Travel without travel agencies. Well, here's the good news! You may also like

This summer, it is unlikely that you will be able to go on vacation with Natalie Tours packages.
Several other major travel agencies have ceased operations.
Such a reason for stopping activities as the World Cup is, of course, a valid one.
Although, if travel agencies did not dump and did not boast that independent travel is more expensive - you look and remained in their niche for serving the lazy.

Holidays without a travel agency pros and cons

It seems to me that the majority of traveling people have already realized that it is better to keep your vacation by the balls with your own hands, and not through an intermediary in the face of travel agencies.
I have written many articles on this site about this.
Here are a few of the arguments:

How to travel abroad without travel agencies

Pretty popular question.
Answers to this question have already been given many times: on the site and forum.
One of the answers:

Tour or on your own

What does the ticket consist of:
1) air ticket, as a rule chartered flight.
A charter flight is akin to playing Russian roulette: today it passed, and tomorrow the plane broke down or the airline went bankrupt.
No, the money will probably be returned, but the time for which you have planned a vacation cannot be returned.

You can buy an air ticket, even for a charter flight, on your own.
How to do it? You just go to, choose playing dates and buy.

2) a hotel, usually a package hotel, populated by a group of organized tourists.
As a rule, such hotels have rude staff, broken plumbing and a rather noisy neighborhood (in the rooms, on the sunbeds, by the pool).
How to independently choose what you need by price / location? For example like this: or like this: .

4) transfers, as a rule, a bus of the “everyone is waiting for one” type.
Nothing prevents you from installing the Uber app on your mobile and driving a taxi.
Nothing prevents you from using public transport - just read the relevant sections on the forum about transport in different countries.
Nothing interferes.

5) a package of typical excursions.
In any hotel where you stay, there are promotional materials for what to see in this place.
In many cities of Europe there are audio guides in Russian in sightseeing buses.
Excursions in Thailand are sold except in 7/11 stores along with beer.

The best option is to read: reviews of tourists or sections on sights and travel routes - they will give the necessary information from which you can blind yourself what interests you: museums or architecture, nature or a good selfie on observation platform.
All in your hands.

DIY vacation

Instead of scribbling complaints and angry messages on various consumer protection sites, use someone else's experience of independent travel and relax on your own.
Remember that life is given to you once, and vacation once a year.
Nowadays there are all the possibilities to make your holiday with your own hands.

Rubles. These are real examples of cheap tours that I found for Last year. Find out where and how to find such last-minute tours.

This guide is two years old. Being an avid traveler and hunter for cheap tours, I have presented my experience and knowledge on search cheap tours. Learn how to relax without spending too much!

Rules for finding and buying the cheapest tours:

1. Buy tours online

Travel agencies on the street sell tours for more than online tour search engines. Last time I bought a ticket at the office of a travel agency back in 2012. Then convenient and reliable online tour search services appeared - now I use only them. I no longer go to the offices of greedy travel agencies - it is more convenient and more profitable to buy tickets on the Internet.

Why are travel agencies more expensive? The reason is the human factor - cunning managers in travel agencies by all possible ways promote the client to buy a more expensive tour package. They fundamentally do not want to sell tours for 5, 10, 20 thousand - a percentage of such transactions is not enough for them, they need more gold!

Where to look for cheap tours online? I use three search engines: , and . All three are reliable and very comfortable. Choose which one you like best.

Install mobile app . Travelata has an excellent application: download it for or and use the current promotional code when buying a tour MobilizeMe- you will receive a discount of 1000 rubles for any tours costing from 50,000 rubles. Valid until August 14, 2018.

How do tour search engines work? They compare prices among 130 popular tour operators and find the cheapest tours. Finding and booking a tour on your own is easy. You see full information on a tour: hotel, flight, meals, reviews of tourists and so on. You choose the tour you like. Got questions? Ask them to the consultant in a chat or by phone. Secure payment online bank card. The tour can also be purchased in installments.

