It’s Tuesday evening.
Work’s done. You’re knackered. The house is a mess, the kids are doing your head in and the dinner that still needs cooking is staring at you from the kitchen.
So naturally, you pick up your phone.
Five minutes into a completely innocent scroll and there she is.
Some woman you’ve never met, walking slowly through the most beautiful place you’ve ever seen. Gorgeous food. Blue water. Mountains. Sunshine. Not a school uniform or washing basket in sight.
She’s having the fucking time of her life.
Meanwhile you’re on your sofa slowly slipping into a deep depression.
For a second you imagine it.
God, I’d love to do that.
Then someone shouts Mum from upstairs and reality comes crashing back in.
Mortgage. Bills. Kids. Work. Responsibilities. And 28 bloody days of annual leave that already don’t stretch far enough.
Maybe one day.
I know that woman because I am that woman.
I don’t travel full time. I’m not rich. I have a mortgage, bills, a job, a family and all the same boring responsibilities waiting for me when I get home.
But in the last year I’ve watched the sun rise over Bali after climbing a volcano. I’ve stood beneath Christ the Redeemer and partied on Copacabana Beach in Rio. I’ve woken up to ridiculous views on the Amalfi Coast and watched the sun disappear behind the Tuscan hills with my husband.
And before this year is over, I’ll have travelled with my family through Bangkok, Krabi, Khao Sok and Phuket.
Not because I’ve suddenly found loads more money or annual leave.
I’ve just learned how to make the travel I can afford go much further.
And that’s what I want to show you.
It Usually Starts With a Scroll
More often than not, it starts with me sitting there on a mad scroll. Probably Instagram or YouTube. Then I come across something that literally pulls me all the way in and I’m like, damn… where is this place?
And then I’m off.
It’s never really a quick passing thought and then I’m done with it either. I’m straight onto Google, ChatGPT, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok… and I’m doing deep research.
Weather. Food. Culture. Beaches. Villages. Everything I love about travelling gets researched.
Experience comes first for me. Then I build the trip around it.
I don’t book a five-star hotel in Spain and then start searching for things to do nearby. I find the thing in Spain that makes me think fuck, I need to experience that and then I work out the flights, accommodation, transport and everything else that will help me make it happen.
Then I start thinking about who the trip is actually for.
If I find things that I know would work for everyone, it starts becoming a family holiday. Somewhere beautiful and full of nature that my daughter would love photographing. MMA or Muay Thai for my son. Halal food options. Culture and experiences I think he’d enjoy. Things my husband would love too.
If I’m looking at it thinking, this place is gorgeous, but I don’t think it fits all four of us, then it might get quietly moved into the me and hubby pile instead.
Sometimes though, I start completely differently.
Brazil was always going to be me and my husband. It was my birthday trip, and that time I wasn’t choosing a destination by thinking, Oh wow, that looks cool. Let’s go there.
I started with how I wanted my birthday to feel.
What did I want those days to look like? What kind of memories did I want to come home with?
That’s something I’ve realised about the way I plan travel. Sometimes the destination comes first. Other times, the feeling I’m looking for comes first, and I find the place that gives me that.
Flights Are Where It Starts Getting Real
Once I’ve decided somewhere has serious potential, I look at flights.
Flights are usually my biggest upfront cost and, unlike accommodation, there’s not always loads of wiggle room. So this is normally the point where I work out whether this little dream I’ve created in my head is actually doable.
Skyscanner and Google Flights are my first stops.
Even though my kids aren’t really kids anymore, my husband still works in schools, so dates matter. If it’s a summer trip, I’m usually looking around July and August. Other times I’ll look around half term or school holidays so he doesn’t have to take too much time away from work.
Then I start playing around with dates and prices.
I’m not necessarily looking for the absolute cheapest flight and clicking book. Timing matters too. If one flight gets me there early enough to actually enjoy the first day and another lands at 8pm, I’m going to look at what that saving really means.
Because I hate arriving somewhere at 8pm.
Day done. I’m basically paying to sleep.
Sometimes the cheaper flight is still worth it. Sometimes I’d rather pay a little more and actually get another day out of the holiday. I look at the cost and what I’m getting for it.
