Hello!
Summer is coming to an end, which means it's time to think about how to extend it into autumn. Travel is best suited for this purpose!
Image taken from restplace.com.ua
All travelers, regardless of their preferences in choosing countries, can be divided into two categories:
- Those who prefer to travel through travel agencies.
- Those who prefer to travel on their own.
Both options have the right to life.
Most of the travel abroad from Russia takes place through agencies. It is difficult to say what exactly is the reason for this choice. Perhaps in ignorance of the language, in unwillingness to take risks, fear of doing something wrong, and maybe in a habit. Sometimes a voucher is significantly cheaper than an independent trip, and sometimes vice versa. But, there are places to which, due to their hype, vouchers are prohibitively expensive. This is where independent trips will be beneficial.
Be that as it may, for both those and other travelers, modern technologies offer a lot of options to meet their needs.
Let's try to figure out a vacation using gadgets.
All of the following will be based solely on personal experience and does not pretend to be the ultimate truth, except that, if you see advertising in the text, do not play Poirot, do not look – it is not there. ?
If there is such an opportunity, and if it turns out to be expedient, I always prefer to travel on my own, therefore, consider the possibility of planning your own trip. But, first, let's make a small curtsy to the lovers of the vouchers.
Tour search
In my opinion, at the moment, the most powerful aggregator of travel packages is the site sletat.ru
The advantage of this resource is the availability of a search for a large number of travel agencies.
Given the number of agencies searched for, you can find a tour to almost any country and for any period. Really convenient. However, it was not part of my plans to go on vacation on a tour. Independent travel is our everything!
Let's go ourselves
To begin with, you need to decide exactly where we want to go, and how many people are going. The expediency of an independent trip will also depend on this. If we are talking about a trip to some generally recognized beach holiday destinations such as Turkey, Egypt, etc., then there is no point in going there on your own, no – it will still be cheaper with a tour, and you can hardly organize everything better than an agency . But if we are talking about a trip to a country and a city full of excursion programs and attractions, independent trips will often give odds to any agency.
Let's try to organize a trip to Barcelona using a gadget and applications.
Tickets
I use the Skyscanner app as my primary ticket search service.
The main advantage of this particular application for myself I consider the availability of a price calendar, in which you can choose the best price combination.
In addition to Skyscanner, I tried to use the Aviasales application, but it seemed to me not so convenient. Despite the fact that there are beautiful animations and more interesting design, the very mechanics of the application seemed to me inconvenient. No feeling of an intuitive interface.
You don't immediately understand where what is, and where to click next. And yet, I did not find a sane price calendar so that I could choose the most favorable dates for myself. Alas.
As with any ticket buying service, you need to catch the best prices. And if you plan a trip in advance, then in all the ticket search services I know, you can set a reminder about price changes. Thus, you will not miss out on this great offer.
As a result, tickets were bought with a transfer in Istanbul. I never understood the reluctance of people to fly with transfers. Perhaps because I rarely take a lot of luggage with me, more often than not I limit myself to carry-on luggage. And a transfer, especially a long one, is an opportunity to visit another country – so the journey will turn out to be even more interesting.
Where to live?
Tickets are bought. Let's move on to booking a place of residence.
To do this, you can use various services, among which I use two main ones:
- Booking for hotel reservations
- Airbnb for booking accommodation (rooms, apartments) with individuals.
Everything is simple here – we are looking for a city, we drive in the dates, and we choose the most advantageous offer. The benefit in this case is not only the price, but also the location, reviews and the availability of amenities and services.
For unassuming travelers, the option with hostels is perfect, of which there are a great many.
Or, you can look for a more comfortable hotel room, but given the peculiarity of the city, a hotel room will be significantly more expensive.
If you don't need a hotel room and want to immerse yourself in the culture of the host country more fully, then Airbnb is perfect.
As in the case of Booking, you can use sorting, set parameters, and select a location on the map.
In Russia, unfortunately, the service has recently garnered a lot of criticism due to the dishonesty of homeowners, however, in the same Europe so far everything is in order. Personally, all my travels with Airbnb reservations have ended well. None of the landlords canceled the reservation, did not try to cheat, suddenly changing the price or adding conditions not specified in the offer. Until I personally burn myself (I hope this does not happen), I will not stop using this service.
What to do and what to eat?
After deciding on tickets and accommodation, you should think about that. What to see, where to go, and of course, what to eat. ?
For this I use two main services:
- TripAdvisor
- Google Trips
I use TripAdvisor primarily to search for restaurants, bars and other dining establishments. The service is convenient for the presence of the Russian language, which means a large number of reviews from compatriots. It is inconvenient because it has long been used as an advertising platform by the owners of establishments.
Google Trips, which I discovered not so long ago. There is a lot of different information collected here, which is grouped by types and services, from accounting for air tickets, and ending with notes and plans for the day. One but, the application is in English. Some may find it uncomfortable. But this is a rather powerful combine that combines everything in one place, and even synchronizes this data with your account, and therefore with other Google services.
Navigation
Google maps is certainly good, but only without the Internet, which is not very cheap in roaming, they become practically useless.
I have been using MapsMe for travel.
The service allows you to download maps of the required cities or countries at once, and use navigation even without the Internet, while absolutely free.
If you plan to have WiFi in your place of stay, then no one has canceled the use of Google maps in conjunction with MapsMe.
A smart navigation program in a smartphone is a great help for an independent traveler.
Interpreter
If you are traveling to a country where, in addition to English, the local language is often used, and the local population does not always know the same English, then it would be useful to get an interpreter who will help you with difficult situations in which your knowledge of the language is not enough.
For these purposes, I use Google translator with pre-downloaded packages of languages of the countries that I plan to visit. In this case, the translation will work even without the presence of the Internet.
Travel gadgets
Once upon a time, when going on a trip, I tried to take as many electronic devices as possible, each of which had to perform its own function. The list of mandatory items included a small laptop, tablet, smartphone, a simple push-button telephone, another smartphone (spare), an external battery (or two), a set of adapters for sockets, a pair of chargers, and a camera.
After a certain number of trips, only the main smartphone, a charger with a spare cable, an external battery and a small Chromecast remained from this entire list, in case there is an HDMI connector on the TV at the place of stay (if not, okay). The camera most often lay in a bag or safe for the whole vacation, the tablet was taken out a couple of times, and the laptop was used to watch movies and TV shows, which can be perfectly done on the TV in the room by connecting the same Chromecast to it. Not being an avid photographer, I see no reason to carry a camera with you, since 99% of all travel photos are taken on a smartphone. In general, the smartphone has replaced almost everything over time, and this is not bad. The main thing is that the battery lasts for a long time.
Conclusion
Summing up all the costs of the trip, I received a saving of about 30-35% compared to a tour of the same duration, if it had been bought through a travel agency.
In addition to saving money, when you travel on your own, you get an opportunity for maneuver, which consists in choosing a place of residence and dates, which you cannot afford when buying a voucher from a travel agency.
For independent travelers on the Internet, you can find a lot of thematic forums where you can thoroughly prepare for the trip, view the routes, and also read about someone else's experience so as not to make mistakes. The above information is more a kind of cheat sheet than a guide to action, since all the nuances still cannot be grasped.
In fact, everyone makes the choice of how to ride for themselves. To some, all this fuss with buying tickets, choosing accommodation, places to eat, etc. may seem tiresome. And that is great. The main thing is that you are satisfied with what you get by making your choice.
One thing is for sure – gadgets have made our already small planet even smaller, and this makes it even more accessible. And this is more good than bad. Great travels and new impressions to everyone!