Offices and consultants. All three search engines have offices in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and others major cities. There is also a hotline support service. So it's easy to interact with them.

Advantages of buying tours online:

1. Big choice. Compare prices from all tour operators to find the best cheap tour. Compare - save!
2. Convenient and fast. No need to go to travel agency offices, waste time on the road, waiting and communication. You can find and book a tour in 15-30 minutes at home or at work. When buying last-minute tours, speed is especially important: I found cheap ticket- bought in a couple of clicks, until it disappeared.
3. Safely. Search engines work only with reliable tour operators. Payment is made using a secure protocol. Eat round the clock service support.
4. Independence. I recommend looking for and buying tours on your own. So it is more reliable - you know better than any person what exactly you need and at what price. There is no interference from others - there is no possibility to confuse you. In offices, managers are often cunning or simply incompetent.
5. Documents - immediately. When buying a tour online, all bookings and confirmations will be sent to the mail immediately after payment. In an ordinary agency, employees like to delay issuing documents - we passed, we know.
6. Reliably. Large online search engines, and with a large customer base and a well-known name, I trust. Tour agencies with colorful names like "Cactus", "Sea of ​​Dreams" or "Marina Travel", scattered along the streets of Russian cities - no.

(Photo © club-med-discover / flickr.com / Licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.)

2. Be flexible with deadlines and dates

Often we have many restrictions: rigidly fixed vacation days, personal affairs and obligations. However, try to achieve as much freedom as possible in choosing dates - this will save you money.

See different departure days. Vacation starts on Monday and you found a tour for that day for 50 thousand? Check departures on Tuesday or Wednesday - suddenly there are tours for 30 thousand. I encounter this on a regular basis.

Change your rest time. Often (not sometimes, but often!) tours for 7 nights cost cheaper tours for 5 nights, tours for 10 nights are cheaper than tours for 8 and so on. Do not limit yourself - check all the options!

Take a look at the site's price calendar. Often vouchers for 7 nights are cheaper than vouchers for 3 nights:

3. Be flexible in choosing a resort

If you are monogamous, who prefers to go on vacation to the same place every year, then the question of choosing a direction is not worth it for you. For everyone else, I recommend you take a look. different resorts- your chances of buying a cheap tour will increase.

How does direction affect price?

1. Eat traditionally expensive destinations( , ). There are cheap directions ( , ).
2. Seasonality plays an important role: it is cheaper to fly to some resorts in summer, to others in winter, and to others in spring or autumn.
3. There are also random factors. For example, a tour operator sold few tours in one of the directions and decided to lower prices - last-minute tours appear.

Do you want to buy the cheapest tour? See as many directions as you can. Compare not only countries, but also individual resorts of the same country.

(Photo © RyanMBevan / flickr.com / Licensed CC BY 2.0.)

4. Buy tours from Moscow

It is for flights from Moscow that you can find the cheapest tours. competition and advanced system air travel prices are dropping. Sometimes the difference in price compared to other cities is colossal.

What should a non-capital tourist do?

First, check if you can find a cheap tour from your city. Found? Great - take it! If not, then it is worth expanding the geography of departure cities.

See if there are cheap tours from neighboring cities or from Moscow. You can get to the point of departure on your own: by bus, train or plane. Pobeda flies to Moscow from many Russian cities - tickets cost from 1000 rubles. I myself live in the provinces, and I fly from Moscow on vacation.

All situations are different - there is no one solution. Compare prices and decide what is best for you: pay more and fly from your city or save money but spend time on the road to another city.

Look at the examples below. I compared the cost of trips to Cyprus from Moscow and Yekaterinburg. A tour from the capital can be bought much cheaper. If you fly to Moscow on your own, you can save a lot of money.

5. Use Smart Search

(Photo © Fred Postles / flickr.com / Licensed under CC BY 2.0.)

6. Trust fortune

For those who want to buy the cheapest tour, prudent tour operators have come up with the Fortune system.

