DIY vacation. How to organize a vacation without a travel agency? How scammers cheat

Rubles. These are real examples of cheap packages I've found over the past year. Find out where and how to find these last minute deals.

This leadership is already two years old. As an avid traveler and cheap tour hunter, I have laid out my experience and knowledge of finding cheap travel deals. Learn how to relax at no extra cost!

Rules for searching and buying the cheapest tours:

1. Buy tours online

Travel agencies on the street sell tours for more than online tour search engines. The last time I bought a ticket at the office of a travel agency was back in 2012. Then there were convenient and reliable online tour search services - now I only use 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 is it more expensive in travel agencies? The reason is in the human factor - cunning managers in travel agencies in 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 - percent of such deals 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 the 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 that cost 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 yourself is easy. You can see full information on the voucher: hotel, flight, food, tourist reviews, and so on. You choose the tour you like. Do you have any questions? Ask your consultant via chat or by phone. Safe online payment with a 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 other large cities. Hot line support is also available. So it's easy to interact with them.

Pros of buying tours online:

1. Big choice... Compare prices from all tour operators to find the cheapest tour. Compared - saved!
2. Convenient and fast... No need to go to travel agency offices, waste time traveling, waiting and talking. 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 a cheap ticket - I bought it 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. There is a round-the-clock support service.
4. Independence... I recommend looking for and buying tours yourself. This is more reliable - you know better than any person what exactly you need and at what price. No interference from others - no way to confuse you. In offices, managers are often cunning or simply incompetent.
5. Documents - immediately... When buying a tour online, all reservations and confirmations will be sent to the mail immediately after payment. In an ordinary agency, employees like to delay the issuance of documents - passed, we know.
6. Reliable... I trust large online search engines with a large client base and a well-known name. Travel 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 / License CC BY-NC 2.0.)

2. Be flexible in terms 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 the choice of dates - this will save you money.

See different departure days... The vacation starts on Monday and did you find a tour for this day for 50 thousand? Check out the departures on Tuesday or Wednesday - what if there are tours for 30 thousand. I come across this on a regular basis.

Change the duration of the rest... Often (not sometimes, but often!) Tours for 7 nights are cheaper than tours for 5 nights, tours for 10 nights are cheaper than tours for 8 and so on. Don't 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 your choice of resort

If you are a monogamous person who prefers to travel to the same place every year, then the question of choosing a destination is not worth it. I recommend everyone else to consider different resorts - your chances of buying a cheap tour will increase.

How does direction affect price?

1. There are traditionally expensive directions (,). 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. Random factors also work. For example, a tour operator sold few vouchers in one of the directions and decided to reduce prices - hot tours appear.

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 / CC BY 2.0 license.)

4. Buy tours from Moscow

It is for flights from Moscow that you can find the cheapest tours. Competition and a developed air transportation system are driving down prices. 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 it? Excellent - take it! If not, then it is worth expanding the geography of the departure cities.

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

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

Take a look at the examples below. I compared the cost of vouchers 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 will be able to save a lot.

5. Use smart search

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

6. Trust your fortune

For those wishing to buy the cheapest tour, prudent tour operators have come up with the "Fortuna" system.

How it works? You buy a tour not to a specific hotel, but only choose its level: 2 stars, 3 stars and so on. The tour operator decides for himself which hotel of the selected category you will be accommodated in. You don't need to be a psychic to guess your future hotel. Just find the cheapest in the list of options - and they will send you there. There is one exception - the hotel is already full. Then you will be accommodated in the next one for the cheapest. Tour operators do not always offer "Fortune": if tours are available through this system, 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 vouchers. Check out the description and reviews for the cheapest hotel in the resort you want. If the hotel suits you, buy a tour of Fortune.

Is it worth the risk? My opinion is no. Better to overpay a little and choose an adequate hotel without surprises. Usually the cheapest hotel has a poor location and many disadvantages. But often does not mean always! If you want to save money and are not too pretentious, then you can go to rest on "Fortune". Look at reviews of cheap hotels and decide according to the situation.

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

7. Book in advance

Buy a tour in advance or catch it burning? This question is asked by many tourists. Both early booking and buying a tour at the last moment provide an opportunity to save money. Each option has its own pros and cons.

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

Last Minute Tours... Buying a tour at the last moment is often very profitable. Pros: big discounts, sometimes vouchers are generally sold for a penny. There are two minuses. 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 jump strongly. This game is quite gambling. The second drawback is that during the high season, all the best hotels will be already booked, you will have to choose from the second-rate options.

