How best to organise a trip?

[Bloomcounty]

All our holidays have been in the UK so far, so this is way out of my comfort zone sorting out an overseas trip.

We'd like to have a few days either at the end of October or in early November somewhere nice, probably a city break.

Current options are Berlin, Prague, Budapest or Vienna, for 2 adults. Vienna's looking a bit "ouch" financially, but none of them are cheap and I'm loathe to get it all wrong and waste our savings.

How am I best to organise this? I know I can go to a travel agent, but is that the best way? I've been looking at expedia and lastminute.com. Has any one experience using them that they'd be willing to share, or even recommendations?

I am way out of my depth at the moment.

kayak has loads of info about flights etc. it will tell you pricing including baggage. i looked up berlin, and so i will link that below. wishing you all the best

www.kayak.co.uk/flights/LON-BER/2018-11-06/2018-11-06?sort=bestflight_a&fs=bfc=1

thank you! That's not a website I'd ever heard of.

I book flights using skyscanner (it finds you the cheapest flights for where you want to go) then book a hotel through booking.com. You don't have to pay until you check in and can cancel with no fee until 48 hours in advance so you can carry on looking around and see if you can find somewhere better/cheaper.

Very exciting planning a random trip!

For a city break:

I use skyscanner for ideas/ to find out what the cheapest options are for a particular date or month (put home airport in one box, everywhere in the other, choose a date or whole month).

Then might use Google flights to track prices (then book when there is a price drop). Or just book if price is already reasonable/time horizon is short. Always book direct with airline not an OTA (online travel agency) - for shorthaul this tends to be one of the budget airlines - Ryanair/Easyjet/Jet2.

Then I book accom using Airbnb or a booking site, but first Google the name to see if direct booking is available (it's almost always either the same price or cheaper).

Then research a bit more about the destination before I go (Google maps is good for reviews and orientation).

That's it really. :)

Thank you all so much! Now to drool over destinations with a bit more purpose. Berlin is looking very attractive.

I do the same as OrchidInTheSun . I often choose the destination according to flight prices. Malaga is normally pretty cheap and is a lovely city.

Try ba.com flight and hotel option I got a great deal 3 nights Valencia

Thank you both.

As well looking at booking separately (I use sky scanner and booking.com or travel republic) have a look at the hotel and flight packages by jet2holidays or easyjet. Often cheaper than booking separately. They don't include transfers but there's probably easy public transport to the city centre for those cities, or a taxi may be an option depending on distance/party size.

If you click on the 'everywhere' option on skyscanner, it will tell you which country is cheapest and then you just click through to hopefully see your desired city and not some unattractive industrial port.

Second BA holidays plus they have an option that shows you all city break deals which is fantastic.
Also if you book as a package you get some protection .

Another skyscanner & booking.com vote. Before clicking through the link on Skyscanner to book, always open a new window & check the flight price on the airlines own booking site as it can be about £10 cheaper. Booking.com are great, I've never had a problem & always do the pay at the hotel/apartment option. Apartments are usually cheaper than hotels if don't mind the self catering bit. Out of the places you're looking at, not been to Berlin but I'd knock Vienna off (sorry, just didn't like it much!) & go for Prague over Budapest. Budapest is great & will be cheap but Prague for me is the more beautiful & romantic city.

Ooh thank you. I'd prefer self catering, I think. Hotel breakfasts are usually expensive. That's wonderful, thank you

I also check out the hotel on Trip Advisor. Discard the rubbish reviews and the marvellous ones and the remainder are usually a fair indication of the hotel and its service.

I use Skyscanner and keep an eye out for when flights are released for booking through Easyjet and Fly Be as have got some great prices by booking months ahead. I have a journal with the places I'd like to go and dates me and my husband (or just me, sometimes ) can go so if I spot deals I can book on my phone. I love planning trips and have an idea every January of the sorts of things we'd like to do - having breaks to look forward to is great in the depths of January. I generally book Air BnB places, occasionally budget hotels. For Air BnB, go for ones with good number of reviews and I tend to keep a shortlist on phone of the destinations I've been eyeing up. I keep a load of bookmarks on my phone of interesting travel blogs and places I'd like to visit and if it's a city break, a rough plan of what we'd like to do if it requires booking tickets etc or if a fly and flop beach week, just do a recce of where's good to eat/shop for self catering supplies.

Berlin is great for a trip - easy to get around on foot or public transport and loads to do.

Also, download the free Citymapper app - makes it very easy to get around on public transport (phone buzzes when you are near your stop for example), put your accommodation address as "home" and then you just select where you want to go and it finds the best route. When you want to go back to your accommodation you simply select "take me home" and it finds the best route back from wherever you are.
Berlin: citymapper.com/berlin?set_region=de-berlin

Full list of cities: citymapper.com/cities?lang=en

On Google maps you can download maps for offline use in the settings so you can use it without having to connect to wifi or use your data. Before I go somewhere I always search on Google Maps for restaurants, cafes, bakeries, attractions, etc and read the reviews, I then use the Save feature to save the places that look interesting and have good reviews.
Click on name of place.
Click save.

It will say: Save in your lists:
Choose:

Favourites
Want to go
Starred places
New list (you can use this to create a list eg restaurants)

Then whenever you use Google maps the saved places will show up on your map. Google map is also very useful for estimating walking distances between 2 places (just click on directions and select start point on map or by typing it in). Always seems to be very accurate when I have used it.

The Lonely Planet app also has free city guides to over 200 cities:
www.lonelyplanet.com/guides

Are you fixed on those 4 destinations?

Bratislava offers a much cheaper MittelEuropa experience, with far fewer tourists.

It's also much smaller and easier to get around.

Of the places you mentioned it would be my first choice. Sells Czech beer too.

end of October or in early November

If you are not tied to school holidays, check your dates. That is our half term, which may have an impact on flight prices.

We're going to Budapest in October. Booked with jet2 as the prices were good including a hotel and breakfast in a location I wanted.

I had used sky scanner but the flights were eye watering.

So I shopped about a bit more and found Jet2. Have used them before for our summer holidays.

Thank you buttermilk waffles that's amazing! We're not tied to school holidays, but the cattery can't take our boy till after the 18th, so I suspect that's what that is about. Thank you all so much