The Value of a Travel Agent

I was recently asked about coping strategies for couples hit with vacation disasters, and it got me thinking.

One of the most important factors is attitude. Keep your sense of humor. Don’t blame each other for the unforeseen. And most important, make the best of every moment, keeping in mind that often the most interesting travel experiences grow out of challenges.

That said, there are definitely ways to prevent, or mitigate against the hiccoughs and disasters that inevitably happen when traveling. For couples, planning together means no finger pointing when things go awry. And for all travelers, booking with a savvy travel agent means never having to worry about logistics.

When flights are grounded. The Halloween Storm of 2011 was a perfect illustration. Flights were grounded across the country and many travelers were stranded for several days even after flights starting operating again, because they couldn’t find seats.

The experience of my New York friends Steve and Ellen illustrates what a good travel agent can do for a trip. They were stranded in San Francisco by the storm. Their travel agent was able to rebook them on a nonstop flight the day flights were back in the air. Knowing that the logistics were in capable hands and there was nothing more they could do, Steve and Ellen enjoyed their extended stay in San Francisco.

On the other hand, our friend Allen, a small businessman who always books his own travel, spent hours on the phone trying to get a seat—and finally flew on two connecting flights to Philadelphia instead of Newark airport, and got home a day later than Steven and Ellen.

When you want the best for less.  Travel agents who are members of powerful agency groups, Virtuoso and American Express to name just a few, have leverage and access to suppliers that individuals don’t. That often means being able to get free upgrades on cruises, free breakfasts and other amenities in hotels, and often, access to experiences that other people just don’t have, such as access to a museum outside of regular hours, a private showing of haute couture, or dinner with at the home of a local VIP.

Fees usually pay for themselves. Like lawyers and other professionals, travel agents are increasingly charging fees for access to their expertise, but these usually more than pay for themselves. Can you get better rates on your own? Possibly, although with all the hidden fees and complicated pricing, travel agents can usually more than pay for themselves in cost savings. For example, the cost of renting a car in Europe for a multi-country trip varies greatly depending on where the rental originates.

When you don’t know what you don’t  know. The biggest advantage to working with a travel agent is the probability that your travel investment will buy the experience you are hoping for. A good travel agent should take the time to know exactly what you are looking for. They can tell you about experiences that you would probably never discover on your own—perhaps that perfect gourmet-focused bike tour in Tuscany, or that inexpensive but so quaint three star boutique hotel in Paris.

A Smart Traveler’s Guide to Visiting Colleges

Making College Visits Fun

For many families, the search for the “right” college and the rounds of visits to prospective schools begin in earnest from the moment their child enters junior year in high school. Some even begin earlier.  And for most families, these visits can create a high degree of tension.

Talking with my daughter’s friends and their parents, I’ve found that college visits can stir up anxieties in parents and students alike, especially when aiming for competitive schools.

Even with the best of grades, SAT/ACT scores and extra curricula activities, students know they may have slim choice of getting into their first choice college. And if students weren’t worried before, they will be once they’ve attended an orientation where “helpful” speakers make a point of letting students know that most qualified applicants don’t get in. So anything that can take some of the stress out of those visits is a good thing.

Fun is good. For this reason, my family agreed to build fun around these visits. By making the trip about more than a university tour, we’ve defused a lot of the stress. And less stress means we can take in more of the ambience and offerings of each school we visit.

Focus on nearby sights. We’ve found that combining college visits with sightseeing goes a long way towards diffusing the tension. We’ve visited national parks, hiked and gone bike riding in addition to exploring college towns, shops and restaurants.

Bring a friend. We’ve also found it helpful to travel with a like-minded, compatible family. This allows the kids to break off and get more of a sense of campus life than they would if they were walking around with a parent or on their own.

The potential downside is that we sometimes visit colleges suited more to one student than the other. While we’ve discussed splitting up and visiting separate schools, the kids have tended to be open to visiting each other’s schools. An unanticipated benefit of this has been to identify aspects of university life that we can then look for and ask about on future tours.

In upcoming columns, I’ll talk about creating a checklist that will help you make the most of your college visit, insider tips on experiencing a campus and specific sightseeing/campus visits trips we’ve taken.

Is your family enjoying the college search process? Do you have any tips for other families?

Writing free

I’ve been working on a novel for four days now.  And, hear this. I will finish my first draft of this novel in 30 days.

Writing this novel has been one of the mostfreeing experiences in my life. If you’ve ever wanted to write a novel but  found the blinking cursor on a blank computer screen intimidating, google nanowrimo.com and think about jumping in.

Nanowrimo stands for National Novel Writing Month.  The goal for participants  is to write a 50,000 word–175 pages–novel in 30 days.  This phase of the writing is about quantity, not quality. (No editing now–that comes next month.)

Now, 175 pages may sound like a lot, but broken into day-size chunks, it’s 2000 words a day. That is not huge.  So far, I’ve spent between one and two hours a day. And in whatever form it takes, I know my novel will hobble or soar across that finish line on November 30th as long as I keep meeting my daily word count.

Thinking only about meeting that word count has been amazingly freeing. I don’t self-censor. There’s no time. I don’t go back and rewrite my title, or the beginning, or correct inconsistencies along the way.

In taking a “kamikaze” approach, as the nanowrimo site says, I have put aside judgement, created a deadline situation and am enjoying the process! I am thrilled at what is emerging… it’s easier than journal writing–and much more fun. In fact, it’s a novel experience.

 

Visions

Have something to say? Want to win cool prizes?  Submit to Visions, the school’s literary/art magazine.  Categories are film/drama, short story, comedy/satire, poetry, nonfiction, and art.  All submissions are to be typed and turned in by December 18th.  Put entries in Ms. Turner’s mailbox.

Family Reunion

When people hear that I am a travel writer, they often ask my favorite trip. I’ve been to a lot of exotic places, but my hands-down favorite vacation was at Beaches Resort in the Turks & Caicos.

It was my parents’ 50^th wedding anniversary, and  my parents, my brother and I – with our spouses and kids decided to celebrate by spending a week at an all-inclusive Caribbean resort. It was the ideal choice—and not for the reasons we originally anticipated.

At the time our kids were young: five, four and two years old, so we chose Beaches, a resort with a kids’ program and babysitters.  As it turns out, we never used the kids program, although it was nice to know it was there. With our rooms all within a few doors of each other, we could pop in and out at will. At the same time, my parents liked being able to put out their “do not disturb” sign when they’d had enough of the little ones.

We quickly fell into a rhythm. Each morning, we would gather at “our” area of the beach  as we were ready, and where we could find each other throughout the day. It was the ideal mix of togetherness and privacy. There was no pressure to do anything—and plenty to do. We took turns going snorkeling, went for long walks on the beach, ate meals separately and together. And paying for everything upfront meant no discussions about who would pay for each meal or activity.

We all enjoyed watching the kids play together, and there was always an adult or two ready to supervise. My dad also organized some fun excursions. The kids especially loved the day my dad rented a boat and took us to the iguana refuge on Little Water Cay, and the dinner at Kimonos, where chefs chatted as they artfully cooked tableside.

That trip is one of still one of my fondest memories—all the more precious now that my dad is no longer with us. Carpe diem!