My dream vacations for 2 for under $4,200 including everything!

Amalfi Coast, Italy - Credit: Creative Commons from Chris&Steve

Oregon Coast- credit: Creative Commons from JoeDuck

Yangtze River, China- Credit: Creative Commons from Skype Nomad

Hawaii- credit: Creative commons from Mark J P

$4,200 is a lot of money, I know. However, when we are talking a DREAM vacation for two people, it is quite reasonable. (Okay, so maybe a dream vacation would have no budget or limits..but this is for Dreams that this teacher on a budget would like to actually make come true).  I plan to budget about $350/ month between my husband and myself to make many vacation dreams in the future a reality. I hope to go on dream vacations about once a year. In order to do this, I frequently use travel sites to plan out my dream vacations to the dollar to make this work. I scan flights, hotels, priceline, hotwire, restaurants, menus, excursions, transportation and add up the amount it would cost to take such trips. In the future on this blog, I will show you many trips you can take...and how much it is possible to take them for. Keep in mind, when I include airfare in budget it will be from Atlanta, since that is where I live. Therefore, some travel destinations will cost a bit more or a bit less depending on where you are flying out of. All the other costs will remain the same. In the mean time, I would like to introduce you to the places I would love to visit in my lifetime, some of which will be included in my future dream vacation itinerary s on this blog.

Santorini : Greek Isles- credit: creative commons from BruceHH

Better Bidding for all your Hotwire and Priceline bidding needs

I very rarely ever spend more than $100 including tax on a hotel room. I stay in 3 star and better hotels in cities and near beaches. I have www.hotwire.com and www.priceline.com's name your own price tool to thank for this. They allow you to book extremely discounted hotels. There is a catch though; while you know the star rating, general location, and amenities of the hotel, you can not find out the actual hotel you are staying at until after you have paid for and booked it, and there are no refunds. This makes using these websites a bit of a gamble. Even if you put in 3 star hotels, some 3 star hotels get downright pitiful ratings on www.tripadvisor.com and other review sites. This is where a very useful site comes in to play.

www.betterbidding.com is a site where people who have used Hotwire and Priceline go and enter their winning bids, along with what specifics they entered, and amenities were shown. This really helps narrow down what hotel you will likely win, so you have a better idea of the hotel you most likely will get. I almost always get the hotel that Betterbidding says I will most likely get, and I am able to look on TripAdvisor ratings before booking that hotel. If using Priceline, you will also know about what price to bid on the hotel you are looking for based on previous guest's wins. 

It is easy to understand once you visit the site, so do so now!

An example of how betterbidding helped me is that is showed me there was only one 2 1/2 star hotel off Savannah Hwy in Charleston on Priceline's name your on price...the Best Western. Knowing this, I was almost 100% sure that if I bid on that zone, I'd get that hotel. The Tripadvisor reviews checked out on the hotel, so I bid on it for around the same cost of previous winning bids (as seen on betterbidding). Sure enough, I won  the hotel at a 40% discount off the other hotels. 

getting to enjoy Charleston thanks to affordable hotel rates at Better Bidding!

Go check it out for yourself and never pay full price for a hotel!