Travel Plans & Insurance

A colleague of mine recently took a three week jaunt through Thailand and Spain. During the course of this trip he caught four international flights, one domestic flight, stayed in seven hotels, went on three organised tours, booked two hire cars and attended one music festival. I know this because every person in our office lived through the air-punching highs and bone-crushing lows of his pre-departure planning. Conducted by phone, fax and email, it was minute, exhaustive and relentless. 

Now I have nothing against people doing extra-curricular activities at work (how would we live without it?). But what I couldn't grasp was the delight he took in having every minute of his holiday planned with military precision. For me, once I've decided on a general destination and picked the restaurants I'd like to visit from the Lonely Planet, I'm ready to jump on the plane and say bon voyage. The whole tedious process of actually booking flights and deciding where I'd like them to land is something I'd prefer to bypass. 

The problem is of course that a lack of planning generally leads to a lack of leaving. And even for those of us who baulk at 'committing to dates' and 'booking ahead', there is a bare minimum of work that's essential to getting your trip off the ground - even if the only real 'plan' you have is to fly by the seat of your pants. The first essential step is booking flights.

Although it's often difficult to know exactly where you'll end up, something as simple as 'South East Asia' or 'Western Europe' can help you get started. The less rigid you are about arrival and departure cities the easier it will be to find a low cost option. It can take a lot of wrangling to find a cheap ticket that suits your itinerary, but by researching online and comparing travel agents you should be able to get the best price possible.

Once you have that all-important ticket in hand, a quick check online will tell you whether you need visas for any of the countries you're visiting. A slow and complicated process will follow to obtain said visas. At the same time, check what sort of fees and charges are associated with using your credit or debit card overseas. If they're exorbitant, start researching better options. But remember, always read the fine print and make sure you have online banking so you can keep an eye on your spend.

Next, it's time to tackle travel insurance. The great thing about this step is that you can leave it right until a couple of weeks before you leave. Also, travel insurance is usually pretty flexible and can be extended if your trip takes a turn for the longer. While you can usually get insurance through your travel agent, it's best to go online so you can compare options and make sure you're getting the best deal possible direct, by saving up to 60% in commission.

Only 10% of Australians purchase their travel insurance online. With the rise in online commerce, this figure is set to rise with travellers realising they can compare free quotes online and receive cheap travel insurance with comprehensive cover, leaving the additional dollars better spent on the trip ahead. 

And in terms of essential pre-departure planning you're pretty much done. Sure there's hotels, tours, train tickets and all that. But unless you're going to a popular resort town in peak season, it's likely you'll be able to sort these things out at your destination.

Aside from one hellish New Years Eve trying to find a hotel in Granada (unsuccessful) and an afternoon pleading with hotel staff in Nimes to let us stay for the Feria (successful, but we stayed in a cupboard), I've always been able to work something out. Besides, I'd rather have lived through these unpleasant results of my lack of planning,  than spend the days before my departure liaising with travel agents, hoteliers and hire care operators across multiple continents and with mixed results.