I'm currently trying to plan some extra travel after my friends leave Thailand. I'd like to go to a couple of islands and maybe visit some friends there and in Laos. Quite frankly, I'm finding that the process is taking the fun out of travel.
There are quite a few factors lending to my frustration.
1. I've been taking a lot of shorter trips lately which makes it more difficult to get better deals and find the hotels that are still not online.
2. I'm going to Thailand in the peak of high season; higher prices, less availability.
3. So many people are traveling to Bali and Thailand now, hotel prices have gone up by 4 to 10 times!
4. So many hotels are online and they get booked up ahead of time by this new generation of traveler.
5. Booking hotels ahead also requires booking and knowing transportation schedules ahead of time.
I just wrote to my old hotel in the Gulf of Thailand and my 250 baht wooden shack is now 600 baht ($5 vs $20). Sure it's on a beautiful beach, but it's just a bed with a mosquito net in a simple wooden shack, shared bathroom down the dirt path, electricity only a few hours a day. And the $5 ferry is now like a $14 speed boat. I guess that's not too bad.
I know if I were on full-time slow travel, I could probably make connections on the ground and find better deals and I'd have time for a bit more unplanned travel.
But what used to be an easy take-it-as-it-comes travel style, is no more. I'm spending hours online searching for an available affordable hotel, then searching for the transportation options to get there which also has to be booked ahead of time.
I've always said in my budget travel tips that you pay higher prices when you book online. Now that seems to be all I'm doing.
I feel like I have to have every minute of my trip planned, and that's not normally how I do things. Arghhhh!
