Recreation At Hawkscay

Packaged holidays date back to the Victorian era. Convenient and cheap, package appeal to someone who has little time to plan a trip or lacks the ability to organize a holiday. Here are a few characteristics that define a packaged holiday.

Defined

A package is defined as a pre-arranged holiday or trip that is available at an inclusive price. To be considered a packaged holiday, the trip must be at least 24 hours long. It must also include at least two of the following: travel, accommodation and tourist activity or service.

Booking

Booking the trip involves a contract where the consumer agrees to the holiday. The consumer selects a specific location with its activities and amenities. These must be met by the agency providing the holiday. It is important to read through all paperwork and brochures provided that describe the itinerary and features.

Liability

The agency is liable “for proper performance of the obligations under the contract, irrespective of whether such obligations are to be performed by the organizer, the retailer or any other suppliers of services,” according to the Package Holiday and Travel Trade Act. The act is part of the Irish Statute and was passed in 1995. This means the person selling the holiday is responsible for everything listed. Anything that is listed and not included the provider must refund or face penalties.

Investigations

The National Consumer Agency is a national group in Ireland that protects the rights of consumers. To ensure that consumers are safe when booking packaged holidays, the National Consumer Agency regularly checks brochures and paperwork to assure packaged holidays include everything stated. Consumers can make complaints about holidays at anytime to the National Consumer Agency about fraudulent packaged holidays.

Cancellation

If a package holiday is cancelled by the agent, a full refund or replacement trip must be provided. The trip must be of equal value; if it is less the agency must refund the entire difference. The trip can be cancelled for acts beyond the agency’s control, but refunds must be given.

History

Packages first appeared in 1841 when Thomas Cook took a chartered train 20 miles from Leicester in the United Kingdom to Loughborough. In the 1970s, its gained even more popularity when people needed a cheap way to travel abroad from the United Kingdom.

New Trends

Packages are losing interest with the mass public since the introduction of budget airlines. However, to interest more people, agencies are offering the option to allow travelers to pick and choose what their holidays include.

Sometimes you just want to get away for the holiday season or experience the holiday traditions of another culture. Cheap holiday vacation packages to European cities make such ideas possible. Do your holiday shopping at the Christmas market in Vienna or experience New Year’s fireworks in Prague.

Thanksgiving dinner may be a foreign concept to cities in Europe; however, many London restaurants offer a Thanksgiving menu. Where ever you decide to go, there are several travel companies and online booking services that specialize in such vacations.

Christmas Market In Vienna
Christmas Market in Vienna from Virgin Vacations is a six-night package featuring round-trip airfare, hotel accommodations and daily continental breakfast. Hotel taxes and service charges are also included, but airport taxes and fees are not.

Enjoy Vienna, a city lined with palaces and steeples that comes alive with a festive Christmas market during the holiday season that features many merchant sales. Called the Christkindlmarkt, you’ll get to try boiled wine on the streets or eat the wiener schnitzel as well as assorted desserts in Vienna’s many cafes and restaurants.

New Year’s in Prague
Ring in the new year with a six-night package in Prague, Czech Republic, with Go-Today.com. Prague is a city known for its rich architectural history including Romanesque buildings as well as being a New Year’s Eve destination.

The “golden city,” as it’s called, features many cafes and parks in addition to the domes and spires of its buildings that make the numerous New Year’s Eve fireworks throughout the city and at Old Towne Square all the more breathtaking. Fireworks overlooking the city’s river are another New Year’s staple and can be viewed from the Charles Bridge among other locations.

Additional New Year’s Eve activities in Prague include bar and club hopping, dinner at one of its many restaurants or enjoying the evening on Prague’s annual New Year’s Eve Party Boat, which includes food and drinks as well as a tour of major sites in the city.

Round trip airfare, hotel accommodations and daily continental breakfast are included with the package. Hotel and airport taxes, fees and service charges are not included.

Thanksgiving In London
While the English don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, cheap vacation packages are available in London as well as other European cities. Go-Today.com notes that Thanksgiving menus are featured at numerous London restaurants for affordable prices.

