:
— what national dishes to try (sometimes not only countries, but also individual cities and even small villages are famous for their delicacies);
— schedule of festivals and national holidays of the country or city where you are going;
— the most unusual museums of the city or country;
— if you are traveling with children, be sure to find out about the availability of amusement parks, zoos, and children’s museums;
— famous architectural monuments located not only in large cities, but also in the suburbs;
- unusual national transport (for example, camels, cable cars, trams, rickshaws, etc.).
Another unusual and interesting way to get to know a new city from an unexpected side is to invite a local resident as a guide. Find a forum where expats hang out and ask someone to give you a tour. In gratitude, you can bring something tasty from your homeland, for example, chocolate.
Traveling with travel agencies is not always convenient. Let's say you bought a bus tour around the Golden Ring of Russia, it may not be a vacation, but a torment. After all, on the bus you will find yourself with people whom you will have to endure all week. Add to this the time limit; each attraction has a strictly limited time. Add here the route, approved and unshakable, from which you cannot turn away or rewrite it. And along the way you will be constantly taken to shops, souvenir shops, and you will eat in the “right” places. It doesn't sound very rosy anymore. Obviously, a tour package is the choice of those who find it difficult or simply lazy to carry out their plans on their own.
It’s no secret that for an independent traveler, preparing for a trip takes many times longer than the trip itself. Unless you decide to surrender to the will of fate, give it a thumbs up and go hitchhiking around the country. But very desperate people are drawn into such adventures. We just want to relax and see something new and interesting.
In the case of traveling around Russia, everything is both simpler and more complicated at the same time. If you are not traveling by personal vehicle, then the main problem of the entire trip will naturally be transportation. Whatever one may say, the main aspect that needs to be taken into account is distance. In the conditions of “my native country is wide,” the method of weekends away from home, so beloved by Europeans, is unlikely to suit us. Judge for yourself, to fly by plane from Moscow to Lake Baikal (the nearest airport is in Irkutsk), at best you will spend about 6 hours in the air. In the worst case, you will spend from 17 to 22 hours on the flight with a transfer in Novosibirsk, and a flight for the two of you back will cost about 50,000 rubles.
Agree, a very wealthy person can afford such a pleasure, and he certainly won’t fly to Baikal for 2 days. The example is far-fetched, you say, because from Moscow you can easily and quickly fly to Sochi or Crimea. But to the Urals, Altai or Kamchatka - the most beautiful places in Russia, it’s no less a flight. And what should those who do not live in Moscow do? Some of our compatriots will fly to Sochi as much as Muscovites will fly to Baikal. And we only considered air traffic. You can easily imagine how much time it takes to travel along the Russian Railway.
So it turns out that if you are going to travel around Russia, you need to go for at least a week, or even two. And the pleasure from a long vacation is much greater than from a short one.
Our article will help you choose a place to stay in Russia:. So, the place has been chosen. Let's move on to the second stage.
Buying tickets.
The most important and very important part of planning is buying train tickets - all at once and for your entire trip, including return tickets. The fact is that the railway message is the most popular in Russia and during the holiday season tickets sell like hot cakes. By postponing the purchase of tickets until the last minute, you risk simply not getting on the train you need. Therefore, ideally, you should buy a ticket as soon as it goes on sale. This happens 45 days before the travel date, so it is possible that you will have to buy tickets several times, because we add the vacation time to the 45 days of the first ticket and it turns out that return tickets have not yet gone on sale. To avoid numerous trips to the station, and often railway stations are located only in large cities, it is advisable to buy tickets online on the official website of Russian Railways.
Having bought an electronic ticket, you can feel quite safe, except for one small detail - you will need to print the electronic ticket before the trip in the terminals located in the station buildings. Several difficulties may await you here. Firstly, there are often queues at the terminals, and secondly, the terminal will not print your ticket less than 10 minutes before the train departs, so we strongly advise you to arrive at the station with a small amount of time (an hour, an hour and a half).
Having calculated the travel time and purchased all the tickets, we now know exactly the number of days we will spend away from home. It's time to look for housing.
Search for a hotel.
The hotel business in Russia is developed quite well, but there are also unscrupulous hoteliers; staying in the hotel of such an owner can completely ruin your entire vacation impression. Therefore, when choosing a hotel, you should definitely look at the reviews. That is why we will book a hotel via the Internet and through a large website, which has a large database of hotels and a database of reviews from visitors to these hotels. Another argument in favor of online hotel booking is that, as a rule, we care where to live and we choose our place of residence based on its actual location on the map. You can easily use the map below to do this. On it you can choose any hotel you like in Sochi.
