hola2...juz to share some useful travelling tips here...fyi, both my HK & Phuket trip were organized by us alone...juz ourselves without involving any travel agency...not to brag here but to share what we've done to plan our trip so that we can save up some of those cash for other purpose eg. shopping, instead of spending onto travel agency...some might think that it is hard to travel by themselves without guide from travel agency or tour guide and yes that's true but with proper planning and information gathering, it will be an easy task...so to those who plan to travel by themselves without the aid from travel agency or tour guide, u can rest assure that u can do it all by yourselves given that u've done the proper planning & information gathering....besides, you can have the luxury of your own sweet time if u travel by yourselves without needing to rush with the travel or tour agency schedule...here are some of the tips i would like to share...
1) Flight
Before deciding to purchase the flight tiket, do a proper survey that gives u the best offer...no doubt that most of the time, Air Asia provides the best deal compared to other airline company but there are times when MAS deals are more tempting than Air Asia....the point is, no harm surveying all available airlines...
2) Accommodation
hey...it's the IT era...almost everything can be done online including booking of hotels or resorts...for us, we usually prefer www.agoda.com or www.booking.com...but there is also www.asiarooms.com...however, so far the best deals & rates are from agoda.com...our accomodation at Macau & HK were both done via agoda.com...select your destination, pax & nights and proceed with the payment using a credit card...once payment done, a confirmation slip will be emailed to u and all u need to do is print the slip and present it at the hotel when checking in...it's that easy...but one thing about agoda.com is that if suddenly u need to cancel the trip, there will be no refund...that's one disadvatage to that...however, if u booked via booking.com, if something turns up and u r not able to go for your trip, u can cancel your hotel booking...this is because the payment of the accomodation will be done when u check-in at the hotel on your check-in date...but, during making booking at booking.com, u will still need to fill in your credit card details as it is a guarantee that let's say u did not cancel and did not turn up during your hotel stay, they will charge it to your credit card...so, that's the advantage of booking.com over agoda.com but the rates of booking.com is a little bit higher than agoda.com...u can try it out for yourselves...also, before making the booking or reservation, it's highly recommended for u to check the rating & actual condition of the hotel or resort that u r going to stay...this can be done via www.tripadvisor.com...go to the website, key in the name of the hotel and u can see other people's ratings and comments about that particular hotel...this is very useful as we can predict how the actual condition of the hotel is as the pictures of the hotel are taken and uploaded by people who have stayed there...the fact is that, u can 100% trust on the pictures of the hotel at that particular hotel's website...sometimes they aren't as they look in the website when u get there...but u can rely on tripadvisor.com as the information there are from those who have stayed at that hotel...
3) Food
if u aren't a Muslim, then u can skip this part :P...but for us Muslims, it's no easy task to look for Halal food at a foreign country...to share what we've done, before going to HK & Macau, we Googled Halal food in HK & Macau and print out the list of the Halal foods that are available there...and we also surveyed the way to go the Halal food places...this is important so that u won't be totally lost there to find the Halal foods...also saves up a lot of time searching & wandering endlessly....
4) Things to do
nowadays, there are many travel bloggers...so, u all can always refer to these blogger's blog...it's very useful as u have a rough idea where to go & what to do once u r at your trip destination...u won't be totally lost in the dark...when travelling, time is precious (unless u have all the time u want)...u can't afford to waste time when u r there...it will be time consuming if u only started planning where to go & what to do when u r there...so, plan where to go & what to do wisely...u can save lots of time there...
5) Own Itinerary
speaking of planning, it is advisable & i strongly encourage that u do your own itinerary....we've done that for our recent trip and we managed to go to all of the places that we planned to go...moreover, we even managed to go to other places which are not in our itinerary due to the spare time that got, all because of proper planning & drafting out our own itinerary...plus, we got to have our own leisure of time at each places due to proper planning and not tied up to travel/tour agency...it's very useful to have your own itinerary draft out as it will help us keep track on our trip activities...we will know how much time we can spend on one place and we will know where to head after that...but, if u have drafted out your itinerary, please do stick to it...otherwise your activities will be messed up unless u know & sure the change of plans will not affect your trip planning...
6) Budget
this is the most important thing that we should pay attention to (unless budget is non of your concern :P)...u need to decide how much cash u r going to bring...how much money u would want to use for food, how much money for transportation, how much money for park/entertainment admission...the best would be to Google the price or rate beofre going there as then u would know how much u will need to dump out for the entrance fee...also, always train yourselves to check the exchange rate...this is quite important as if u found a better rate, u will have that extra cash compared to a rate that is not favouring...i understand that sometimes we do spent over our budget...that's normal, but we need to bare in mind not to over spent too much....otherwise u will get a headache paying up those credit card bills :P
hopefully these tips will be of use to all of u going for a vacation especially to foreign countries...cheers~.... ;)