Output... If you need a tour anywhere and as cheaply as possible, catch the last minute deals just before the flight. If the quality of rest is a priority, then buy a tour in advance (optimally - 2-3 months in advance). You will receive both early booking discounts and a wide range of hotels.

Check out others on how to travel cheaper and more interesting.

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

Introductory image source: © Aris Gionis / flickr.com / CC BY-NC 2.0 License.

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

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

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

How to travel on your own? The question is quite reasonable if travel organized by travel agencies, for some reason, does not suit the tourist. These reasons, by the way, are very heterogeneous. Someone prefers to travel on their own for mercantile reasons, in order to save money, someone - because of their dislike for travel as part of crowded tourist groups. Some travelers are drawn to exotic, untrodden paths and routes. Others, on the contrary, gravitate towards civilization, the historical and cultural heritage of various countries of the world. In other words, the motives of all independent tourists are different, everyone is looking for something of their own, 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 lyrics. It is clear that if people travel on their own, then someone needs it. Discuss why and why? in fact, you can endlessly. However, the purpose of this note is to describe the key organizational points. If you travel yourself, 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 component parts. 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 accommodation(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 in the opposite direction) and excursion program(visiting museums, trips to other cities, etc.). The same building blocks 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 the saying goes, if you love to ride, love to carry sledges.

Next, we will consider each of the listed aspects in more detail and formulate a number of practical recommendations. At the same time, of course, one must take 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, 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 form of transport is airplanes. Let's start with them, especially since today there are quite a few 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 at i- T icketsF inder.ru... The same search service can be found at www.aviasales.ru. In addition, you can use the websites www.skyscanner.ru and www.momondo.ru to search for air tickets. They are similar in many ways and partly complement each other. The point of using them is simple. All of these sites allow you to search for air tickets while using a variety of independent sources of information, including the sites of airlines and the sites of ticket agencies. As a result, this makes it possible to choose the best deals, the best flight options and buy the tickets you like online.

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

In addition to airplanes, there are, of course, other modes of transport. We will not dwell on each of them for a long time. It is better to provide links to several rather useful sources of information, from which you can glean a lot of useful information:

• rzd.ru - the official website of Russian railways, information on the 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 tickets for ferries, cruise ships, etc.
• www.ecolines.net and www.eurolines.com are bus routes from Russia to Europe and between European countries.
• www.busstation.net is a site about bus routes around the world.

Hotels

It is quite easy to book a hotel yourself, at least from a technical point of view. There are many online booking sites that can resolve this issue in just a few minutes. There are probably 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, let's list the most noticeable, in our opinion, sites:

All of the above 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 indicate your data: last name, first name, e-mail 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. This makes it possible to quickly compare prices for hotels from different booking systems, choose the best deals and thereby save money and time. Examples: www.roomguru.ru and hotellook.ru. More hotel price comparison sites reviewed at i- H otelsF inder.ru(see, in particular,).

However, we will not repeat ourselves here once again. To develop 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 are the sites of public transport networks, sites of airports and train stations, as well as other official tourist resources of the country or countries in which you plan to travel. All these sources of information allow you 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 group transfers for solo travelers. It is clear that it makes no sense to list all such sites in one list. 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, it is still more individual. First, everyone has their own interests. And secondly, on the Internet, more often than not, it is quite easy to find information about any countries, cities, attractions, etc. Here, again, you can turn to search engines and search-search-search. Armed with the information you find, travel guides and tourist guides, there is a lot to see for yourself. 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, in our opinion, are the foundations of independent tourism. Of course, as you travel planning, you will have all sorts of questions 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 on the organizational aspects, briefly described above, can be found in the corresponding section.

You are in a luxury resort, in an all-inclusive hotel, enjoying the sea, sun and tropical cocktail. And you are so great and happy that you can't even believe that there are still two weeks of vacation ahead. But then suddenly you are asked to drop by the hotel manager. He reports simply amazing news: the travel agency did not pay for the hotel room and you have two options - pay yourself or spend the next night under the fence. Two hours later, it turns out that the flight home was also not paid for. You understand that those 3000 bucks, which paid off for a trip for your family, settled on the accounts of a bankrupt travel agency. And you will have to find another bag of money to get out of this mess.

"Vietnam far and wide with a small child ... Well, you are monsters! Yes, my tourists are afraid to go to Turkey in a five-star hotel at all Inclusive on their own!" About the same comment I received from one blog reader. But really, where does this fear come from to do something on your own? What makes people give money to intermediaries for something that is so interesting to do on their own? Plan a trip, a real adventure - and instead of one resort town see the whole country!

