Travel FAQ

Last night Amrita and I hosted a dinner party for a few friends. The usual question, "Where are you two going next?" came up over dinner. We posted on our Instagram earlier this week that Hawaii will be our next major trip in August.

The more you travel the more friends, family, and co-workers will ask for traveling advice. Amrita and I love helping others plan weekend get aways or exotic vacations. It is part of the reason we started this blog and intentionally called it Concierge Couple.

As we ate Amrita's amazing Thai dishes, a few common travel questions came up that we seem to get from many people. We decided to share with you a few of the most popular questions we get asked:

Do you book things before you arrive?

The simple answer to this question is yes. We are not full time travel bloggers and have jobs so time is not on our side.We do have high standards and the truth is many of the great places get booked up quickly because their loyal customers are either returning or the hype of a place has made it in demand. We also do like to have a rough outline of what we want to do and when so we can purchase tickets for events, again aiming for the best seats or for hot ticket events. When we have a good picture of what we are doing and where we are going it also helps us to identify the cost of the trip and we budget for food, drinks, and shopping accordingly.

What "sites" do you use when booking?

We started off loving Travelzoo. It is still great, but we find it most useful for great hotel deals in big American cities. We often book our annual Christmas time in Chicago using Travelzoo. We booked a lot of  Southeast Asia using Expedia. Mostly because we decided not to go with rentals, because we were not sure of the standards of the accomodations. So Expedia made it easy to get a great price, especially when we booked out hotel and flight as a package. When we are looking for stand alone hotels Richard has grown to like Booking.com. If you book with them ferquently, you do get a small discount for your loyal use. During our travels to Europe, we used VRBO a decent amount when booking apartments.

Do you ever feel scared or unsafe?

We have been very fortunate and we have almost entirely felt safe throughout all of our travels. We consider ourselves fairly "travel savvy" and "street smart". Most of the people we have met all over the world have been welcoming and friendly. We likely wouldn't travel as much if they weren't. Sure there have been a few taxi drivers here and there trying to overcharge us, but not much out of the ordinary. One place we visited that made us feel unsafe and uneasy is Morrocco. For the few days we were there we did not feel like it was a relaxing vacation. We were constantly on edge and felt like we had to be alert and cautious. Without getting into too much detail, we have decided we will never personally return. There are so many other options out there.

Where is the best beach?

Is there just one best beach in the world? Doubt it. There are many. Each person has their own opinion of the best beach. We personally like white sand beaches with calmer waters. We like beaches where you can get a drink while you look out far out into the turquoise depths. Beaches that are not incredibly crowded also win in our books. We personally loved Puka beach in Boracay, Philippines.

Puka Beach, Boracay, Philippines
Photo: @conciergecouple

Where should we go?

There are so many choices! As much as we would love others to see all that we have, there is a lot to consider when choosing a destination. Cost? Season? Distance? Number of days? Romantic? Adventure filled? Whenever we talk about somewhere we have been, someone always says "I have always wanted to go there". Well there it is. That is how you pick. If you have wanted to go somewhere for a while, what are you waiting for? "Life is short", "you only live once", there are so many seize the day quotes I could go on with. If there is somewhere you want to go, you can almost always make it happen. Whether it means staying in budget hotels only, splitting accommodations with another couple, going for a shorter stay than you imagined, etc. The only excuse standing in your way is the ones you are making up. Take the kids, get an extra part time job, skip Christmas gifts, ask for that time off. I don't care. If you don't end up going in the next 2 years, than you never wanted to go that badly after all.

*Sorry for the harsh words in the above paragraph, but sometimes people need to stop finding excuses and live.

Email us conciergecouple@gmail.com if you have travel questions. Your question may even be featured in the next FAQ post.