If we are interested in another city, we will use the form below and simply enter the desired location in the search bar.
Then everything is as simple as shelling pears - choose the hotel you like, read reviews, look at its location on the map and book. You will not have any difficulties or problems. All hotels participating in the booking program, in case of their unfair work, can be influenced by filing a complaint on the website. Therefore, all hotels presented on the site monitor their good reputation - after all, at the present time, online booking is almost the main source of customers for hotels.
Do you need excursions while traveling?
So, all the basic and most expensive manipulations have been done! We booked the tickets, we booked the hotel. It's a small matter. Identify interesting places to visit and schedule excursions. It's easier here. For an independent traveler, it is important to make a choice - book excursions through travel agencies or continue to travel everywhere and around by public transport and on your own.
It all depends on the place you choose to relax. If you have your attention on Sochi, then it will not be difficult for you to visit all the significant sights, both natural and man-made, on your own. Sochi has very good public transport, and the Lastochka train will make your travels a complete pleasure. We have a large series of articles about the sights of Sochi on our website: . Of course, not all the sights of Sochi are presented and described in it, but all the most interesting things are there. The main advantage of sightseeing on your own is the savings - getting somewhere on your own is always cheaper than taking a tour. And don’t forget that in most cases you pay for the guide’s stories. If you can completely do without local legends, and do not like being taken around cheese factories, apiaries and wine shops, then it is better to refuse excursions.
Based on the above, we strongly recommend that you do not spend money on excursions to Sochi, but explore everything yourself.
The situation is completely opposite with excursions in the North Caucasus. Transport links here are not very well developed and let’s say you can’t get to Elbrus except by excursion bus. Therefore, excursions to the Caucasian mineral waters are not just a whim, but a very necessary and often even irreplaceable thing. You can get acquainted with the sights of the CMS in our other series of articles.
Hello friends! We are happy to learn that more and more people are joining the ranks of independent travelers. We are one of them. This type of travel allows you to get the most out of your trip, while saving your budget and giving you the right to choose how much and where to stay. In this article we share tips on how to how to plan your own trip. I hope they will help novice travelers plan their trip, and give impetus to those who doubt and think that this is not real.
We like to plan our own trips and not be dependent on certain frameworks that dictate tours. In some cases, of course, they do. For example, when the goal is to see several countries in a minimum number of days, and cut off those that are not to your liking. And those that you liked, visit them yourself, planning your trip in advance.
One of my favorite phrases is “Preparing for a trip is already the beginning of the journey.” In our opinion, every tourist trip begins with planning and preparation, and not when we reach the destination. After all, during the period of waiting, the brain subconsciously begins to travel, for example, looking through photographs, making a plan of what you want to see and what attractions to see, buying tickets, etc.
Ideally, it is best to plan your trip in advance. Approximately 3-6 months before the trip. This will give you the opportunity to save on tickets and also choose good accommodation. You need to decide in advance on the type of vacation, for example, it will be a vacation at sea, in the mountains, a ski vacation, sightseeing, etc., as well as the approximate time (month) of the planned trip. It’s great when a person is not tied to work or the vacation can be adjusted to travel. In this case, all that remains is to choose the direction.
Choosing a direction
As a rule, organizing trips begins with choosing a destination. Nowadays, doors are open to many countries around the world, it all depends on preferences and opportunities. replenished every year. So, with an ordinary foreign passport you can visit about 50 countries without a visa. This year they included Antigua and Barbuda, Qatar, Uruguay and Thailand. In addition, with a biometric foreign passport, you can visit 26 countries that are members of the European Union, as well as Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein, which are part of the Schengen zone. I will not list all the countries, since I have already written about them. If anyone is interested, follow the links above.As you can see, the choice is quite large, I’m not even talking about countries with visas on arrival, or for which an electronic visa is required.
If you need to apply for a visa to the desired country at the embassy, this is also not a problem. Yes, the process will take time, and you need to prepare the required package of documents, but everything is real. Before the introduction of the visa-free regime, we issued and. Nothing wrong with that. Prepare a list of documents, register at the embassy, come at the appointed time to submit documents, pay the fee and wait approximately 5-7 days depending on the country.