How it works? You do not buy a tour to a specific hotel, but only choose its level: 2 stars, 3 stars, and so on. The tour operator himself decides in which hotel of the selected category you will be accommodated. You don't have to be a psychic to guess your future hotel. Just find the cheapest one in the list of options - they will send you there. There is only one exception - the hotel is already full. Then you will be settled in the next one at a low price. Tour operators do not always offer "Fortune": if tours for this system are available, you will see them in the search results.

How much can you save? A tour of "Fortune" usually costs 2-3 thousand rubles cheaper than other tours. Look at the description and reviews for the cheapest hotel in the desired resort. If the hotel suits you, buy a tour of "Fortuna".

Is it worth the risk? My opinion is no. It is better to overpay a little and choose an adequate hotel without surprises. Usually the most cheap hotel has a bad location and many shortcomings. But often does not mean always! If you want to save money and are not too pretentious, then you can go on vacation along Fortuna. Look at reviews of cheap hotels and decide according to the situation.

(Photo © Unique Properties (UP) / flickr.com / Licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.)

7. Book early

Buy a tour in advance or catch a last minute one? This question is asked by many tourists. AND early booking, and buying a tour at the last moment provide an opportunity to save. Each option has its pros and cons.

Early booking. Minus: discounts are usually not as big as when buying last-minute tours. Plus: you can choose any hotel to your taste, relax beautifully and pleasantly. This is a winning option in terms of price - quality ratio.

Hot tours. Buying a tour at the last moment is often very profitable. Pros: big discounts, sometimes vouchers are generally given for a penny. Minus two. Firstly, there is no guarantee that a cheap last minute tour will appear for your destination on the dates you need. At the last moment, prices can either go down or go up. This game is quite exciting. The second drawback is that in the high season everything best hotels are already booked, you will have to choose from second-rate options.

Conclusion. If you need a tour anywhere and as cheaply as possible, catch last-minute tours just before departure. If the quality of rest is a priority, then buy a tour in advance (optimally - 2-3 months in advance). You will receive both an early booking discount and a wide selection of hotels.

See also others about how to travel cheaper and more interesting.

(Photo © Frank Lammel / flickr.com / Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Intro Image Source: © Aris Gionis / flickr.com / Licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

Tour operators with whom it works (in terms of reliability): Coral Travel, TUI, Tez Tour, Sunmar, AnexTour, Pegas Tourism, NTK-Intourist, Biblio Globus, Mouzenidis Travel, PAC group and others.

Cities, with a departure from which you can pick up a tour: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Ufa, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Rostov-on-Don, Perm, Tyumen and many others.

Leisure destinations: Russia (Sochi, Adler, Crimea, Anapa, etc.), Abkhazia, Cyprus, Greece, Thailand, India, Bulgaria, Spain, Italy, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Tunisia, Vietnam, Israel and many others.

What do you gain by deciding to organize your own trip?

First of all, the opportunity choose exactly what you like, and not what the travel agency has in stock in this moment. You can go on a trip to Europe in a rented car, drive around non-tourist cities in Asia on a budget, or arrange a tour of the scenes of your favorite book or movie. You can come up with any individual program for yourself, if the organizer is yourself.

The process of organizing and planning is the work that travel agencies used to do for you. By doing it personally, you insure yourself against other people's mistakes and misunderstandings.

In order to make the trip successful, you often have to spend a lot of effort, but as a result of such work, you experience a huge satisfaction.

IN Lately Another reason has been added to the list of reasons to do everything yourself. By making your own reservations, you unlikely to encounter in which our compatriots who became victims of bankruptcy several major tour operators.

What do you need?

Required to enter most countries international passport , validity which ends no earlier than 3-6 months after the end of the planned trip.

If you plan to visit several countries in one trip, make sure you have enough clean pages for visas. Some visas require an entire page and do not fit into nearly full passports.