I’m also weird because I actually love a travel day. If I can fly with an airline that stops somewhere like Singapore or Doha, I might happily pay that little bit extra because those airports are freaking cool as hell. And the more I travel, the more I’ve started appreciating a well-run, comfortable aircraft on a long-haul flight.
Emirates and Qatar just hit different, kid.
And yes, the unlimited wine probably helps. I know I shouldn’t, but damn… we’re on holiday baby.
But the big thing is this: if I can make the flights work, the holiday suddenly becomes real.
Accommodation doesn’t worry me in quite the same way. Give me a destination, a budget and enough time to research and I’ll find something that works.
My husband knows this too.
Once he sees Skyscanner open on my phone and YouTube on the TV, he pretty much knows we’re going somewhere.
And once those flights are sorted?
Hello, Booking.com.
How One Trip Becomes Three or Four
This is probably where my FOMO becomes both a blessing and a curse.
I’ll fall in love with one place, start researching it and then discover somewhere else. Then somewhere else. And before I know it, I’m trying to work out how the hell I’m going to fit everything in.
Thailand is the perfect example.
I’ve wanted to go to Krabi for about a decade. That was always going to be part of the trip. Then YouTube threw Khao Sok at me and I was like, well, shit.
And how can I go all the way to Thailand and not touch down in Bangkok? I mean, it’s fucking Bangkok.
Then there’s my son, who really wants to train Muay Thai while we’re there, and Phuket is basically Muay Thai playland.
Suddenly I’ve got four places that all feel equally important, but for completely different reasons.
Bali happened in a similar way.
I wanted jungle, peace and tranquility, so Ubud made sense. But we also wanted some energy and my son wanted to train, which brought Seminyak into it. And Uluwatu? Well, it just looked too bloody beautiful to miss. Those beaches alone had me sold.
But this is where I have to stop dreaming for a minute and get practical.
I research the shit out of the logistics. Google, travel forums and Facebook groups are gold for this because I can talk to people who’ve actually travelled the routes I’m considering. How long does it really take? What are the transport options? How much does it cost? Is adding another stop actually worth it?
Because there’s a point where adding more places doesn’t make the holiday bigger. It starts taking away from it.
If we’re going to spend the whole trip packing, unpacking, checking out, checking in or sitting in cars and trains, something has to go.
Not every day is Dora the Explorer.
I’ve done holidays where every day was go, go, go and it’s fucking tiring. Nobody wants to come home from a trip desperately needing another trip because they’re shattered.
Some days are for doing absolutely loads.
Other days are for sitting on top of a Tuscan hill drinking wine with nowhere to be.
So when I’m building a multi-stop trip, I’m not only asking, Can we fit this in?
I’m asking, What will adding this do to the feeling of the trip?
Brazil taught me that one.
I desperately wanted to do Rio, an island and Salvador. Technically, I probably could have squeezed Salvador into our ten nights. But I also wanted days where we could lie on the beach drinking caipirinhas and enough time to properly explore Rio without constantly watching the clock.
Adding Salvador would have jeopardised the exact feeling I wanted from that trip.
So Salvador got dropped.
Salvador is now Brazil Part Two.
And sometimes the smartest way to experience more isn’t a multi-stop trip at all.
We’ve done the opposite with Eurocamp in both the French Riviera and Tuscany. One really good base, a hire car and loads of places within reach. No constantly changing accommodation. No dragging suitcases around every few days. We could explore when we wanted to and come back to the same little home afterwards.
So for me, making a holiday feel bigger doesn’t automatically mean cramming more stops into it.
Sometimes it’s about choosing the right stops.
And sometimes it’s about choosing one bloody good base.
Where I Save and Where I’ll Happily Spend
I love a beautiful hotel as much as the next person. I’m not going to sit here and pretend I don’t.
But if I have to choose between spending more on the hotel or spending that money actually experiencing the place I’ve travelled halfway across the world to see, the experience is probably going to win.
For me, location matters more than luxury.
If staying somewhere cheaper means I can access the place I’ve been drooling over on Instagram for the last four months, I’ll book budget with absolutely no shame. As long as it’s clean and tidy, we’re good.
