First thing we did was sell the caravan.  It had served us well for many years – but began to spend more time sitting in the back yard going nowhere.  Good investment though – bought it for $10,000 and sold it for $10,000 ten years later.  Next thing to do was to book some time share weeks we had banked up. Then decide whether we do really need that second car.  You know – the one that sits in the garage once you retire, doing nothing except costing you money and devalue. Sold!  Last but not least we drew down a bit of our superannuation.  That’s why we put our money in there in the first place. We know the how. When is the next question.  This was solved very quickly by a phone call from our timeshare exchange agency – “a unit in London is available from 29^th September to 6^th October – interested?”  You beauty! Booked!

Now the fun begins.  Turned the dining room table into an office – computer, notepad, brochures, printer, pens, highlighters and the rest of the paraphernalia that seems to accumulate on a desk.  Including the most important items – a calendar, a calculator  and a comprehensive map of Europe.

Why didn’t we go to an agency and get them to organise it?  The first reason is obvious, agencies are restricted to their suppliers, limiting our choices  and it would end up costing too much money, which we didn’t have.  The second reason is then it would be out of our control and we would lose the thrill of the chase.

Organising your own trip overseas is not that difficult.  But you do need to be able to use a computer, a decent internet connection and plenty of time on your hands.  Also a little bit of dogged determination doesn’t go astray.

We stuck the calendar in the middle of the table and wrote in our first week – London.  The next thing to plan was where I was going to celebrate my birthday which fell on during October.  There was no contest.  It HAD to be Paris!  Where else?  City of Romance (and Champagne).

That then meant we would be leaving the UK and travelling to France after our week in London – so we started backtracking with our planning.  For the week before our London week we looked at the Cotswolds.  Easy couple of hours drive out of London.

There was so much accommodation available in the Cotswolds we realised that we had to do as much research as possible before making any commitments.  If this was to be our once in a lifetime journey to the Olde Dart and needed to make sure we got it right.  We also wanted five star value on a one star budget.  Many a long hour was spent in front of the computer scouring websites, forums and chat sites.  After weeding out the ones for under 30’s, extreme budgets, adventure tours and seriously geriatric we narrowed the websites down to a few favourites and signed up.  We signed up because that way we could not only look at what other people were saying, but we could also ask questions and answer other peoples.  We also signed up or joined what we considered the pick of the chat sites to read other people’s stories of what they thought of where they travelled to, how they got there  and where they stayed.  We also signed up to a number of booking websites in order to get special deals and also to read the revues.

Once having decided who to fly with we then had to look at where they landed in Europe.  We looked into flying into the UK and out of Europe but the open ended fares were too expensive.  We discovered that flying into and out of Amsterdam proved to be the best option. This then meant that we only had three months as Europe has a 90 day within 180 day rule on their visa options for non EU passport holders.  At the time of organising our trip we thought that was ample time.  How naive we were.

Deciding which day to fly was dictated by the price.  I seem to keep harping on price & budget but in the early stages of planning we were very concerned about how far we could make our dollars stretch.  Airfares drop after the end of August, which is the traditional European holiday season, and they pick up again early December for the Christmas rush.  So we flew out of Australia on 4^th September to Amsterdam and left there on 4^th December exactly three months later.  Our airfare price included a week’s stopover in Hong Kong. Every time you want to stop over and have your bags taken off the plane the fare goes up.

Even though we had our London week locked in it wasn’t until we booked and paid for our flights that we truly had that sense of commitment.  There’s no backing out now. We thought we had made the serious decision making.  How wrong we were.  That was just the start of the serious decision making.  Planning and booking a holiday like this is like a stack of dominos (and I mean the little black things with spots – not the pizzas).  Every decision you make reflects on the previous decision and affects the next decision.

Now we are starting to make commitments – one after the other after the other.  Which meant we were spending money.  As we were doing our own bookings over the internet we had to pay for these bookings with credit cards.  Some companies accepted PayPal which we were very happy with.  Having bought and sold items on ebay we knew that PayPal was a secure system of making payments over the internet.  However there were plenty of companies that didn’t take PayPal, so consequently we had to pay for these by credit card. So we then trotted off to buy a travel card.

These travel cards are an absolute must if you are travelling overseas.  There are a number of different ones and they are much of a muchness.  The one we decided upon was the BoQ Mastercard.  What you do is first go to the bank and fill out the form to buy the card.   Then you deposit the funds into the card – in Aussie dollars of course.  Then you sign in on your computer and transfer your funds into what currencies you want.  We put some money in and allocated half in UK pounds and half in Euros.  The teller gives you a quote of the exchange on the day, which is never the same as reported on the evening news, but they are banks and making money is their business. With our multi-currency travel card (with UK Pounds and Euros) we were armed for action.

Having the money distributed was one thing.  Making sure we used the right card with the right currency was another.  If it was an Australian web site – we used Aussie debit card.  If we were on a UK or European site we used the travel card.  That way we didn’t pay any overseas bank charges and exchange fees.  Another bit of information we decided to check was what banks have agreements with our Australian Banks as far as ATM charges are concerned.  To withdraw funds from our Westpac Mastercard, for instance, we needed to use BNP Paribas in France and Italy, Deutsche Bank in Germany and Barclays in UK.  If we used any other banks ATMs and we were likely to attract pretty hefty foreign funds withdrawal fees.

Now we felt confident we had the money sorted out we seriously had to do something about insurance.  I know that some credit cards offer travel insurance free and many home health and life insurers offer travel insurance.  But take the time to look and compare.  They are all very different and some of them are quite shocking when you read the fine print.  Don’t skimp when it comes to insurance.  We chose Southern Cross Travel, not because their premiums were reasonable but because they are a dedicated travel insurance company and I was more than comfortable when reading their fine print.  We had used this company before when driving around the south island of New Zealand in a hire car because of their car insurance excess cover. If you intend to hire a car – which we did in the UK – look at ones that cover the excess from the hire car company and enjoy the moment when you pick up the car.  Smile when you say ‘no thank you’ when they offer you a reduction on your excess for that ridiculous extra amount of dollars per day.

 

We ended up booking through a local company called Vroom Vroom Vroom.  We used them because you don’t have to pay up front for the hire car.  You go to their website, type in where and when you need the car for and they give you a list of all the companies renting cars that they deal with, which is most of the majors.  And it never ceases to amaze me that no matter what car we book it is never available when we get there.  We booked a small, two door, manual, petrol for one month.  When we got there the car morphed into a brand new mid size, four door, automatic, diesel.  Of course it didn’t come without an extra cost per day, but nowhere near what it would have cost if we booked it before hand.  We had used this company before when we went to New Zealand so felt quite comfortable that a car would be waiting for us when we arrived to pick it up.  One of the important things we had to keep in mind when considering what car to drive around UK or Europe is the age of the towns that we will be driving through.  Most of the historical towns that we wanted to visit were built in the days of horse and cart.  So the width of the narrow little streets lend themselves to smaller cars.  Bigger is not better when it comes to driving around these areas.