I saw a really low airfare online.  Should I grab it and then work out my ground arrangements later?

This is usually a bad idea.  For starters, unless you are intimately familiar with the destination and this is especially true for those destinations that typically include multiple stops, you don’t know the best place to start or end the itinerary, you don’t know the best domestic routing, and often the domestic segments are cheaper if bought at the same time as the overwater flights.  Once you’ve bought that ticket you are locked in to whatever mistakes you just made.  There is far more downside to this decision than likely savings to come of it.

Why should I book my trip through a professional travel adviser?

Certainly there are plenty of self booking tools available today and they keep getting better, but contrary to popular perception, it usually isn’t less expensive to book direct, travel agents are normally free to the buyer, and an agent that knows their destination, the ones that really specialize, understand the ins and outs in a way that you could never figure out on your own by visiting websites.  But besides the years spent acquiring our destination knowledge, we are also connected, so if the need arises to ask for favors,  whether it’s to clear space, request special amenities, or fix a problem, we are in a much better position to take care of you than you could ever manage on your own.  It’s sort of like doing your own taxes.  You can, but you probably shouldn’t.

What is travel insurance and why do I need it?

Unless you are completely winging it travel involves a lot of prepaid expenses for things such as airfare, ground transportation, accommodation, and tours and activities.  All of these items have cancellation penalties so that depending on the timing of a cancellation could be completely non refundable.  Airfare is almost always non refundable.  So at it’s most basic level, travel insurance refunds those costs to you in the event you cancel for cause (a bad hair day is not cause however).

But besides that there is a long list of related potential risks that travel insurance typically bundles into the package.  Such things as lost or delayed luggage, missed flights, emergency evacuation should you be injured or incapacitated while on your trip, and medical expenses (note that most medical insurance is not valid once you leave the United States) to name just a few.

Each plan has different limits and different inclusions and there is a lot of fine print but when you sort it out these policies are a really good idea and we STRONGLY suggest you purchase one.

What does ‘All Inclusive’ mean?

It wasn’t that long ago that nearly all hotels were EP, short for European Plan, which still means without meals.  Conversely American Plan, AP for short, means meals included.  Now for starters this is exactly opposite of the reality in Europe, where most hotels include breakfast, and the United States, where most hotels don’t include any meals at all, but for whatever reason these terms came into use and have stuck.  By the way, alternate and more accurate terms for meal inclusive plans are half board (breakfast and dinner) and full board (breakfast, lunch, and dinner).  Half Board and Full Board are phrases commonly used in the South Pacific.

All Inclusive means meals and alcoholic beverages are included.  This is common in the Caribbean and Mexico but rare in the South Pacific, although many hotels in Fiji include meals and lots of activities.

Why are the seasons reversed south of the equator?

The seasons are created because the earth does not spin at a 180 degree angle relative to the sun, so as we complete our annual orbit the sun is more direct and the days longer during that half the year when the part of the world we live in is more oriented to the sun.  So in the Northern Hemisphere the days start getting longer starting on December 23 and reach the maximum on June 22.  In the Southern Hemisphere this is exactly reversed.

Now let’s consider the tropics, that section of the earth between 23 degrees south latitude and 23 degrees north.  In the tropics there is never a cold season, there is just warm and hot.  Summer in the tropics is hot, and for most of the earth, the rainy season as well, so add humid to that.  It’s also when you get hurricanes, also known as cyclones in the Southern Hemisphere and typhoons in Asia.  A weaker version is called a tropical depression.  Tropical depressions don’t get the high winds associated with a hurricane but they do bring a lot of rain and can last for days.

The time of year you are considering traveling in should play an important role in your choice of destinations.