So Who is Your Travel Agent?

I get asked this a lot and it's always fun to reply: ME!

But I work at it. Some trips harder than others.  Maybe that's because our family likes to travel a certain way? 

If you looked at my TripAdvisor travel style you'd see beach goer, history buff, upscale and like a local. Which means we don't camp. (heaven forbid!) But we don't have the wealth to do the fist class airfare (every trip) private yach, villa with chef, butler and pool boy.  Then we're not Motel 6 people either. We prefer Marriott over Hilton but not over Four Seasons or the Ritz. And mostly we like to see wherever we are from the locals perspective.

[Note: NatGeo just published How to Be a Good Traveler in 10 Easy Steps which includes how to explore like a local]

So put that altogether and what you get is a lot of research and a lot of work. Generally I start with Google Earth and pick a spot that we think we want to go or try to zero in on an island or country or the city and plan from there.

TripAdvisor is always my first stop I look at all the hotel offers based on what our family tends to like. Beach. pool. Historical sites. If we are headed to a city, we usually want to be close to all the attractions.  If I don't find a hotel to our liking on TripAdvisor then my next stop is VRBO this is the be-all end-all for home away from home rentals and I've had great success finding us places to stay. Generally I use vacation rental by owner if were going to stay somewhere for a long period of time say 10 days or more. This way we have a place to come back to at the end of the day where we can make a simple meal and relax and not be forced to eat out every meal and be stuck in a  hotel room.

Just like buying a property it's all location location location. This is where you really have to do your work if you care about where you're staying. I tend to look at what is most attractive to us, check the map and see if any of the properties I've found match up. And you can't take the listing as truth on the location.  I've seen apartments listed in NYC as Upper West Side that are on 121st Street. Ummm, no. Note even close. Make sure you get an exact address before you book.

UWS = 59th to 110th

I just recently tried Airbnb.com for the first time. Again, gotta really look at the map and know where you want to be. I asked one owner about public transit near his rental and he said "there's a bus stop but you don't want to use public transit, it's not safe." Ok, apparently you don't want to rent your house. NEXT!  

After finding suitable hotel/housing next comes airfare. Usually. Sometimes I find a great place but airfare is prohibitive so I have to drop back and punt. [insert The Azores here]

The Azores - Gotta find the 'off season' to go here.

I like to first check Hopper to see what they have to say about timing of buying a ticket to our chosen destination. Then it's on to kayak.com to dig out a fare. I've always found the best days to find a cheap(er) flight is early Sunday morning or Tuesday. Usually I set up a daily email and watch the fare for a while before I buy.

But the one thing I always do is once I find flights I like, I go through the process of buying them so I can see how filled the seats are on those flights. If I have a lot of lead time then I'll do this a couple of times before I buy the ticket. I try to take note of how many seats are filled the first time and then look and see if they've filled up and do I need to buy sooner rather than later.

[Side Note: On a recent trip to Turks and Caicos the first time I looked at the flights and found one I like and then looked at the seating chart and realized I needed to book sooner and I bought tickets 8 months in advance of the trip. Otherwise we would've been able to get flights at all.]

Make sure you always check directly with the airline site and don't just go with what you see on Orbitz or Travelocity or even Kayak you want to make sure that the flight that you're seeing is really a good flight and you could actually get it as it's offered.

Once you've got your location your hotel and your airfare booked you're ready to go and the rest is easy. If you're a scuba diving family like we are then you have to make sure that you've got reservations on the dive boat for the days that you want to dive going to the places that you want to go.

Will Cypha aka rental car

Otherwise the only thing left his car rental, if you need one. If we're traveling stateside I go through Hotwire.com because I don't really care who I rent my car from as long as it's got four wheels and it's going to hold the amount of luggage that we're going to carry. Hotwire always gives me the best deal for car rentals often times it's half or even less than half of what the carriers are offering out right.

Ultimately you have to know what kind of traveler you are before you book the hotel or airfare or make the first travel plan.  

When It's Not What You Think

So we spent two weeks over the holidays in Providenciales, Turks & Caicos and it is beautiful. It's warm, sunny, the water is super clear. Diving was great [according to my divers.] Food was delicious. Really lovely.

But it wasn't what we thought it would be.  In fact, once you get past the beauty, weather and food, it was a lot like the Jersey shore in July. Grace bay is this 13 mile stretch of white sand beach with calm water and the bodies are practically on top of each other.  Granted they are in resort lounge chairs vs. the typical towel or beach blanket at the shore but there were people EVERYWHERE. And they were all American.

What you expect when you research TCI

This is what it's really like.

TCI totally caters to Americans.  In fact, their official currency is the US dollar, which is nice since you don't have to pay an exchange rate or additional fees on credit cards. Oddly, for an island that is so "American," very very few places take American Express.  [Note to travelers like us: Take your Visa or MC!]

We are the type of travelers that like to immerse ourselves in the local culture, history, food etc. That was really hard to do when everyone I spoke with was from somewhere else. All of the resort staff were Haitian or Jamaican. I met ONE person during our two week visit that was born and bred in TCI. And I talk to everyone! I ask where to eat, what to see, where to go. Most were stymied and the concierge at our resort just stared at me like I had asked to book a tour to the moon.

Thankfully we had our car, Will Cypha, who we drove all over the island looking for the elusive TCI culture, history, local flair and 'downtown' Provo, which we found doesn't really exist other than on a local map. 

Will Cypha - He spoke Japanese

The Christmas Eve "Funky Junkanoo" was as close as we came to any cultural activities. And we heard the Thursday Fish Fry is a good time, since the holidays fell on Thursday we missed that.

 

We did come across one historical site at Sopadilla Bay Hill.  Rock carvings from soldiers on lookout during the 18th and 19th century.  Here's the oldest one that dates to 1767 and another from 1832.  

But it wasn't a total loss - we had great food & drinks at Bugaloo's!

We did an all-day snorkel trip with Caicos Dream Tours on January 1st. That was fun!

Mind you, it wasn't a horrible trip by any measure. It was just not what we expected given all that we had read and researched prior to booking our trip - in April 2014!  [Yes, 8 months in advance and  reasonable airfares were difficult to find.]

I guess  'don't believe everything you read' is the lesson here. I am a big researcher before I book a trip and I feel like this wasn't quite an #epicfail but I certainly needed to have done more to ensure we went on the type of trip we enjoy.

So if you're an adventure traveler, history buff, museum monger or like to do all the locals stuff, Provo, TCI is not the place for you.

If you're looking for a place to unwind, take in the sun, hang on the  beach and enjoy the calm waters and eat great seafood, then TCI is the perfect place for you!

P.S. If you venture a trip to TCI, be sure to give yourself at least THREE hours on the return trip to the airport, you will need it. PLS is the worse island departure experience we've ever encountered.