The ongoing discussion on booking hotels vs. winging it
Bas and I have this ongoing discussion on our different travel styles. They do diverge to a certain degree. I am that anxious person that likes to book everything in advance. If it went my way, I would have an excel sheet with overnight accommodation, day trips, lunch and dinner plans, transport between cities, more or less cleanly in my google documents that I could look into when on the road.
I would have reservations for the restaurants, for the trains or buses, for the hotels. Everything would be stowed away safely in my inbox, and then, there’s no need to plan anything else. I could go on the trip and not care about anything because everything had been cared for in advance. Unless, something goes wrong, then maybe I would even have elaborated a Plan B. I talked about this recently – you can have a look here: The planning Part
That detail in planning does not allow for spontaneity, and that is a point of conflict between us. I like my plans, Bas likes to wing it. My argument is always to have at least the hotels booked, because I do not want to end up on the street.
I know, I know, the likelihood is minor, especially with booking apps and a flexibility in the budget. There must be a large event in the city or a festival to actually cause that issue. I actually had that happen once during a fair in Frankfurt – the city with the worst train station area in the world. I honestly would not want to get caught outside after dark there. I would rather go to Bangui and walk around on the streets instead of walking through Frankfurt Main Station at night. But I guess my risk vs. reward thinking is also a little tangled. I actually wrote a blog post about this some time ago. Check it out here: Traveling the World: Lessons on Comfort and Courage
How We Compromise as a Couple
Anyway, how do we arrange ourselves when it comes to planning. And how do we not end up fighting about this regularly? Let’s dive into this!
There is a lot of trust involved in this process, and a ton of communication. I feel save when he organizes things, because he takes care of my minimum requirement: Have accommodation booked! He plans in days where we can be flexible. I give you an example.
We went on this beautiful Winter trip to South Korea and Taiwan over the winter holidays last year. I think this was one of the first times, where I gave him the lead in organizing the whole thing. And I tell you, letting go of control can be challenging for me, but it is also very rewarding. And after the first time, when the trip was absolutely amazing and I enjoyed every second, now, I basically let him do this all the time.
This is actually one of the advantages of group travel as well: Do I read the itinerary? Rarely! Do I trust that things will be handled? Yes! Do I need to do anything? No, I’ll be along for the ride and enjoy the utter lack of responsibility!
Flights & Transport: What We Do
Usually, we book the flights and transport in advance. With limited vacation days, we always want to make sure, that we make full use of the leave days I have. In the case of our South Korea and Taiwan trip, he checked the flights beforehand, and we booked them together. In this way, he knew which routes would work out best for our itinerary and I only had to “okay” them when booking.
Any other transport depends on the situation. For South Korea and Taiwan we did not book trains in advance as there were numerous options depending on the time we wanted to take.
Therefore, from our perspective, the risk was very small to not be able to take a train on the days we wanted to.
Eventually, on our first day in Seoul, we realized it would have been a good idea to already book a train in advance, as we arrived on Christmas. On the Christmas days the trains were quite well booked. Because of that our trip towards Busan got delayed by a few hours. We used the time to explore Seoul a little more, and walked towards the Deoksugung Palace to have a first look around. Delays like this gave us the opportunity to be spontaneous. Although, the disadvantage here was, that we arrived after a night flight, and were quite tired. Having then a late travel time to actually find our way to the hotel in Busan was not necessarily peak travel excitement.
We also spent some time in one of the many Starbucks in Seoul. Did you know that South Korea has one of the densest Starbucks coverage in the world? That was actually pretty amazing! I don’t know why I love Starbucks so much to be honest. It’s just so familiar and easy to navigate. I guess it partly has to do with that I know my scripts for Starbucks while I sometimes still struggle with those for other chains. Like the effort it took me to navigate Subway restaurants.
Anyway, back to the topic:
How We Choose Hotels (Our Criteria)
Should you book hotels in advance or just wing it while traveling? I rather book them in advance, but this fully depends on you and your preferences. Having the first night booked is always good!
You should research about any fairs or holidays happening and how the booking situation is in general. After the first night, if there are usually ample availabilities, you can get an idea about the lay of the land. From there, you can go forward. It allows much more flexibility in movement, if you are not stuck in the idea of having it organized precisely as you plan. But I unfortunately run on different batteries.
I understand that I might miss out on opportunities like this, but I like my comfort and the fact that I never run the risk of sleeping outside.
For the hotels, we usually go with a similar method. Bas is researching the hotels. We usually have some preferences when it comes to the hotel choice, bear with me:
- Close to public transport: If you are traveling around with luggage as we do, you do not want to drag your suitcases or backpacks around for more than 10 minutes. Depending on where you are, probably even rather 5 minutes. In South Korea and Taiwan public transport is rather easy to navigate. You also have options, from buses over trains to subways, pretty much everything is available. And it is easy to use. In Seoul we took a hotel close to the arts center and fairly easily walkable within reach to the main shopping streets. In Busan, the way from the subway station was approximately 5 minutes walking.
- Close to city center: This ties in with the first point, but is worth mentioning. I like being close enough to see what the city is all about, but never in the party quarter or pub street. I prefer my hotels to be in rather calm areas. For that you need to read some reviews and check what sights are nearby when booking. Our hotel in Busan was in the pub street, but on a high enough floor that we were not disturbed too much throughout the night. You can ask for a higher floor to avoid these disturbances. Also, if all else fails, I have used earplugs before and will not shy away from using them again.