The choice of country directly depends on your preferences. Depending on your budget, you can choose excellent options. For me, a vacation without the sea is not a vacation, so we plan one trip a year to the sea, all the rest depend on preferences and wishes, as well as on the offers of carriers. For example, if the country is interesting and tickets are affordable.
Purchasing and booking tickets
And so, the course is set, we move on to booking and purchasing tickets. An important point in preparing for the trip is searching and booking tickets. Nowadays, there are many cool resources that help solve many problems without leaving your home or office. Including buying a ticket. To do this, you don’t need to go anywhere, stand in line, wasting your time.
Ticket booking services work online, you only need access to the Internet and any “conductor” - phone, laptop, PC, tablet, etc.To purchase air tickets, we use search engines Aviasales, Skyscanner, Buruki. To do this, you just need to fill out the form, indicating the city of departure and arrival, the exact dates of the trip, and the number of passengers.
Aviasales system searches for tickets on 728 airlines, and then displays a list, starting with the most budget options. In the filters you can select the number of transfers. The system also finds tickets, for example, Ryanair, SkyUp, Fly Dubai.
The search is carried out across 728 airlines, 5 reservation systems and 15 major agencies.
After purchasing, the ticket will be sent to you by email; you just need to print it out and take it with you. All personal data must be filled in in accordance with the travel document (foreign passport).
Basic tips for buying cheap air tickets:
Buy tickets during the week. The cheapest options can be found on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Prices are usually higher on weekends and holidays.
Don't stop at just one search engine, check the cost of air tickets on several resources and compare prices.
When purchasing tickets, pay attention to your luggage. Is it included in the ticket price or do you have to pay extra for it?
The best price for air tickets occurs 2 months before the flight.
Evening and overnight flights tend to be cheaper than daytime flights. You may need .
You can read the full list of tips by following the link.
In addition to air, cheap tickets can be found for bus or train. We recently traveled on the Intercity Kyiv-Przemysl. Fast, comfortable and affordable. In addition, not so long ago a good and inexpensive one came to Ukraine. He works in Europe, Russia, and now here too. You can find and buy tickets for FlixBus online by filling out a simple form.
As for train tickets, everything is simple here too. Moreover, you can also purchase train tickets in Ukraine online. we have already shared with you earlier.
Booking a hotel or apartment
The place has been chosen, tickets have been purchased, the next stage of trip planning is accommodation. It’s good when you have friends or relatives who will come stay for a few days, but if you don’t have any, what to do? The answer is obvious - you need to find housing in advance!
Search in Hotellook is carried out using 30 reservation systems in 220 countries.
Before you start looking for a room or apartment, you need to determine the basic requirements for housing. If you are going to travel around the country or sightseeing, and you need a room just for an overnight stay, choose rooms without frills. In this case, you don’t need a designer interior, cool equipment, new furniture, etc.
Room rates may vary depending on location. Look on the map where the hotel is located, whether it is convenient to get there and how. In some cases, it is worth paying more for a hotel than spending money on public transport.
Choose accommodation according to seasonality. If the trip is planned in the summer, pay attention to the presence of air conditioning, if in the winter - to the presence of heating.
Look through photos and reviews of people who have already stayed at the hotel, not on booking sites. Often the photos do not correspond to reality or are photoshopped. We always look at several sites, for example, Tourpravda, Tripadvisor, Tophotels, then compare photos, read reviews, and make a choice.
Room requirements may vary depending on your wishes. For example:
- Availability of free parking if traveling by car
- Sea view
- Availability of a balcony
- Internet availability
- Room with breakfast, etc.
To book rooms and apartments we use online servicesHotellok, Hotels24, Dobovo, andBooking,Agoda . I will not give detailed instructions on booking hotels, maybe I’ll write a separate article about this, I just want to give basic advice: carefully read the information about the hotel, what is included in the price and what is not, so as not to be disappointed or overpay.
After booking, a confirmation will be sent to your email address. You need to print it out and take it with you on your trip.
Travel insurance
When planning a trip on your own, you must take out travel insurance. To do this, just come to the insurance company or buy a travel voucher online. Nowadays, there are many companies and services for purchasing insurance. We use, Tripinsurance , Parasol. After purchase, the voucher is sent by email. Before your trip, you need to print it out and take it with you.
