Travel Online: Perks and Precautions

For the past few years, I have dedicated my time to travel and explore different places while juggling work and relationships. My time spent in the office and with my loved-ones have always been contemporaneous but feeding my soul with adventure and cross-cultural, life-changing experiences had to be put on hold. Why? Well, traveling could be expensive. There's no question to that. The price you pay for a journey (for planes, land transports, and sea fares) would worth 2 months of your salary.

It has always been like that, until online shopping deals came along; giving out huge discounts for everything there is. The best red tags they have bannered are on their deals for traveling. And so I started buying, booking, and boarding for my travel bucket list.

The first 3 travel vouchers I bought are for local destinations. I bought my first vacation package for a Boracay trip, and my second was for El Nido Palawan, and then the third one is for Sagada in Mountain Province. After 3 successful trips and flawless transactions, I had the confidence to avail international trips. And so my sisters and I were able to enjoy Hong Kong for 4 days and 3 nights by only paying 8,500 pesos (about 190 USD). The trip was truly a steal-of-a-deal. Inclusive in the package were: roundtrip airfare, coach transfers for airport, hotel, and nearby shopping malls, guided tours, and a whole day pass at HK Disneyland.

After our Hong Kong vacation, I opted to continue my Eat, Pray, Love to 4 other South East Asian countries, namely: Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and of course Indonesia for the most-talked about destination, Bali. Prices for these travel deals were pretty much the same with my HK vacay, except for my Bangkok trip which was really cheap at a low price of only 6,850 pesos. This is the beauty of availing online travel deals; it's like winning the lottery after every successful journey.

Now here comes the precaution. You should realize that these travel deals are at such cheap prices for a reason. Don't expect too much from you hotel accommodation, especially with your airfare. Travel agencies usually book their clients on budget hotels and economy flights. But as long if you'll be spending a few days at a gorgeous place with magnificent site, then who needs a fancy hotel room? You'll be out exploring great sights after all.

Another safety measure is to determine if both the deal site and the agency has a legitimate business operation. Find out what the internet says about them in blogs, forums, and other threads. The money you pay for electronic transactions can be refunded, and so are bank deposits, but all the effort and stress you put in cannot be recompensed.

To ensure if their operation is legitimate, try to look for their office address and contact numbers. Call both parties and inquire about the deal, also ask the agency if they can accommodate you on your desired trip dates. Find out if they'll be able to book your flight, accommodation, and guided tour.

These are the mistakes people make when they try to buy travel vouchers online. They just immediately buy the offer (probably because the cheap travel deal is on a time ticker) without even reading its terms and conditions.

When everything has been finalized that's the only time you hit that €buy' button. Be smart at all your travels; you don't want to be that dumb tourist, right? Start off by being a smart buyer first. Well, good luck with your online shopping. Have a safe trip!