It is better not to catch your breath immediately before the trip, but to deal with the documents as they become unusable. At expiration next passports better make a new one ahead of time, and not a month before the planned departure, since new passports are issued for ten years. Expired passports with visas can be useful when design some visas.

Your presence banking(credit or debit) cards will greatly simplify your life. Many banks are ready design you a debit card without service charge subject to opening an account.

Smartphone or tablet let you always have navigator, map And guide at hand (they can be found on the Internet), go to internet free from most wifi-equipped cafes and hotels and use travel apps.

Where to begin?

First of all, you need choose where and when You want drive and what to do there.

When?

seasonality imposes restrictions on certain areas. If you don't have a special purpose, don't go to the Caribbean in hurricane season, to the tropics - during the rainy season, to hot countries - in the midst of the heat and to cold ones - in the slushy off-season.

If your budget is small, better don't go to country V most high season(prices for hotels and flights skyrocket at this time), and choose the time at the very beginning or at the end.

Where?

Reading thematic forums And reports about other people's trips helps to determine the direction. More can be found online blogs visiting a region you like travelers or people living in countries of interest to you, look through magazines about travel and countries (for example, "Around the World", "Geo", "National Geographics"). Beginners should not start with difficult countries like Burma or Ethiopia. Countries South-East Asia And Europe more suitable for a novice traveler.

Preparation

How to get a visa?

Most countries Europe and former English colonies visas for citizens of the CIS. Most countries South-East Asia And Latin America visa-free or issues a visa at the border. If you do not want to apply for a visa in advance, you can choose without visa country or a country where you can issue it at the entrance. On the map:

- bright purple color - visa-free countries

- pale blue- countries, visa which can get at the border(this is paid, but apart from return ticket something is unlikely to be required)

- green- countries, visa which can get online electronic

- grey- countries whose visas are required formalize in advance at the consulate

.

If you have chosen a visa country, study list of documents needed for a visa(here's a good resource with document lists and consulate addresses), and read the forums, which tells about the experience of obtaining a particular visa. Explore entry rules to country. In some countries, at the entrance you may be asked to show return air ticket , money(or card), name address places where you will stay and demonstrate vaccination certificate from yellow fever (for some countries South America and Africa).

How to find cheap airfare?

It is easier to find a ticket on the Internet through search engine(for example, SkyScanner). Search engines, as a rule, do not take any commission in excess of the carrier's price. Moreover, sometimes ticket price found in the search engine will be below than buying from an airline.

Look where to eat direct flights from your city and from where you can fly to the city you need, you can (the site is in English, but everything is simple there: enter the name of the city into the window and press search).

Search cheap tickets- a topic for a separate article. Here are some rules:

The closer to the departure date, the more expensive the flight will cost, so it's better to start search for tickets not later than one and a half to two months before the planned trip.

If you realized it too late and there was only a week left before departure, check the air ticket exchange. Sometimes there are very cheap tickets to popular destinations.

IN weekend regular flights usually more expensive than on weekdays.

If all flights to the city you want to go to are very expensive, and you want to save money, it makes sense to look other nearby airports and get from there by land. Here is a good English language resource for that.

Price ticket Not always directly depends on distance. A ticket to popular airports is usually cheaper than to small ones. Keep this in mind when planning your route.

IN peak tourist season tickets usually expensive, how straightaway after him or directly before him. Do you want to go to Brazil but don't have enough money? Check prices on tickets right after the carnival.

The ticket you have chosen suddenly has risen in price? Clear cookies in the browser and open the flight page again. Perhaps the price after that "magically" will again be the same as it was.

Pay an air ticket purchased on the site can usually be done in several ways (by bank card, through one of the payment systems or at the office). At the airport, you may be asked printout air ticket, but often enough passports and booking numbers(do I need a printout, it is written on the ticket or on the airline's website). If the ticket is paid card to another name(for example, a friend who has a credit card bought it for you), they may require photocopy of his passport and scan credit card. This can be found on the airline's website.