D To obtain travel insurance, you need your passport details and IIN. Insurance is issued for the duration of your stay abroad. The sum insured may vary depending on the country visited, for example, for European countries the sum insured is 30,000 euros.If you plan to travel by car or want to rent a car, find out if your license is suitable. In addition, for those traveling by car, you need to apply for a green card. It can be purchased from your local insurance company or online, and is often sold at the border. Details we already wrote. If anyone is interested, follow the link.
List of documents for the trip:
Foreign passport (original and copy). Visa, if required;
Travel medical insurance for the duration of your stay abroad;
Tickets;
Hotel reservation or invitation.
In addition to documents, we always draw up a travel plan. In it we write down the places we want to see. If necessary, indicate the location.
Review. In the article we wrote our tips on how to plan a trip yourself. I hope they will help and make your trip planning easier. Share your life hacks or useful resources that help you on your journey in the comments.
Thank you for reading our blog. See you soon on the pages of our
Beginning travelers usually choose all-inclusive package tours, most often to Turkey or Egypt. But after several such trips, everyone begins to think about planning an independent trip. And at this moment a dozen questions arise. We tried to collect the most common of them in this article.
What to take with you
If you are a little absent-minded and periodically lose something, then these tips are primarily for you.
- Credit cards and cash. You shouldn't take a lot of cash when traveling. It's better to take debit or credit cards. Almost everywhere you can pay by card, or, as a last resort, a bank where you can withdraw cash. However, you should not take all your cards with you. If possible, take with you a card with the currency of the country where you plan to travel. And also leave at least one card at home, if you do lose your wallet and you need to buy something urgently, for example, a return flight ticket, you can use Internet banking. We have already written about.
- Set a spending limit on the card. Be sure to set a cash withdrawal limit on all cards, even if you are not going to travel anywhere. If, however, the card falls into the wrong hands, they will not be able to withdraw more than the limit amount from it. And you can change the limit at any time through online banking or by phone.
- Copies of documents. Make several copies of your documents, insurance, and important phone numbers in advance. Place copies in each bag if you have more than one. And also send them to your email, to the cloud, and to your phone itself. So that if something happens, you can access your documents.
- Insurance. A must on a trip. We hope you won’t need it, but in any case it won’t be superfluous. In most countries, medicine is much more expensive than here, and in some countries, without insurance, you won’t be able to see a doctor at all. By the way, when you open cards at a bank, they may also offer favorable insurance conditions, for example, you will get insurance for free with this card.
Packing your suitcase for a trip
Perhaps, when going on a short trip, you take a huge suitcase, or a small backpack is enough for a month. We all have different habits. But if you think about it, most often we don’t need 5 pairs of boots or jeans when traveling. It’s better to think through your wardrobe for every day in advance. Be sure to check the weather forecast. Also, if you do not check luggage on the plane, but take only hand luggage, this significantly saves time at the airport and also dramatically reduces the chances of losing luggage.
Install an offline map
Before your upcoming trip, be sure to study your travel route. If possible, print or buy a map. There are also many offline maps for your phone, maps.me is very convenient. If you suddenly get lost, there will be something to use.
Buy a SIM card
We can no longer imagine ourselves without a telephone and the Internet. Now there is a huge choice of operators and tariffs. You can buy a universal card for travelers - Dreamsim. The cost of a SIM card is 10 euros. When you receive your SIM card, top it up with 10 euros and more will come as a bonus 5 euros.
Transport
Be sure to study the transport schedule before your trip. You will definitely need to get from the airport or train station to your temporary overnight stay. Print out addresses as well as route numbers and stops. you can find a lot of useful information.
Foreign language
Undoubtedly, in many countries they speak English, if you know it too, this is a huge plus. But there are still a number of countries in which English will not help you much. Be sure to find out what language the local population speaks, memorize some important phrases or write them down. You should also write down the address of your home in the local language. This is an important point if you are planning a trip to the east. If possible, install an online translator on your phone; it will make it easier for you to understand or explain yourself.
Nutrition
Think about nutrition. Nowadays there are quite a lot of services, such as Tripadvisor, Foursquare, with which you can choose an establishment to your liking. But we advise you to eat in “non-tourist” establishments: it will be cheaper and tastier there. Seek advice from locals. While walking around the city, pay attention to which establishments have fewer tourists and more locals.
Help
If you need help, are lost, need to print a ticket - don't panic. Almost every country loves tourists and is ready to help. In hotels you can explain the situation and they will let you call, print out a ticket or let you use the toilet. Many cities have tourist centers. There you can get qualified help with any questions. Information desks can be found in various popular tourist spots. They are often assigned volunteers who can answer any questions that may arise.