We will be going on a new journey of seven months very soon. I planned it in just a few weeks. Everything is detailed. For example, I know that on December 29 we will fly from Goa to Bangkok, and on March 20 - from Krabi to Kuala Lumpur, and then to Java. Air tickets have been bought, hotels have been found. It is this kind of clear planning and early booking that saves a lot of money. Now tell me, how much would such an "individual tour" to four countries and fifteen cities, ordered from a travel agency, cost? Many? So many? So why are you giving a ton of money for a two-week vacation with nothing to plan?

Three reasons to go on vacation without travel agencies:

1. You are sure that your tickets and the hotel have been exactly paid, because you yourself bought a ticket from the airline and rented a room in a hotel room.
2. You may not be limited to standard and densely populated resorts, but instead of one city, see the whole country, or maybe even two or three.
3. Having learned how to organize a small two-week trip, you have gained skills that will last a lifetime, so next time you will not be afraid to even go around the world. Why not!?

Now I will teach you how to do everything yourself and absolutely free.

Choosing a place for vacation

If you just want to extend the summer and go to the sea anyway, the main thing is inexpensive, then you can use the "Travel Map" service on the Aviasales website. This is how it looks.

You specify your data in the settings:

1. The city you want to fly from.
2. Vacation time: you can choose exact dates, you can set a blurry filter, for example, "autumn", "October", etc.
3. Visa-free stay in the country, you need a visa or a Schengen country.
4. Length of stay - number of days.
5. Trip budget. Here you indicate the amount that you are willing to pay for a round-trip flight per person.

Then click search - and right on the map, see the options on the map where you can go. While searching for tickets on the card, I immediately recall my childhood, when I sat for hours with a globe and poked my finger at small islands in the hope that when I grow up, I will definitely visit there.

Important clarification! If you do not live in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev or other large cities in Russia or Ukraine, you may not see budget travel options. In this case, try looking for air tickets from neighboring cities with major international airports. It will probably be much cheaper to fly from there.

How to buy an air ticket on the Internet

In order to buy a ticket, you do not have to leave your home and look for a ticket office. Go to the website of the ticket search engine Aviasales and look for a suitable flight option there. I have already written a very detailed search and purchase of air tickets. There are a lot of screenshots, explaining what and how to do, so you can easily figure it out.

If you are traveling within Asia, for example, from India to Thailand, then you do not need to know the sites of all Asian low-cost airlines by heart. It is enough to use the Makemytrip service, which finds the desired flight and compares prices for all discounters and regular airlines. And in some countries there are such universal search engines that search not only for air, but also for train and bus tickets. For example, in India it is Cleartrip.

Of course, sometimes it is easier and cheaper to buy a charter ticket, which is ordered by tour operators. My friend, a very experienced girl, just recently revealed to me a terrible secret that you can buy such tickets directly from a tour operator, bypassing intermediaries in the face of small agencies, which wind up their interest on this. I am not at all aware of how the situation in Russia is with this, I will give a couple of useful sites for my fellow countrymen - Ukrainians. So, catch the last minute deals in Pegas, Joinup, Teztur. There, by the way, there are also tours to Egypt for 300-400 dollars for two a couple of days before departure. I saw this with my own eyes about a month ago.

How to book a hotel online

In order to reserve a hotel room, 10-15 years ago it was necessary to look for hotel phone numbers, call them, find out prices. It's very simple now. You go to the Hotellook website and choose from hundreds of options that suits you personally. There will also be filters, like on the flight search site.

You will be prompted to choose:

1. The price you are willing to pay per night.
2. Whether you need WiFi or not.
3. If you want a hotel with breakfast, do not forget to check the box too.
4. Swimming pool, fitness center, restaurant and laundry ... Choose the items you want.
5. If you do not want to live in a hotel, and do not mind renting an apartment or house, check the box next to the appropriate type of accommodation.

Detailed step by step instructions. Take the time to read this post. There are many nuances.

Or maybe an apartment instead of a hotel?

Renting an apartment, even for a couple of days in an unfamiliar city, can be not only more convenient, but also more profitable than a hotel. Judge for yourself, if you are in an exotic country in Asia, then having a kitchen can be just a colossal plus when traveling with children. You don't need to think about what to feed your child, because you can cook anything on your own.

An excellent service for booking apartments around the world is Airbnb. It's very comfortable. Enter the city, choose a price range within your budget and look at the pictures. We are planning to rent a two-room apartment in Bangkok on NG for only 190 euros per week. And this is in a compound with a pool. Isn't it a fairy tale?

