Planning

It's been two weeks since my last post and a lot has happened. Less than a week to go and we finally have hotels and travel arrangements booked.

Planning for this trip has been more difficult than I had ever expected. My previous trips to Europe were incredibly easy to plan, but because we are gone for a month and because we are visiting many cities, this trip is totally different.

Some things I've learned this time around:
-many booking websites won't charge you cancellation fees for hotels, however the fine print often suggests that the hotel will, consider getting insurance if you aren't sure about your stay...
-when booking anything online the travel insurance is often automatically checked, make sure to review your purchases prior to confirming your reservations...
-flights booked online are sometimes charged to your account individually and are divided between website and airline fees, when you check your bank account you will see several charges adding up to the total...
-most rental cars in Europe are manual transmission vehicles, automatic vehicles are available however they can sometimes cost twice as much as a manual...

The biggest lesson learned from planning this trip is to not procrastinate. If you plan on winging it, then truly go for it. There are plenty of transportation and hotel/hostel resources all over Europe that will make your adventure fun and easy to manage. If you don't really want to wing it and prefer to have some things planned, then it's best to have all transportation (except euro rail pass train reservations which can be booked in Europe) and hotels booked at least a month in advance. This ensures availability and better rates.

Although we procrastinated, we were able to book 8 hotels, 3 flights, and a rental car and still be within our budget.

As we count down our remaining days, we have shifted our focus to the little stuff. Packing, laundry, and last minute errands are on the agenda for the holiday weekend. We depart Alaska at 5pm on Tuesday, until then we will be frantically getting our bags together and hoping for the volcano to go back to sleep. More to come on the volcano and how natural disasters can effect your travel plans in the next post.









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