Well.....surprise, surprise....here we are two months later, home after a wonderful trip but no postings to this blog. It is so disappointing that I cannot use my Ipad to work on my websites. Unfortunately many sitebuilders are not Ipad compatible.
Interesting too, that I did not see one computer for guests to use even in the hotels, but almost all our accommodation which was a mix of B&B's, hotels and apartments had free WiFi. Times have changed fast.
I will be creating our Yen for Travel blog from emails I sent to myself as we travelled. Along the way I plan to include hints and tips from our experiences, and other useful information for those who like us, prefer to plan their own trips.
Interesting too, that I did not see one computer for guests to use even in the hotels, but almost all our accommodation which was a mix of B&B's, hotels and apartments had free WiFi. Times have changed fast.
I will be creating our Yen for Travel blog from emails I sent to myself as we travelled. Along the way I plan to include hints and tips from our experiences, and other useful information for those who like us, prefer to plan their own trips.
Booking Online for Great Savings
I worked out our itinerary and booked the whole trip online. While you do have to put in a lot of time and triple check everything before pushing that button that commits you.....you can save a lot of money by doing all the bookings yourself.
I usually book the first few weeks and the last night's accommodation before we leave . To allow for flexibility, we usually then book two or three nights ahead as we go. This has worked well the last couple of trips. You do not always know where you are going to be or how long you want in each place .
If it was a short trip - two to three weeks, I would probably book the whole trip. But two months is a long time to have everything totally booked. Interesting things crop up - festivals and events, or you may have met someone who made a great suggestion.....or even find you just want to relax in one place for a while.
It can get tiring and you may decide to spend more nights in fewer places as you get into the latter part of your trip. We certainly didn't cover as much as we originally planned to in Portugal, preferring to spend 3 or 4 nights in places. It also got much hotter than we expected in some places, which altered our destination choices at times.
I usually book the first few weeks and the last night's accommodation before we leave . To allow for flexibility, we usually then book two or three nights ahead as we go. This has worked well the last couple of trips. You do not always know where you are going to be or how long you want in each place .
If it was a short trip - two to three weeks, I would probably book the whole trip. But two months is a long time to have everything totally booked. Interesting things crop up - festivals and events, or you may have met someone who made a great suggestion.....or even find you just want to relax in one place for a while.
It can get tiring and you may decide to spend more nights in fewer places as you get into the latter part of your trip. We certainly didn't cover as much as we originally planned to in Portugal, preferring to spend 3 or 4 nights in places. It also got much hotter than we expected in some places, which altered our destination choices at times.
Getting Around
Driving ourselves is usually our preferred means of transport if the destination is suitable. But we did perhaps create a fairly intensive itinerary in Morocco, with more driving than we realised. We moved on every night for 10 days. By the time we arrived in Madeira, Brian , who had also done a lot of driving in England, wanted a break.
We abandoned our plan to hire a car for the week in a timeshare and just used public transport and did a tour to the west of the island. Even in Portugal we realised we didn't need a car until we were leaving Oporto. We opted to take a train from Lisbon to Oporto and then hired a car which we returned to the airport at Lisbon.
Leaving yourself some leeway to change original plans is well worth it. We managed to save a weeks worth of car rental and the driver got to take a break!
We abandoned our plan to hire a car for the week in a timeshare and just used public transport and did a tour to the west of the island. Even in Portugal we realised we didn't need a car until we were leaving Oporto. We opted to take a train from Lisbon to Oporto and then hired a car which we returned to the airport at Lisbon.
Leaving yourself some leeway to change original plans is well worth it. We managed to save a weeks worth of car rental and the driver got to take a break!
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