As you can see, there is nothing wrong with traveling on your own. We have great tips about and. For more savings, look for travel.
If you are a traveler or are just planning to become one, this book will become an indispensable assistant in organizing your vacation. Here you will find out all the necessary information about where and how to purchase tickets, hotels, excursions and other travel services at the best prices. The book contains many tips and recommendations that will help you organize various tours yourself without contacting travel companies. You will learn all the nuances of the tourist world that will help you plan an exciting, safe and comfortable trip for your budget.
* * *
The given introductory fragment of the book Vacation without a travel agency. How to organize a tour yourself (G.V. Ottens, 2018) provided by our book partner - the company liters.
So why do we travel? For many people, tourism is simply a vacation, an opportunity to change the environment. When buying air tickets or booking hotels, such travelers just want to lie by the sea and do nothing. For another category of tourists, traveling means much more than just a change of location and relaxing on the beach. Such tourists make a whole adventure out of their trip, testing themselves and their strengths. They travel to make new acquaintances, actively get to know new cities, exploring the nature of unusual places and sightseeing. Some tourists explore culture, others go shopping. If we combine all these goals, we will understand that the main reason for traveling is to gain new emotions and inspiration.
During the trip, you can not only restore your strength, but also get a complete reboot of your worldview, a change in your way of thinking, habits and even character. Traveling helps you discover in yourself what was hidden behind the dullness of everyday life, expand your consciousness, and realize your dreams. Travel, to one degree or another, becomes an integral part of every person’s life. While traveling, you can make not only new acquaintances, but also new loyal friends and important business partners. Thanks to travel, you grow and reach a new level of personal development. And, of course, the feeling of beauty that we get while traveling is very important, which motivates us to work and live better.
Experience from travel is certainly transferred into our everyday life, and familiar and rather boring things appear from a completely different perspective. We can learn a lot from other cultures. For example, you can learn from the Spaniards and Greeks how to rest “correctly”. The Greeks have a rule not to talk about work during friendly meetings, during siesta, or on weekends. If you call a Greek person after work hours, even for urgent matters, then this will be considered bad manners. I hope this book will teach you to relax culturally and with pleasure and, importantly, without much damage to your budget.
How to plan your trip correctly
In order to go and relax for a couple of weeks in one of the hot countries or take an excursion tour around Europe, you need to properly plan your vacation and in time select last-minute offers from tour operators, hotels, airlines and other travel service providers that suit your budget and quality. In this book you will receive many tips on how to plan your own vacation. How to buy air tickets and book hotels at the best prices. Find out where the best hotels are located in different countries of the world, how to take out travel insurance yourself, how to find out whether Russians need a visa to a particular country and much other useful information for your travel.
Any trip is an exciting and enjoyable process that allows a person to regain strength and learn a lot of new things. However, before you go on a trip, you should consider the many nuances and aspects that arise in any trip. The primary task in such cases is to develop a route and schedule. The route defines the entire path along which you will have to travel from one point to another to the final destination. The schedule, in turn, determines the time intervals for which you can stay at certain points on the route. We must also not forget that the route should indicate all the hotels and other important places that may be needed on the trip. It is worth choosing hotels of appropriate quality, since such establishments with low quality service can ruin the entire impression of the trip. And, of course, the trip should be comfortable for your budget. In addition, an important issue is always a visa and its necessity for a particular country for Russians. By providing such details in advance, you can ensure the most effective and enjoyable stay overall.
There are two options for organizing tourist trips: purchasing a ready-made package tour from a travel company; and independent organization of vacation without contacting travel agents. Each of these two travel options has its pros and cons. However, after the notorious “revolt” of travel agencies and airlines in 2013-2014, when travel agencies and airlines went bankrupt one after another amid a sharp increase in exchange rates, many tourists began to increasingly rely on their own strength and experience to organize their long-awaited vacation. In such cases, it is important to learn how to correctly and profitably buy air tickets, last minute tours, find suitable hotels and select other travel services necessary for your complete vacation.
This book is a guide for tourists in the world of independent travel. It will teach you how to properly use popular booking services for various travel services around the world, and will show you what cultural and national features of a particular country you should pay attention to when planning your trips. In addition, the book will tell you how and where you can save a sufficient amount of your budget, and where you should not do this. Moreover, we will discuss in detail all the important issues of obtaining visas, travel insurance and other documents necessary for your safe travel.