- With or without breakfast: The selection of breakfast heavily depends on the country. In South Korea we did not rely much on the provided breakfast, but there it was relatively easy to find good breakfast options. If we do not know much about the local cuisine, we rely more on the buffet options provided by the hotel.
- Comfortable beds and a good shower: You can check out the reviews and see what others said about the facilities. Reading bad reviews and some of the good ones will help with that. You can also check out the pictures, but please be aware that the pictures can be old, or look nicer than the facilities actually are. And sometimes it still comes down to pure luck!
- With a pool or a gym: This was not necessarily a limitation (yet) in South Korea or Taiwan, but the availability of a pool or a gym can be really useful if you like to go for a quick swim in the morning like me. As we are usually quite active during most of our trips, a gym can be useful, but it’s not a must.
- Online Check in options or machine check in: Some hotels in Europe have these check in machines that I love a.k.a. hell yeah, I do not have to talk to people! It is a feature I like, but again, not a must.
- Free pickup services: If the hotel is offering a free shuttle from the airport or a pickup service, it’s also a much appreciated feature. It involves much less hassle with figuring out the taxi situation.
This is my list of selection criteria that has been expanded over time. I sometimes enjoy rather hostel vibes than those large established chains. I prefer simple designs and decor to opulent styles. This is more a preference and we sometimes select a hotel based on the style they have if all other criteria are met.
When Bas has selected the hotels initially, we go through the dates and the options and book accordingly. Usually we are going through the whole list a few times to see, if the dates fit and everything is covered.
Balancing Tours with Spontaneity
This sounds rather counter productive, but hear me out. We usually do it this way: If a trip is quite tightly scheduled with fixed dates on arrival and departure in a specific location and not enough time, we often use one day for a day tour and one day to explore without a schedule. The day tours we are choosing are usually small groups with one tour guide or private tours. This means it is either only a tour guide and us or at most 6-12 persons in smaller vehicles.
Most of the time we try to rather opt for half day tour rather than full day tours, but both works.
This preference was rather limited in both countries this time, but even then we managed to geek out with the tour guides quite a lot. From Seoul we had an amazing tour to the Alpaca center, Nami Island and a Railbike Ride with a freezing cold train ride after.
My hands were so cold, I couldn’t feel my fingers anymore.
We chatted a lot with our tour guide on the way, basically ran through the Alpaca center to see ALL the animals, saw literally all the signs on Nami Island including this absolutely gorgeous arts exhibition and even enjoyed the Railbike Ride. I don’t like biking, I do like trains. It was not too bad!
On unstructured days we end up in cozy cafes, go to night markets, walk through cultural streets and arts exhibitions, and have the most amazing food experiences. Usually we find some things to do that excite us, and if all else fails, there’s Starbucks everywhere. In Busan we went to a really cool art exhibition in the Seomyeon Museum of Art (https://maps.app.goo.gl/S2fgBejv2Q8F99bSA) before having lunch in the area. We actually were looking for the Coffee Shop Street, but couldn’t find it. So, we changed course and had a look at the exhibition.
Sometimes these days work as buffer days, especially on longer trips. After being on the road for ten days, I also sometimes opt for “staying in, watching Studio Ghibli movies on my phone and potato-ing”, even when on a trip.
The most important thing is, if you are traveling as a couple, you need to figure out what both of you want to get out of the trip and then coordinate. If you are both into art galleries, plan that in. If you like geeking out about history, plan it in, but if your partner is not, allow yourselves days, where it is more aligned with his interests rather than yours. Compromising is key!
Our South Korea & Taiwan Itinerary
I’ll give you a run down of our eventual trip now, because so far I only gave you snippets. Here, it comes:
Day 1: Flight from Phnom Penh to Seoul: Exploring the Deoksugung Palace before hopping on a train to Busan
Day 2: Full Day Tour from Busan comparable to this: History Tour of Gyeongju from Busan
Day 3: Explore Busan, especially the Jeoryeong Coastal Walk using public transport there and back (https://share.google/e8lFeZXPYjD5Enegr)
Day 4: Traveling back to Seoul. Exploring the Shopping Street, the Christmas tree and having Christmas dinner
Day 5: Day Tour to Alpaca World, Nami Island and the Railbike Ride
Day 6: Unstructured Day in Seoul: Shopping, Christmas market, Dinner plans. We had a dinner reservation for a Michelin Star food experience on this day that we booked months in advance.
Day 7: Full Day Traveling to Taiwan – one night in Taipei
Day 8: Traveling to Kaohsiung: Exploring the Christmas market and the Night Market
Day 9: Unstructured Day in Kaohsiung: Exploring the temples and pagodas around Lotus Pond (accidentally following a massive parade from temple to temple)
Day 10: Unstructured Day in Kaohsiung: Enjoying the beautiful Pier II Art Center around the old harbor
Day 11: Traveling back to Taipei: New Year’s Eve in Taipei (isn’t that the most epic way to spend New Year’s eve?!)
Day 12: Literally nothing! Food, sleep, potato-ing! Nursing the hangover from New Year’s Eve and prepare for two full day tours that followed.
Day 13: Full Day Tour to Yehliu, Jiufen & Pingxi
Day 14: Full Day Tour to the Sun & Moon Lake
Day 15: Travel Day to Singapore where our trip continued…
This is a very typical travel itinerary for us. I guess, long term we learned that we cannot pack our days too full. If we really want to explore a place, we need to mix tours with solo exploration. This served us really well so far. I still need to tell myself that doing nothing is perfectly appropriate. I am slowly learning this as well.
Do you prefer booking everything in advance, or do you like to wing it? How do you and your travel partners compromise?
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