How to optimise your travel planning.

With many of us stuck at home, now is the the time to dream and plan for when we can start travelling once again.

Flights: Apart from booking your flights on the various airline websites, the best way to compare options of different airlines over the same route and dates is to use a website like Kayak.com

One of the great things about this website is you have the option to put in dates and search with +/- 3 days either side so you get a grid to compare your prices over a period of days if you are flexible. You can filter by airline, departure times, flight length, stopovers and much more.

Skyscanner is another website doing a similar job. You can even leave the destination as "everywhere" and see what options they suggest or choose their inspiration map to see where you can fly at which price for your dates. Momondo and Google flights are also useful for flight planning.

Accommodation: There are many players in the accommodation market, obvious ones like booking.com for hotels, apartments and hostels and AirBnB for rentals.

Trivago and Tripadvisor both offer cost comparisons for booking via different channels and Google maps will also offer this functionality if you search for hotels in a certain region or city.

If you are looking for something a little more niche, then you could try Mr and Mrs Smith, i-escape, Sawdays, or Secret Places. They all specialise in boutique type hotels, bed and breakfasts and self catering options.

Tours and activities: Here at www.travelcoup.com we have over 10,000 different options waiting for you in cities all over the planet. We work with tour suppliers, large and small who offer anything from a regular city bus tour, to specialist tours around food, wine, cooking classes, cycling, segway, walking, tuktuk, history, culture, pub crawls, religion, local knowledge and on and on and on....

Stay safe and happy planning!