Many airlines allow register for a flight online. This is cool saves time. After registration, you need print boarding pass . On the day of the flight, you can check in luggage at a special counter (usually without a queue) and go straight to the departure hall. If you didn't succeed print boarding pass, contact the airline employee - this can often be done in an Aeroport.

How to move around the country?

Most Asian countries There is cheap intercity buses And low cost airlines , the most famous being Air Asia. She often has sales.

In Europe, public transport is quite expensive, especially trains. At the same time, air travel purchased in advance from discounters (EasyJet, RyanAir and others) can cost only a couple of tens of euros. Passenger car search services are another budget option.

If you are a motorist and like to be behind the wheel, then why not go to road trip on own car? List of required documents.

Another option is . In the US and Europe, this option for groups of several people is often cheaper than public transport. Can rent car right at the airport- this will save on transport from the airport to the hotel. To rent a car you need to have bank card And rights. Sometimes required international law.

How to find a hotel yourself

For those, who does not want to pay for housing and will be glad to get acquainted with life local population get closer and participate in it, Couchsurfing is suitable - a site for hospitality exchange. On the site you can find people who are ready to shelter you for free. You are required respect their orders, find time for communication with owners and common interests and be open to new. Receiving guests in return is not required, but encouraged. registration on the site free, paid account verification is optional (this is an additional option to increase security). Site contains feedback system and warranties making its use safe and convenient.

Safety

Main guarantee your security- Your brain. Use them, and many troubles will bypass you. listen to intuition.

Do not leave things unattended.

- Do not go in the dark in disadvantaged areas unfamiliar city.

- Check data that you enter in the visa application and booking forms.

- Save tickets and reservations on a computer or phone to have to them access when there is no internet. Save phone numbers and other important information from your smartphone in case the phone breaks or is lost.

- Do not check in luggage fragile things and things that can spill or break, staining other things.

remember, that responsible for everything that happens to you - You and no one else.

Many banks(for example, "Sberbank") offer preferential medical insurance for cardholders traveling abroad. Medical insurance may be useful if needed contacting a doctor. Remember that most insurance companies require call first them, and only then seek medical help.

If you need accept certain medicines, take them with you. Don't expect to buy them locally - you might not be able to. If you accept something that you need to buy recipe, take it too. first aid kit can be supplemented with medications for widespread travel diseases(diarrhea, insomnia, headache, chafing on the legs from long walks, hygienic lipstick) and (if you are going to sunny country) sun cream. Do not take with you "just in case" medicines which you don't know how to take and against what.

How not to take too many things with you?

Mistake that many novice travelers make - heavy suitcase, filled with unused things. remember, that the less things you take with you the less have to carry. If you are planning move between cities big bag you quickly tire. As a test, you can several times raise put it on the sofa, then take it off the sofa and put it on the floor. Hard? During a trip it won't get easier especially if you plan to buy souvenirs and gifts along the way.

If you want to travel budgetary, remember - most cheap airlines take separate money for luggage. Collecting everything in hand luggage (small suitcase or backpack), you can save up to half the cost of the flight. Shampoo and other liquids, however, will have to be poured into containers up to 100 ml(sold in hardware stores and some large supermarkets).

Many paper things can be replaced files on a tablet or laptop. I gave up paper guides, books and maps a long time ago in favor of electronic.

To reduce the number of clothes, it is better to opt for things that go together. Saves space and weight well extra pairs of shoes. In relatively warm countries, I take with me only slates or open sandals plus sneakers. Give up strongly rumpled and very voluminous clothes in favor of practical and light weight.

If you are traveling to warm country, take with you light windbreaker or thin sweater. In public transport, there may be a malicious air conditioner, and the weather can suddenly deteriorate.

The most important thing not to forget is documentation(passport, driving license) and money. Good to have with you charging from the equipment that you take with you, compact tee(otherwise you will have to buy adapters for each device or charge your tablet, camera and phone in turn), car charger (if you are driving). Extra battery to the camera will not prevent lovers of taking pictures a lot.