I’ve stayed in luxury hotels before and literally only used them to sleep.
The bed was mad comfortable, don’t get me wrong.
But was it worth spending all that extra money on?
On reflection, probably not.
One of the best things I’ve learned is to look beyond the famous place and explore what’s around it.
When we went to the Amalfi Coast, accommodation in places like Positano and Amalfi was eye-watering. Instead, we stayed higher up in the cliffs in Furore, a little neighbouring town where our accommodation cost a fraction of some of the places I’d been looking at.
And you know what?
I wouldn’t change it.
Furore was stunning. It was nowhere near as chaotic. It felt homely. We had beautiful restaurants, ridiculous views and this idyllic little family-run B&B where we were looked after by the loveliest Italian nonna.
They fed us ridiculously well every morning, had us laughing, sorted taxis when we needed them and made sure we had all these little touches for our romantic stay in the hills.
It was perfect.
Eurocamp is another example, but if you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time you’ll already know I’ve banged on about that enough.
Where I will spend money, though?
Experiences. Every time.
At the end of the day, that’s what I’m on holiday for.
I’m not paying thousands of pounds to fly halfway across the world just to sleep in a five-star hotel bed.
I’m paying to live in the place I’ve flown halfway across the world to be in.
So yes, I’ve made some choices that other people might think are slightly mad.
I’ve spent around £300 on a meal in Dubai because we were sitting outside the Burj Khalifa watching this ridiculous fountain show while eating some of the best food I’ve ever had.
I’ve spent an eye-watering amount on a hot-air balloon because it’s not every day you get to float over the desert while the sun comes up.
I’ve paid for wine tasting in the Tuscan hills, ridden quad bikes through the jungle and watched football at the Maracanã in Rio.
Those are the things I’m willing to spend on.
Because I can save on the bed.
I can stay ten minutes further down the road.
I can choose the caravan over the fancy hotel.
But when spending that extra money gives me an experience I know I’ll remember?
One life we have.
I’m gonna fucking live it.
How I Actually Pay for These Trips
Right, let’s talk about the bit nobody really wants to talk about.
How the hell am I paying for all this?
First, flights.
I put them on a credit card.
And before anybody gets excited, no, I’m not about to tell you to get yourself into thousands of pounds worth of debt so you can sit on a beach in Thailand.
I have a credit card that I use specifically for travel. Once I’ve booked those flights, I don’t mess around with it. If I’ve got the money sitting in my travel savings, I’ll clear it the following month. Otherwise, I pay it down in proper chunks.
What I don’t do is book a holiday I can’t realistically afford and then spend the next two years paying minimum payments and interest on it.
I’m not about that life.
If that’s what it would take for me to make a particular trip happen, I’d probably accept that I couldn’t afford that trip and find something else.
Accommodation is where I give myself much more breathing room.
Booking.com is usually my first stop because I love being able to reserve somewhere without paying anything upfront. Depending on the property, I might pay a few weeks before we go or even when we arrive.
And free cancellation?
Beautiful.
Partly because it gives me flexibility and partly because I have a serious inability to make a decision.
I guarantee you there are probably three different hotels with the exact same dates sitting in my Booking.com app right now.
But I don’t automatically assume Booking.com is cheapest.
Once I’ve found somewhere I like, I’ll check the hotel directly too. If booking direct is loads cheaper and I can comfortably pay for it there and then, I’ll consider it.
If it’s only slightly cheaper but paying the whole amount immediately is going to put me under financial strain, I’d rather keep the flexibility and pay later.
That’s part of how I spread the cost of a trip without everything landing at once.
Experiences usually come later.
By that point the flights are sorted, accommodation is reserved and I’ve spent far too many hours obsessing over the itinerary.
Then I’ll start locking in the things that actually need booking.
Sometimes I’ll use sites like GetYourGuide or Viator, where some activities let you reserve now and pay later. Other times I’ll contact a local company directly, often after finding them through Facebook groups.
But generally, my money goes out in stages.
Flights first.
Accommodation later.
Experiences later still.
