Vacation Planning

It's that time of the year...people are planning and booking their vacations. Everyone wants to get a little bit of rest and relaxation from all their hard days. If you haven't already booked a trip and your struggling on where to start I have some information for you. First, you want to start by figuring out a budget. You need to know exactly how much you can spend on this trip without going into debt. Yes, your goal here is not to put this on the credit card so when you get back from the trip you will not be miserable looking at your credit card statement. Note: you can put it on the credit card as long as you pay it off. This is what I do to get my Starwood points.

Once you have your budget, figure where you can reasonably go within that budget. Given the oil prices you may not be able to fly to your destination without spending all of your budget. This may mean you need to stay closer to home. Create a list of places you want to go. For example:

1. Bahamas
2. Disney World (Florida)
3. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Spend one night looking at air flights on the airline sites like www.Travelocity.com or www.orbitz.com. Once you have all the flight prices, figure out your approximate costs for your hotel stay, rental car, gas, optional activities, and food. You should put all of this information in a spreadsheet to make it easy to compare the trips once your finished.