Tuesday’s Travel Essentials…booking stuff online.
Travel blogs, travellers and nomads we’re all guilty of one thing: We sometimes pretend everything is easy. But it’s not always the case. We write so much positive stuff that we gloss over the bad times of travel and make things sound just a bit too good. You don’t hear of someone visiting Machu Picchu and saying “it was crap” do you? No you don’t, and by the way it’s not…but booking stuff online is something we all do as travellers and this means that our generation (Generation Y) have it easy – we just log onto the internet and book a hostel. It’s that easy. How do I do it? Here’s a few of my tips…
OK here are my tips for booking stuff online:
1. Book stuff in bulk and at the same time
2. Use one credit card for all the transactions
3. Log out of all other websites while you’re booking it.
4. Always double check it’s a secure site – with the https:// prefix
5. Try and book it on your own laptop
6. Don’t do other things while you’re booking it, it will distract and slow down the computer
7. Totally make sure the booking site is genuine!
8. NEVER book stuff online when you have paid a rate on a time limit for the internet use. What happens when your time finishes half way through a booking? Ouch!
Hey presto – I just found the internet in China and booked a hostel!
What sites do I use? Well there’s a few I’ve used over the last 10 years…
I don’t always name drop but I’ve used these ones for booking stuff online and never had a problem with them, I’ll trust their rates and their judgements.
– I use this one for hostels all over the world (Hostelbookers)
– When I’m back in the UK this is the one with hotels, especially if I’m booking a trip to London (Destinia)
– My old time loyal site for budget flights all over Europe (yes it’s Ryanair!)
It’s pretty easy to get things booked these days, I count myself lucky to be born in this generation, hey I can even share my travel stories with you thanks to the internet…Tuesday’s Travel Essentials next week will be typed up from Chongqing, possibly the world’s largest city at 32 million inhabitants. I can’t wait for that, oh and I booked it all online!