Stumped and in over my head - need advice!

[foulmouthflora1]

Bit of background, for years DH has always organised all our holidays. He’s a bit of an amateur luxury travel agent. Deep down I don't mind, he manages to get great deals in some swanky hotels or bargains on flights. He spends a lot time watching travel bloggers on YouTube and reading travel forums.

The dilemma is that for a significant birthday next summer he wants the two of us to tour the Far East and I foolishly said he should leave the booking to me for a change and I can sort it all out. We fly into Singapore and out of Tokyo and will be away for 23 nights. DH suggested Vietnam, Cambodia Thailand before heading to Japan. I’m bewildered with the choice, hotels, routes, flights, trains! Help!

Budget wise we are very flexible. The only restriction is the outbound and inbound flights as they have been booked but everything else is probably negotiable. Any ideas? I guess I'm looking for tips and inspiration. Or should I admit defeat and tell him to sort it… which I kinda don’t want to do given that it's his birthday. Plus, when it was my last significant birthday DH sorted an amazing trip to Oz, first class flights etc. so I seriously think I owe him.

Get a travel agent to sort it! One of those who work from home are brilliant and will do those tips like getting the best seats on a plane and special things etc. Travel counsellors or similar may be worth a look

Let him do it. He's good at it, he enjoys doing it and it will add to his pleasure in taking the trip. Trust me, and read up on Love Languages.

4 countries in just over three weeks is too much.

Too much in the time! Singapore for 3 nights and Japan for the rest of the time! You cannot see much of Thailand or Vietnam by just lending and taking off again. I might add in some time in Cambodia or Thailand if you must but why didn’t he just fly to Thailand? I would definitely cut out all the sitting around in hot airports!

@LenoVintura, you're spot on! Had a chat with DH last night and as soon as I mentioned whether he might want to do the planning as he's so good at it he whipped out an itinerary he'd already put together, just in case!

@BubblesBuddy suggested whether it was too much but DH is planning to do one stop in each country, as a flavour. Asked about flying to Thailand but he wants to go to Singapore to stay at Raffles and the Marina Sand hotel.

Thanks for all the replies, much appreciated.

From Singapore you can fly directly (about 2 hr flight) into Siem Reap in Cambodia to visit the temples of Angkor Wat, Bayon and more.
From there, maybe fly up to Hanoi (1.5 hr flight) using that as a base for visiting Tam Coc and/or Halong Bay or Sapa, before flying on to Japan.

Sounds like an amazing trip. Enjoy yourselves!

Thank you @toomuchlikemyusername for the tips, will mention it to DH as potential options.

I would let him do it - he obviously enjoys it and is good at it. I always do ours then one year DH announced he was doing our ski trip and had found a hotel almost identical to the one I had found previous year for a cheaper price. Let him book it but when we went he realised why it was cheaper (wasn't near anywhere including the skiing ) and he said he is rubbish at these things and please could I do everything from now on.

It is quite complicated. I'm just doing Asia for first time now so no real advice. We are doing Thailand and Borneo (Sandakan) to see the wildlife - turtles, orangutan, pygmy elephants, proboscis monkeys, sun bears etc but am discovering things each day. Tripadviser forums for each country are great for advice. Skyscanner is good for flights. I use Booking.com for hotels but also check hotels own sites. It can be useful to look at tours by travel agents and get ideas from them - I usually look at Explore.

I am finding price can vary wildly for same thing - seeing turtles and staying overnight all identical tours - first company £853, second company £588, third company £300 (who actually run it). Only thing is they don't provide transport to place but its literally 5 minutes walk each way from where we are staying.

What time of year are you going - that affects what's good. Its always worth checking what's open when. How are you travelling? Hiring car, chauffeured or train / bus. I find it good to initially book hotels with free cancellation and ideally no prepayment as then if you change plans you can change and I always change plans as discover new things. Depends what you like doing, sounds like he really wants Singapore then and Japan is needed. My DD would love that holiday - the more countries the better, though do need to balance with travel time.

Thailand we are doing River Kwai - Bangkok looks quite built up but will spend a couple of nights there. River Kwai Float House looks lovely place to stay. You probably won't have time to do internal flights in Thailand on that timescale. We are getting transfers between places which you can book through things like Budget's Thailand website under Chauffeured driving or hotels often offer.

Sounds like an amazing holiday. He will probably be very happy if you ask him to do it and admit defeat.

One thing I have discovered with flights is on Skyscanner you can put from destination to everywhere in second destination and it gives you every possible option. That's how I discovered I could get Borneo same price as internal flight in Thailand.

If you are doing that may countries look whether the cities you fly into are nice as you will be just exploring there.

Thanks @PenguinsRabbits (great name!), you are right and I agreed that he should after a discussion. My other fear was I would mess up and I've managed to avoid that now. I will suggest some of the options that you included. DH is taking the lead (as it's his birthday) but he does enjoy the luxury side of trips. And food. So I expect to do lots of eating. He's also a dab hand at booking rooms with about 17 windows open on the computer checking lots of different comparison sites because their prices differ.

We are going next Summer and will be travelling to each place by plane. I will mention your comments to him as he's still planning.

I was going to say that I'd let him do it - my fiancé loves it too, and although I'm always tempted to try and surprise him with something, he takes a lot of pleasure from sorting it out.

Enjoy the trip, it sounds amazing!

@AnchorDownDeepBreath will do!

I love booking trips and get annoyed if DH tries to take over as I have all these hacks that I have perfected over the years - leaving it to him sounds like the right thing to do.