I wish you good luck in your travels!

I will be glad if in the comments experienced travelers add my advice with your comments!

How to travel on your own, without contacting a travel agency, book hotels and air tickets yourself, not depend on anyone, travel cheaper, more profitable, without overpaying?

Before becoming independent traveler, let's figure out what is independent tourism and what you need to know about it. You will always have time to find sites on the Internet and book.

• Be patient, ladies and gentlemen, sit back, read a lot!

Why did we decide to travel on our own? Many people around now say that you can buy a tour yourself and why go to a travel agency? And really, why? And here are the arguments:

It's profitable, it's cheap, it's convenient, you don't depend on anyone, it's fashionable, it's cool, freedom of choice and movement, and dozens of other pros.

• Good arguments? And, indeed, the arguments are good, interesting ..

Statistics say the opposite (oddly enough). Only 10% people travel on their own, and 90% with the help of travel agencies. What is stopping them from doing this? the rest 90%? Why is that? Perhaps everything is not as simple as it seems?

• Why do 90% choose a travel agency instead of traveling on their own?

Let's take a simplified (without details) look at how a travel agency works and what it does for you. What do you pay for when you come to a travel agency?

So, you bring money to the travel agency. The travel agency, based on their experience and knowledge, helps you decide on the country, resort, hotel and other details of travel. So?

You ask the travel agency dozens (and sometimes hundreds) of questions:

• How much money to take with you?
• What will be in the room?
• And who will meet us?
• Why did we make a reservation, but the hotel does not confirm the number?
• Where to transfer money?
• Who will return the money if the tour does not take place?
• and so on…

Now you have to look for all the answers to your questions yourself!

But what about the travel agency?

• A travel agency is a friend to whom you can turn and solve problems.
• The travel agency transfers the money for your tour and makes all the bookings you don't have to worry about.
• The travel agency has all the necessary connections and well-established technologies for searching and booking a tour.
• The travel agency frees up your time, which you can use for yourself.
• And a lot more, which you don’t even know yet, there are a lot of intricacies of the profession

Therefore, in order to relax on your own and cheaper, you simply take on all these functions and do everything yourself. But that is not all.

What does it take to become an independent traveler?

1. It will take a lot more free time than you think.

All right. You need to have enough free time to independently search for hotels, tickets, connect flights, find profitable promotions, and more. After all, a tourism manager spends 40 hours a week and even more on work. It is for this simple reason (lack of time) that many people buy tours from travel agencies. - it's work. If you're ready, take action. But do not think that you sat down at the computer and found everything in 2 minutes, booked it and then go about your business. It's not like that at all!

2. Traveling alone means taking responsibility.

Yes it's true. Independent travel is a responsibility for yourself and those who travel with you. One girl on one of the Internet forums asks the question: if our departure time is postponed, then who will tell us about it? Answer: nobody! That's the point, that travel is independent, so there is not a single person around you who will worry about you - not a travel agency, not an airline, not a hotel - no one! Only you!

3. Freedom of movement is possible only when traveling independently

Yes and no. After all, what is freedom of movement? Having bought a tour in an agency, you can buy absolutely any tour, right? And if freedom of movement = travel from north to south and from west to east by hitchhiking, then, of course, it is better and more correct to just go savage. But even in such cases, there are people who resort to the services of a travel agency and book several hotels along the way of their movements. Here, it's more convenient for someone.

4. You can travel independently around the world

More likely no than yes. In civilized countries, Europe, the USA, there are all opportunities for safe rest, rental services, hotels and so on. Tourists can drive here on their own. The countries of Asia, South and Latin America are not always safe, especially for a lone tourist. Try to start walking around Somalia, Brazil, Panama and a number of other countries.