It means I’m not trying to find the money for the entire holiday in one terrifying hit.
And underneath all of that is one rule I don’t really mess with:
The trip still has to be affordable.
Making the cost easier to manage isn’t the same thing as magically making an unaffordable holiday affordable.
And Then There’s Annual Leave
Money isn’t the only thing that limits how much most of us can travel.
There’s time too.
I’m in a slightly unusual position now because I work agency, which means I have more control over when I take time off.
Sounds great, doesn’t it?
Except if I don’t work, I don’t get paid.
Bills are still billing, and somebody has to find the money for all these bloody trips.
My husband also works in schools, so his time off naturally falls around school holidays. That means when I’m looking at dates, I’m usually trying to make everything work around both his schedule and the financial hit of me not working.
When I had standard annual leave, though, I absolutely used weekends and bank holidays to stretch it wherever I could.
And I’ll still play around with departure dates now.
Sometimes moving a trip by a day or two can change the flight price, so I’ll compare different combinations before deciding whether gaining an extra day away is actually worth what it’ll cost us.
I’m not going to pretend I’ve discovered some magical way to turn 28 days of annual leave into six months in Bali.
I haven’t.
I’m just always looking at the same two things:
How much time can I realistically take?
And how much is that time going to cost me?
Because having flexibility doesn’t mean my time is free.
Booking Things Abroad Without Losing My Mind
Facebook groups are wondrous.
Honestly, they’re one of my favourite sources of information when I’m planning a trip.
I’ll usually join a few groups specifically for UK travellers visiting wherever I’m going. You’ll find people in there who’ve travelled to that country more times than they can count, alongside people planning their first trip and asking the exact same questions you are.
The knowledge can be second to none.
But don’t join fifty of them at once.
Because bloody hell, it can get overwhelming.
When I was planning Bali, I put a post up asking how people found drivers to move between different regions.
My phone basically exploded.
I lost count of the drivers throwing their transfer services at me, and suddenly having loads of options didn’t feel quite as helpful as I’d imagined.
So now I sift.
If the same driver or company keeps getting recommended by different people, that’s my first green flag.
Then I snoop.
And I mean properly snoop.
Who’s recommending them? Does that person look genuine? I’ll click their profile. Then I’ll look at the person or company providing the service. Does their profile look genuine? Is there normal Facebook activity alongside the business stuff? Do they have a business page or website? Reviews? Can I find them on Google?
None of those things on their own necessarily tells me everything.
But all of it added together slowly builds a picture and, more importantly, builds my confidence.
Then I speak to them.
And I pay attention to how they communicate.
Are they answering my questions properly? Are they transparent about the cost? Are they responsive? Do they seem ridiculously pushy?
If I’ve barely said hello and somebody is demanding I book immediately and bank transfer £100 upfront, the alarm bells are ringing.
The drivers and tour operators I’ve personally booked from the UK haven’t asked me to send money upfront. I’ve had paperwork, clear arrangements and really good communication before I’ve travelled.
That doesn’t mean every legitimate business will work that way. It’s just another part of what helps me decide what I’m comfortable with.
And sometimes, yes, instinct comes into it too.
Ibrahim, our driver in Zanzibar, is probably my best example of that. Everything just felt right. But that feeling comes after I’ve done the other checks, not instead of them.
If something still feels off?
Skip.
There will be someone else.
The funny thing is, the more I’ve done this, the more I’ve realised how normal it actually is.
When I wanted to arrange a private MMA session for my son in Bali, I found Bali MMA’s website, contacted them and basically said: this is what I want, this is the day and roughly the time.
They came back, asked a few questions, gave me a clear price that matched the information I’d already seen online, sorted the booking form and that was it.
No drama.
I think sometimes the fact that we’re booking something thousands of miles away makes it feel much more complicated than it actually is.
If you’re confident booking a restaurant, activity or transport here in the UK, the process itself often isn’t that different abroad.
There might be a time difference. There might be a language barrier. But tourism businesses are often used to dealing with international visitors, and translation tools can help with the smaller communication gaps.
And now we’re living in 2026, AI can be bloody useful for this stuff too.
