Taking off Travel blog

You can never be sure where your next business trip will take you. Some of the nicest destinations (such as Florida or the Caribbean) are also the ones prone to be affected by tropical storms and hurricanes during the June to November period. And there are also other places where storms can strike unexpectedly. So how can you do your best to stay safe if you’re going to one of those areas?

Tips for traveling into a hurricane zone

Watch Or Warning?

One of the key things is to pay attention to the news and know the terminology. A key resource is the National Hurricane Center. If a hurricane watch is issued, then there may be a hurricane within the next 24 to 36 hours. If it’s a hurricane warning, then a hurricane is expected within 24 hours. Accuweather’s advice is ‘run from water, hide from wind’. In other words, stay away from areas likely to flood if a storm surge is coming, and if the wind is rising, then the most interior room of your accommodation is the best place to be. Read more »

Planning my next trip made me reflect on how much the process has changed since I took my first self-planned trip. I was 22 and a group of girls from work were off to Miami for a long weekend. We phoned up a travel agent, booked and paid for our tickets and hoped we’d be allocated a good hotel. While some people still book their trips like that, a lot more now take the guesswork out of it with readily available tools.

A Street’s Eye View

One of the best of these is Google Maps. Used in conjunction with an excellent travel forum or website, it’s a great way to get a street’s eye view of the places you might visit or want to stay. Here’s how we use it. Once we’ve decided on the destination, we start looking for good hotels and local attractions.

Where To Stay?

TripAdvisor is a great resource for quickly finding out what other travelers have enjoyed in a given city and you can use the locations to work out where it might be good to stay. Then it’s over to Hotwire to see if there are any bargain hotels. Once I have a shortlist, then it’s over to Google Maps to see how everything stacks up. Is the hotel close enough to the attractions I want to visit? Is it going to be noisy?  I was able to rule out one hotel, simply because I could see that it was in the flight path.

Narrowing The Search

With a little tweaking, we were able to find places that were close enough to major roads for convenience, yet far enough away to avoid noise pollution. We were also able to use street view to see where the nearest restaurants are. I also plan to see which are the best places to eat by using Where The Locals Eat.

What’s On?

Once that’s done you see what events are available in your destination by visiting What’s On When (or Joobili if you’re visiting Europe) or you can visit Offbeat Guides to build your own travel guide.

Of course, I’m not saying that removing the guesswork from trip planning is a good thing. Sometimes, it’s good to just catch a last minute flight to wherever, try some couchsurfing and wait for adventure to arrive. Which option do you prefer? Which are your favorite trip planning tools?

Photo by Nezemnaya

So you’re going on a long haul business trip. While it’s great to be traveling to a far away destination, the mechanics of travel can be exhausting and stressful. If you know how to plan, though, you can make sure that you have a comfortable flight.

1. Seat Allocation

The first step is to get a good seat. If you do your research before booking, you may be able to choose an airline that offers a couple extra inches of legroom. That makes a heck of a lot of difference after you’ve been sitting in a plane for hours. I once took a charter flight from the UK to the Caribbean and it took three days for my knees to recover.

Seven Long Haul Travel Tips

2. Check In Early

Check in early to stand the best chance of getting the seat you want. I always like to arrive at least an hour before the given check in time. The best seat depends on whether I don’t want to be disturbed by others getting in and out of their seats (window) or whether I want the freedom to move around (aisle). Once I’m checked in, I can make an early start on my in-flight reading in the departure lounge instead of standing in line with those who arrived at the stated time.

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