5. “Foreigners, for the most part, travel on their own. And we are in groups. I think it’s still a relic of the Soviet times,” writes one of the Internet sites, advocating independent tourism.

There is a particle of truth in this, but only a particle. And that's why. If we take the Europeans, and they are most world flow of tourists, they literally travel around their "home". I booked a hotel, rented a car, traveled from the Czech Republic to Italy and back. You don't need a travel agency for this. IN nearby town you, too, will go without problems and without the help of travel agencies. Americans drive cars around the country. We also have many such tourists who go to the sea by car (for example). But we're talking about international tourism now, right? Therefore, when they say that the whole world travels independently, this is a myth. Europeans are accustomed to living in their prosperous little world, beyond which they almost never leave. Russian tourists travel all over the world. Focusing on them in this case is completely biased.

6. An independent tourist does not risk anything

How so? Recently, not the first time in history, the case was repeated again when an Internet service (for selling air tickets) canceled purchased and paid tickets. The people didn't leave. Therefore, when they say that tour operators are going bankrupt, and supposedly an independent tourist is not afraid of such a risk, this is self-deception. Be prepared to take risks and resolve issues on your own, without outside help and the participation of a travel agency.

7. You will need to study English (foreign) language

Yes, that is right. Where without? And how to communicate, book, rebook, go on excursions, feel confident at the resort. Of course, knowledge of the language is simply necessary. If you know the language, then this item is not difficult for you.

8. Book yourself cheaper, low prices

Low prices are not always lower than the prices of tour operators. Why? - you ask. Because tour operators buy hotels and tickets in bulk, in bundles, with huge discounts. And if you really sit down and count, then your price may be higher, or it may be the same as in a travel agency. In a word, independent tourism is not always cheaper, more profitable than buying a ready-made tour.

Well, here's the good news!

Now, if everything that we wrote about does not bother you at all, and you have read up to this point, then your desire to travel on your own, cheaper, without outside help is really strong!

Now you need to independently find the websites of hotels, air tickets, book everything, pay - in a word, organize your first trip! Or contact a travel agency, where everything will be done for you!

Tell it now

How to travel on your own? The question is quite reasonable if travel, organized by travel agencies, for some reason do not suit the tourist. These reasons, by the way, are quite heterogeneous. Someone prefers to travel on their own for mercantile reasons, in order to save money, someone - because of a dislike for traveling as part of crowded tourist groups. Some travelers are drawn to the exotic, untrodden paths and routes. Others, on the contrary, gravitate towards civilization, historical and cultural heritage various countries of the world. In other words, everyone's motives independent tourists different, everyone is looking for something different, individual and in this sense exclusive. This, perhaps, is the very essence of independent travel. Independent tourism allows everyone to find something of their own and organize a trip for themselves, focusing on their own interests, needs, habits, and so on, so on, so on ...

However, this is all poetry. It is clear that if people travel on their own, then someone needs it. Discuss "why and why?" in fact, infinitely possible. However, the purpose of this note is to describe the key points of an organizational nature. If you travel on your own, then how to do it, where to start, where to run?

In general, in our opinion, the question of how to travel on your own can (and even should) be divided into several components. What are these parts? For example, you can take any average tour organized by any average tour operator. Most often, the tour consists of flight(travel by bus, train, boat, etc.), hotel stay(in a villa, in an apartment, in a tent, etc.), transfers(transfers from the point of arrival in the country to the place of residence and back) and excursion program (visiting museums, trips to other cities, etc.). The same components include independent travel. In other words, if you plan to travel on your own, then you will have to take care of all organizational issues yourself. As they say, if you like to ride, love to carry sleds.

Next, we consider each of these aspects in more detail and formulate a series practical advice. In doing so, of course, it must be taken into account that different countries have their own characteristics. Therefore, we will try, on the one hand, to avoid excessive detail, and on the other hand, to concentrate on the general points applicable to the organization of independent travel in general.