Just fill the city in this form and choose the desired apartment in any city in the world!

If you haven't registered on Airbnb yet, you can use our partner link and get a $ 15 coupon as a gift. to receive such a gift.

How to organize transfers from the airport to the hotel and back?

In many hotels, when booking a room, it is possible to order a transfer from the airport. For example, in our beloved one in Bangkok, where we stop all the time, transfers from and to the airport are 2-3 times cheaper than a taxi, just a couple of dollars. But this is rather an exception to the rule. It is usually more profitable to take a taxi or take the airport bus to the city center. In most cities in the world, you can get from the airport in at least three ways: by bus, Aeroexpress or taxi. Read the forums and decide which option is best for you. So google: "How much does it cost to get from the airport to the center of Ho Chi Minh City", for example. There will be many answers.

If you want to plan everything in advance and not think about how to get to the hotel upon arrival, you can use the international airport transfer system. Fill in the form below the city of arrival and destination and find out the cost and conditions of the trip.

How to organize self-guided tours?

Many tourists buy excursions together with tours from agencies. I want to upset and surprise you, but on the spot the same excursions are DIFFERENTLY cheaper. For example, in Russian travel agencies in Moscow, an excursion to the South Islands of Nha Trang is sold for $ 60 per person. On the spot in Russian travel agencies, it costs 35 dollars. But if you buy the same day boat excursion from the Vietnamese, you will pay only 7 bucks. Suddenly, right ?! Yes, on an expensive tour you will be given a free bottle of wine, and the food on the ship will be a little more extravagant. But think, is it worth $ 53 per person?

We organize all our excursions very simply. If the attraction is on land, we rent a scooter (I'm writing about Asia now), stock up on a map and go to our destination. We buy entrance tickets on the spot, sometimes, when we really, really want some interesting story, we hire a guide. Believe me, such an independent trip is much cheaper than a purchased excursion, where you are taken in a bus along with two dozen compatriots. At any moment we can turn around and go to another place or, on the contrary, stay somewhere longer. And if you are tired - go home. By the way, if you don't drive a scooter, you can rent a car for a couple of days and go around the whole country on your own.

If the excursion is by sea, you can always try to find a boat for rent or, in extreme cases, buy an excursion from local agencies. Experience shows that Russian-speaking guides tend to have higher prices.

Quite another thing is the author's excursions. For example, a guide lives in Bangkok, Nha Trang or Hong Kong and is ready to show you such interesting places that are hidden from the eyes of ordinary tourists. There are many thematic excursions in this service: you can look only at architecture all day, plunge into the culinary world of a new country, or visit unusual people. Also excursions organized by a guide make sense if you have little time, but you want to see as much as possible. For example, only one day in Bangkok. If you try to see everything on your own, then spend a lot of time moving from place to place, searching for attractions on the map. With a guide, this issue is solved quite simply. He himself knows how to see more in a short time and get to the right place faster.

Car rental abroad

If you don't drive a scooter but don't want to depend on dishonest taxi drivers, then renting a car is a good way to drive further and see more. It is best to use an international booking service that monitors the health of your cars, draws out accident insurance and allows you to take a car at one end of the country and give it to another. For example, you rented a car at the Bangkok airport, and returned it already in the southern province of Krabi.

On one's own

Do you want to relax at a minimal cost? To save on travel abroad, try buying a tour without a travel agency. Making travel arrangements can be daunting because you don't know where to start. The most important thing is not to panic. It is important to gather the necessary information and prepare well:

• decide on the allocated budget and the country you would like to visit;
• the "validity" period of the passport (some states will not be allowed if the document expires in 3-6 months);
• check the need for a visa (this can be done online, for example, at KLM. Com or Staralliance.com).

Buy tour online

Everything is sold on the Internet, from souvenirs to travel packages to any corner of the world. On specialized services, you can find and pay for the trip without getting up from the couch. The advantages are obvious: minimal time investment and cost savings.

Buying a tour online

Even a beginner can easily cope with buying a tour on the Internet. The algorithm will be as follows:

• Find a suitable online tour market. There are a lot of them on the World Wide Web, including level.travel, novatours.eu, otpravkin.ru, etc.
• Get acquainted with the offers and select a tour at a bargain price. Set the appropriate parameters, and the system will display several options (you can find solutions of both budget and premium class).
• After choosing a tour, study the details (what is included, when the flight is, is there a transfer and medical insurance). Then fill in your passport details and book the tour.
• After making the payment, you will receive all documents by mail.

