
Ask HN: How do you plan vacations? - dyeje
Curious how other folks on here plan their vacations.  Looking to get away during Christmas to somewhere warmer.  Anybody have good tools, websites, or strategies that they would recommend?
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bsvalley
I start in January right after the holidays when there's no vacation ahead,
just a pile of work to be done:

Vision - I should be at the beach chilling right now

Strategy - Let me book a trip to the beach for Christmas today to get the best
deals, when no one thinks about Christmas since it's January.

Design - I like to be free on vacation so I'd usually look for apartment
rentals or even houses (airbnb or specific websites depends on the location).
I try to avoid hotels so I don't have to leave the room every morning at the
same time. I don't want to tip the hell out of my day as well while on
vacation. I can make my own bed. I prefer having a kitchen where I can cook
whenever I want. My own fridge, etc.

Execution - Budget is key, I start to look at how much I can afford. Then I
split it into 2 categories - flight cost and room cost. If I fly very far I'd
lower my room budget or look for places slightly outside of the tourist
places, where I could easily get to whenever... If I fly domestic then I make
sure to rent a very nice place. In terms of day to day expenses, I usually
save a little bit of cash here and there from January until the trip. So it's
not even budgeted and I have a pile of cash to travel with when the day comes.

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acrooks
I subscribe to this website (I am based out of Vancouver):
[http://www.yvrdeals.com](http://www.yvrdeals.com) I'm sure most cities with
large airports have something like this sort of website - of course this
strategy only works for people

Whenever a good deal comes up to somewhere that seems cool, I just book it.
There is a chance I won't be able to make the trip work, but in the long term,
the cost of periodically missing a $300 round trip to Europe or a $500 round
trip to Asia is far lower than always paying $1000, and for me the spontaneity
of going to new and exciting places sometimes last minute is absolutely worth
it.

This can be very difficult to coordinate with my job, especially when the
deals come up last minute, but we usually find a way to make it work.

Sometimes friends and I will want to go somewhere specific. Our usual strategy
in this case is to not book anything because always one of us cannot 100%
commit, or one of us has a hope in the back of our minds that a deal might
come up. We almost always end up committing in the end, and a deal almost
never comes up, so we normally end up paying the highest prices at the last
minute. Though we do get lucky sometimes :)

As for choosing destinations: we're an outdoorsy friend group, so the
combination of all of us reading nature and travel blogs / magazines,
following Instagram feeds, etc. is enough to give us a bucket list. Usually
travelling inspires me to visit more places. Whenever there's a really good
deal on YVR Deals, I'll use that as inspiration to go somewhere new.

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sandipagr
[http://www.theflightdeal.com/](http://www.theflightdeal.com/) is one of my
favorite website for airfare deals if you are flexible with destination.

I am based out of SFO and have IFTTT set up to get a SMS whenever there is a
new deal [http://www.theflightdeal.com/category/flight-
deals/sfo/](http://www.theflightdeal.com/category/flight-deals/sfo/). Works
brilliantly. I have gotten deals like $525 RT to Nepal, $404 RT to Indonesia,
$240 RT to Colombia and many more...

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godot
Probably 80~90% of the time I already know where I want to go, so I hit the
usual travel sites (Expedia etc.) to see how much flights are. Sometimes I
plan something rather last-minute (travel within a week or two), I go to
flights.google.com and enter my home airport, and use the map view to look for
cheap flights anywhere. I managed to make a few good trips that way. One time
I did exactly this like 3 days before X'mas and flew out on X'mas day and it
was actually relatively cheap, to a place in the Caribbean.

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busterarm
Mine's easy and sorry if this isn't helpful.

All of my vacation time is planned around going to Blackhat/BSides/Defcon. I
book whatever the defcon hotel is for the full block of dates.

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neduma
[https://www.nytimes.com/section/travel](https://www.nytimes.com/section/travel)

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davchana
I use a mix of Excel sheets, Google Keep, and various other tools.

I choose a rough slot of time, and start looking flights. Cheapest flight
decide the city, then room from booking.com. An excel sheet logs and guides my
preparations for Visa Application, another one lists the documents required.
One more helps me to pack the items/things.

~~~
gordon_freeman
Add Google Flights web-based tool in there as well. Super useful to see the
costs of flights in order to decide which places to visit within the budget
constraint. Also Google Trips Android app I found useful that shows me nearby
attractions to see in the City I am visiting. Saves me from doing manual
searches for the same on Google Search app.

~~~
davchana
Oh yes, forgot to list that, but I use it. The only feature I would like to
see in Google Flights is to archive the tracked flights. As of now, all
tracked flights appear in that section, 20 as of mine, I do not want to lose
historical data on routes of my interest.

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quickthrower2
It depends on the vacation.

I tend to use Skyscanner or similar for flights. This may help me choose the
destination based on costs.

Hotels.com for hotels as they have a buy 10 get 1 night free offer.

Then Google for other things. Like skiing for example to find the best deals
on lift passes and hire etc.

I used to do the whole lonely planet guide thing when younger and cram
activities in. Now I prefer to go somewhere with a rough idea of things to do
found on the net, and play it by ear.

Last holiday in Queenstown NZ I did 3 days with family of just hanging out.
It's glorious not to be on a schedule sometimes.

Conversely I hate tours for this reason. Done them a couple of times and I
dislike travelling with random people especially if they are heavy drinker
loud types. I also dislike the forced 6am starts every day.

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aluminussoma
This is such a pain and ripe for disruption. No company has gotten it right so
far.

First I look at flights: what is affordable and when? Some dates are much more
expensive than other dates.

Then I look at hotels and itineraries: What do I want to see? What is
affordable near where I want to visit? Hopefully there isn't a convention that
overlaps.

Finally I look at rental cars: Is it still affordable?

Recently I've used the packaged deals websites or through the airlines. It can
be cheaper to get it bundled.

If any one of those factors (airfare, hotel, or car) is overpriced, then I
look at a different place. It is usually conventions that disrupt my plans and
cause spikes in the prices.

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BigTex420
Scott's cheap flights send me daily emails about mistake fares or good deals.
I've already got a list of places to visit so if there's a match, I pull the
trigger.

From there, Airbnb, atlas obscura, and google maps to find green areas nearby

~~~
alt_f4
Hi Scott!

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guilhas
I normally have an idea where I want to go. And then I check youtube videos or
blog postds of the places.

Google "top travel destinations Christmas"

I think Thailand is a good one

Youtube "Thailand travel"

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fairpx
On the fly, usually last minute.

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sharemywin
I use travelocity. But, I usually already know where I'm going.

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dominotw
travel documentaries