Transport

If we talk about independent travel abroad, then perhaps the most popular mode of transport is airplanes. Let's start with them, especially since today there are quite a lot of useful tools on the Internet that allow you to search for the most convenient and affordable options for air travel to any country in the world.

One of these tools is presented on i- TicketsFinder.ru. The same search service can be found at www.aviasales.ru. In addition, you can use www.skyscanner.ru and www.momondo.ru to search for air tickets. They are similar in many ways and partly complement each other. The meaning of their use is simple. All of these sites allow you to search for air tickets while using many independent sources of information, including both airline sites and ticket agency sites. As a result, this makes it possible to choose the most advantageous offers, best options flights and buy the tickets you like online.

On this topic, however, it is worth additionally reading articles in which the issue of searching and buying tickets on the Internet is considered in more detail:

In addition to airplanes, of course, there are other modes of transport. We will not dwell on each of them for a long time. Better give links to a few pretty useful sources information from which you can learn a lot of useful information:

• rzd.ru - official website of Russian railways, information on international routes of Russian Railways.
• www.seat61.com - site about railways around the world (in English).
• www.aferry.to and www.directferries.co.uk - search for ferry tickets, cruise ships and so on.
• www.ecolines.net and www.eurolines.com are bus routes from Russia to Europe and between European countries.
• www.busstation.net - site about bus routes Worldwide.

Hotels

Booking a hotel on your own is quite simple, at least from a technical point of view. There are many online booking sites that allow you to solve this issue in just a few minutes. There are, perhaps, even too many of these sites, and at the sight of this variety, inexperienced travelers sometimes fall into a stupor. Therefore, we will try to set some guidelines that will help you understand the topic of self-booking hotels on the Internet. To begin with, we list the most notable, in our opinion, sites:

All of these and other similar sites allow you to book hotels in almost all countries of the world without leaving your computer. To do this, you will need to provide your data: last name, first name, email address, as well as, as a rule, bank card details and some other details. Thus, there is no need to call or write directly to the hotel. The whole process is automated. But that is not all.

In addition to hotel booking sites, there are services that search several sites at the same time and thus bring together information from various sources. Thanks to this, it becomes possible to quickly compare prices for hotels of different booking systems, choose the most best deals and thereby save money and time. Examples: www.roomguru.ru and hotellook.ru. More hotel price comparison sites reviewed on i- HotelsFinder.ru(see, in particular,).

However, we will not repeat ourselves here. To expand on the topic of self-booking hotels, you can refer to the following articles:

Transfers

If we talk about transfers, then the first thing you should pay attention to is network sites public transport, websites of airports and railway stations, as well as other official tourism resources of the country or countries in which you plan to travel. All these sources of information allow us to solve most of the issues related to the need to get from one point to another. In addition, there are many companies offering individual and collective transfers for independent tourists. It is clear that listing all such sites in one list does not make sense. And therefore, in this part of the travel organization scheme, you will have to arm yourself with search engines and google, Yandex, ramble ... At the same time, as a rule, there is not so much information in Russian. But in English you can find almost anything.

Excursions

In terms of organizing the excursion program, everything is still more individual. First, everyone has their own interests. And secondly, on the Internet, most often, it is quite easy to find information about any countries, cities, sights, etc. yourself. Here again, you can turn to the search engines and search-search-search. Armed with the information found, guides and tourist guides, you can see a lot on your own. But you can go the other way and trust private guides and guides. Russian-speaking specialists offering relevant services can be found, if not in all, then in most countries of the world, especially in Europe. Of course, most of them do not work for free, but you don’t have to look for anything - they will tell you everything and show you everything.

These are the basics, in our opinion. independent tourism. Of course, in the process of planning travel, you will have all sorts of questions that are not covered in this article. But the main thing is to start, and there will always be information. One thing is for sure - you have to make a lot of discoveries if you decide to organize your trip yourself, without travel agents and tour operators. Good luck!

More detailed information about organizational issues, briefly described above, can be found in the appropriate section