Buying a tour online will eliminate the need to go to the travel agency's office and overpay for the services of intermediaries.

We make the route ourselves

If a “ready-made” tour does not suit you, you can try to draw up a trip itinerary yourself.

Having decided on the travel plan and the amount for the rest, it will remain:

• Book an air ticket. It is profitable to do this on Momondo, Skyscanner, Buruki (or low-cost airlines like Wizz Air).
• Pay for accommodation in a hotel or hostel (there are various offers on HotelLook.ru, HotelsCombined.com, etc.).
• Take care of obtaining a visa and medical insurance. This is especially important if you are planning an active holiday (diving, rock climbing, skiing).

Do not be afraid to travel without the help of a tour operator - the whole world is open to you!

When for the first time the thought of how to relax without a tour operator comes, it may seem that it is very difficult and it is better to trust in the hands of professionals. In fact, the organization of independent rest is a fascinating pastime and is an integral part of the trip.

As you know, all people are divided into leaders and followers. The presenters organize their holidays on their own, while the followers prefer to use the services of a tour operator. Naturally, if it is alien for you to make any decision on your own, then you do not need to force yourself and contact one of the nearest travel agencies.

Today we will learn how to travel on our own and learn how to relax without a tour operator. If you have previously bought package tours, then you know what you are given in your hands: copies of air tickets, hotel reservation (voucher) and a copy of the insurance policy. For visa countries, a visa is still issued, although in some countries it is done upon arrival at the airport.

Flight booking

In order to buy a ticket, you do not need to go to the airport or ticket office and waste a lot of time. Now is the age of information technology, so you can book an air ticket from the comfort of your home via the Internet. We go to, enter the estimated dates of your trip and look at the ticket prices and the number of transfers. If you are satisfied with all the conditions and the price, then fill in the data of your passport and pay for the ticket using a payment card. Copies of tickets will be sent to your e-mail and you can print them on paper. At the airport, upon departure, it will be enough to show your passport and you will receive a boarding pass at the check-in counter for the flight.

Booking a hotel

With the help, we select accommodation for ourselves in the resort that you have chosen, taking into account the price and quality of the services provided. As in the case of air tickets, we book a room by specifying the details of your passport and paying with a payment card. If you are not going to spend your entire vacation in one hotel or one resort, then it will be enough to book a room for a couple of days. If it turns out to be good and you want to stay longer, you can extend it on the spot, but keep in mind that during peak season all rooms can be booked in advance. It is not necessary to check into a hotel, as locals quite often rent out their apartments or villas to tourists at quite affordable prices. The advantage of apartments or apartments is the presence of a washing machine and the absence of annoying staff who are always begging for tips. The latter is quite typical for, and other Muslim countries.

Insurance policy

In most countries of the world, travel insurance is not required, but the stingy pays twice, so it is better to have it just in case. You can buy an insurance policy via the Internet on one of the sites providing these services. Also, if you do not trust purchases over the Internet, then you can go to the nearest insurance company. Depending on the country and the amount covered, insurance can cost anywhere from $ 15 to $ 30 for 14 days.

Visa

The main tourist destinations, except for the EU countries, are visa-free or conditionally visa-free for Russians, which means that they can apply for a visa upon arrival in the country. For example, such conditionally visa-free countries are Egypt and Turkey. For a vacation without a tour operator in one of the EU countries, you can apply for a visa at the consulate of the country where you are going to rest, at your place of residence. To do this, you will need copies of round-trip air tickets, an insurance policy and a hotel reservation. Plus, you will need to pay a consular fee for a visa.

Transport

Upon arrival at the airport of your resort, it is natural that no one will meet you, since you are relaxing without a tour operator. However, some hotels offer a free service such as a transfer from the airport to the hotel. Check in advance with your hotel if they provide such a service. If not, then leaving the airport, take a taxi and go to your hotel, where your room will already be waiting for you.

Excursions

Some sights can be explored on their own, especially if they are located in the city itself. However, in the matter of excursions, it will be possible to buy an organized tour at one of the street tourist bureaus. The advantage of an organized excursion will be the presence of a Russian-speaking guide who will be able to tell interesting things that are not in printed guidebooks, and this also removes possible problems with the language barrier. Also, in many countries there are tourist buses, which have an audio guide in the main foreign languages, and which travel to the main attractions of the city and make stops near them. This is the best way to explore the city and its monuments.

That's all science! Now you know how to relax without a tour operator and you can safely prepare for your vacation.