As the holidays approach, my family and I take up travelling as a hobby and we have been going around Malaysia and countries near us such as Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand. Whenever we have a free time at the same time, we will plan a quick gateway to escape the hustles and bustles of the city. Our common ideas for a holiday would be hot springs, hills and beaches to clean up our minds and breathe, but the only problem is is that there’s always something that comes up and screws everything up (look how I didn’t say someone because it is not good to put all the blame on one’s shoulder). Mistakes and experiences are our life teachers, so as someone who has quite been through it all, I’ll be your fairy godmother and save/warn you about circumstances that may turn your smiling emoji upside down in your daily Twitter rants.
1) Plan wisely: This is where your skills in surfing the Internet finally become useful other than copying essays from exam websites for your English assignment. Open a tab and search for the place that you want to go. Look up for hotels and interesting places to go to. If possible, do book the hotel early before the peak season because the prices will need painkillers for you to pay. If you’re afraid that you might lose/misplace/forget your journal, just save every information that you gained in your phone. Nowadays, a phone is more important than a child.
2) What people say counts. Before you book a hotel or go to a place as a whole, you should always read the reviews’ column. This is the only way to know if the hotel/place that you’re going is worth your time and money or not.My favourite search engines for reviews would be Trip Advisor, but any review columns at any websites are reliable as long as there’s people who commented on them. If the review column is empty, go look up at other websites for them. Believe me, all these hard work will completely take your breath away when you find the best room and have a perfect holiday.
3) Always think twice. Don’t settle down straight away once you find the right hotel. Play hard a bit and go find the ultimate deal for your room. Compare the prices from at least three websites before inserting your credit card number. My favourite search engine for the best flight and hotel deals would be Traveloka. This website is very beneficial especially after you signed up as a member. There’s always special and flash deals now and then. But sometimes, the prices stated at search engines like Traveloka will be higher than the ones offered when you book through the hotel website itself. Again, never settle down unless you get the best as you are the best.
4) Don’t be late. This always happens. If isn’t you, it’ll be someone else. To everyone in general, please make sure that you have packed everything in your luggage bags the night before. Don’t ever think to ‘put this here first. I’ll take it with me when I want to leave later;’ that never works. Once you do that, an evil spell with somehow unleash on you and there’s always something will come up, such as you forgot the time and you need to rush to the airport, or your car broke down, the bus will leave in 20 minutes but your house is an hour away from the bus station and so many excuses that we will not even say to our Chemistry teacher in our wildest dreams will happen. Never, ever forget your identification card and passport! Now that’s what I call hell.
5) No last minute changes, please. Get your mission clear. If you want to go to Malaysia, for example, just go to Malaysia. Don’t ever think of having a pitstop at Thailand and ride elephants while reaching here. Those cute elephants can wait. It will just drag your time to go to the place that you want to go and you need to reschedule everything that you have planned for so long. Those hours giving up on browsing Twitter are useless if you can’t make your holiday dream come true as what you want. If you still want to have a pitstop anywhere, you can do it after the trip. Just let the most awaited holiday of your life pass the way as you wish for it to be.
6) Spam your Instagram account with beautiful pictures and have a blast! Remember, the best holidays are always the carefully and neatly planned ones. If you have already ticked off each of the 5 things I have laid out, but there’s still a disaster that turned your sunset by the beach into a tsunami, chin up!Behind the dark clouds, there’s always a silver lining. Make sure to have fun/make fun of everything that happens. Just laugh it out!
Have a great holiday!
