

Ask HN: How do you hack vacation planning? - relaunched

I'd like to setup a vacation and after a little searching, I'm interested in seeing if anyone has an effective shortcut for planning / booking an all-in vacation, preferably online, but maybe a travel agent is the best way to go.  There's just so much between airlines, hotels, activities, meals, etc, planning has become a great big pain in the @ss.<p>Any tips or resources would be greatly appreciated.<p>And advice or tips would be greatly appreciated.
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bashvitz
Hi,

Not sure this is something that can be hacked (yet) but travel has a few
distinct steps: Discovery, Planning Booking. From your post it sounds like you
are still in the discovery stage so you can use sites like TripAdvisor,
Gogobot or Desti (there are a lot of others) to discover. Unfortunately I have
found that a lot of these are complicators and not simplifiers. Once you know
where you want to go and what you want to do you can use OTAs or companies
like Hipmunk (flights) and AirBNB for accomodation booking. There are a few
companies that offer complete trip booking including activities etc. but these
are typically limited to specific locations. I know of a few around Europe.
The other question is what type of trip this is? Sounds like you are looking
for a vacation with multiple stops which makes the process more complicated
but also fun. If you know your destination and type of trip I might be able to
give better pointers. We are working on a much better solution at OlSet that
will simplify the process but we will not be ready for prime-time until Q1
2013.