Tentazioni is an Italian restaurant at the Royal Garden Hotel that features a Thanksgiving special with traditional American dishes given an Italian twist. Try the pumpkin ravioli and roast turkey with cornbread stuffing. Enjoy Thanksgiving dinner along with a night of jazz at Babylon Restaurant at the Roof Gardens or American dishes at Christopher’s American Bar and Grille.

This six-night vacation package from Go-Today.com includes a round-trip flight, hotel accommodations and daily continental breakfast. Hotel and airport taxes as well as service charges are not included.

Booking a package holiday offers some significant advantages over booking each part of the holiday separately. Rather than booking travel, accommodation, insurance and transfers separately, a package holiday will normally include everything in one booking. This saves significantly on research time, and may save you money. On a package holiday, you will normally have access to a company representative to deal with problems on your behalf; if you book each element of your holiday separately, you will have to do it yourself. Package holidays can take you all over the world.

Beach Holidays

In the U.S., package holidays in Florida offer a wide choice of accommodations to suit all budgets, and offer the opportunity to visit Disney World during your trip. Hawaii has stunning beaches that are fantastic for water sports, including scuba diving and windsurfing. In the Caribbean, islands such as Barbados and Bermuda offer a choice of luxury resorts aimed specifically at package holidaymakers, although they tend to be expensive. Farther afield, Thailand’s beaches are world-renowned and increasingly offer a choice of international standard hotels in package holiday oriented resorts, such as Phuket and Koh Samui.

City Breaks

Package city breaks can be a good way of discovering a new place or culture without needing to know the place well. Packages might include excursions within the city or cover more than one city. In the U.S., big cities such as New York or San Francisco that offer cultural attractions and a good nightlife make good destinations. In Europe, large cities such as London or Rome are good package destinations as they offer a wide variety of attractions.

Tours

Packages that take in several destinations as part of a tour can be an easy way to organize an otherwise complicated trip. Within the U.S., a package road trip, where accommodation is arranged in different places while you drive yourself between them, allows you to explore at your own pace. Farther afield, packages are an ideal way to get to know a new culture where booking yourself might be difficult. For example, package tours to India that cover Delhi, Agra and Jaipur are a good way to see key sights easily.

Active Package Holidays

If you want to take part in sports or activities on holiday, then a package holiday is an easy way to organize it, as you do not need to find suppliers yourself. Active holidays could include a winter-sports trip to Whistler in Canada, a trekking holiday in the Atlas Mountains in North Africa, a safari in Kenya, or a scuba-diving holiday in Egypt.

Waking up to a beautiful Swiss landscape without a worry in the world, haggling at a noisy Moroccan bazaar, sun beaming down while I laze on a cruise to Fiji…the possibilities are endless! Once you’ve caught the travel bug, it is difficult to go back to a mundane life. If you are willing to think outside the box, there are opportunities to combine working and relaxing while on the move, without breaking your bank. These possibilities come with some disclaimers – hard work and a bit of sacrifice.

Sign up for a Working Holiday

There are several programmes available where you can apply for a working visa. Examples include Australia, United States of America, United Kingdom, Canada, Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Japan and Korea to name a few. This is normally part of a reciprocal arrangement between your country and the country you would like to visit and would depend on the passport you will be travelling with. Most of these visas have an age limit but would allow you to search for short-term work and travel during the weekends or after you have saved a bit of money. If you have to work, you may as well work overseas to experience a new culture.

Get a Job as a Travel Guide Writer

Fancy working on travel books like Lonely Planet and Frommers? This is not a job for the faint hearted as you will have to approach the task with military precision. To ensure you get as much information as you can, you will need to be very organized beforehand and plan your route before you go. Again, you will need to write quality articles to stand out from the many people applying for a travel writing job. If you are not successful, there are also opportunities as freelance editors or photographers.

Set up a Blog

Blogging is a great way to earn if you have the patience to build up a following. You can do this by researching about a topic you are passionate about and write good content which will bring someone else value. After you have built a following, you can start adding some advertisements and links to affiliates to generate some income. Examples include AdSense, ClickBank, Clixgalore and Amazon. Once you are receiving some passive income, you can use the money to travel to the destinations you have admired. At this stage, you can set up another travel blog and link it to the previous blog which has been generating a lot of traffic and start writing about your adventures. This will bring in another source of income. Remember, free content is a great way of attracting readers as most people like receiving something for nothing.