I’ve used it to sanity-check information, understand something I’m unsure about, work out what questions I should be asking or help me communicate something clearly.
Just don’t use AI telling you “looks legit” as your entire background check and transfer £500 to some bloke called Dave.
Use the tools.
Do the checks.
Then trust yourself enough to make the decision.
I Plan in Pencil, Not Red Pen
The funny thing is, by the time I’ve actually booked the holiday, I usually already know a lot of what I want to do.
Remember, this whole thing probably started because I saw some YouTube video or Instagram post that gave me that initial heart-drop moment.
I’m led by emotion.
Something about that place made me think, I need to experience that.
So those things are normally already sitting somewhere in my head.
Then I research.
And research.
And research some more.
Which inevitably means I discover another thing. And another. And another.
Then comes the painful bit.
I start slashing things.
Because I’ve learned the hard way that packing every possible experience into a holiday doesn’t necessarily make it better.
Barcelona taught me that.
I love Barcelona. I’ve been twice and it remains one of my favourite cities. But on one of those trips, every day was planned. We were up, out and doing something constantly.
Mate.
I was shattered.
I remember rushing for the Underground at one point because we had somewhere we needed to be. I caught sight of a couple or a family sitting outside, drinking coffee, doing absolutely nothing particularly exciting.
And I remember thinking, damn… should I have just done that?
But we’d booked things. We’d prepaid.
So off we bloody went.
I learned from that one quick time.
I still want to go back to Barcelona, but next time I want to have a normal fucking Tuesday.
Sit in a coffee shop. Wander through the streets. End up in a cute restaurant or rooftop bar. No attraction to race to. No clock watching.
Just be there.
So now when I’m planning what goes into each day, I’m not only thinking about what I want to see.
I’m thinking about what actually fits.
That means geographically, because nobody wants to waste good holiday time travelling halfway across a city or region unnecessarily.
But it also means emotionally.
And when I’m travelling with my family, I think about every individual person.
What would this holiday look like if my son had full control?
What would it look like for my daughter?
My husband?
Me?
Because what feels idyllic to me isn’t necessarily going to feel idyllic to my son.
Give me a beautiful beach in Krabi and I could happily spend hours lying there soaking up the sun.
My son?
Absolutely fucking not.
For Thailand, access to MMA and Muay Thai is important to him. My husband needs to get involved in the food scene. My daughter loves scenery, nature, slowness and having loads of opportunities to take photographs.
And me?
I want energy on some days and softness on others.
So I balance it.
And now my kids aren’t really kids anymore, we don’t have to spend every waking moment together either. We can all have the same base while parts of our days look completely different.
But I always build in proper family moments too.
A meal somewhere great. A beautiful beach. A hike. Something we can all experience together.
Those are the moments I live for.
Then there are the days I deliberately don’t plan at all.
Days where we can just exist.
Leave us alone.
Properly exhale.
If we wake up that morning and discover something amazing we fancy doing, brilliant. We’ll do it.
If we wake up and think, actually, fuck it. CBA. I’m staying by the pool today.
Also brilliant.
Obviously some things need booking.
If I’m going to a football match in Rio, I’m buying the ticket. If there’s a popular attraction with limited availability, I’ll book it because I want the peace of mind of knowing we’re getting in.
But the beach down the road?
A local waterfall?
Something we can easily move to another day?
I’ll pencil it in.
Not red pen it.
Because I want an itinerary that gives us incredible things to look forward to without dictating every waking hour of our holiday.
I want a plan.
I just don’t want to become a prisoner to it.
Maybe You Just Can’t Be Bloody Arsed
I think sometimes the reason people don’t plan trips like this is actually really simple.
They’re fucking busy.
Life can feel like a slog sometimes.
Alarm goes off. Work. School. After-school activities. Dinner. Laundry. Cleaning. Bed.
Repeat.
Then somebody comes along and tells you that instead of booking a package holiday, you should spend your evenings researching flight routes, transfers, accommodation, different regions and some bloke on Facebook who might be driving you around Bali in six months.
I mean… I get it.
I do this because I genuinely love it.
This is my wind-down. My happy place. I thrive off this shit.
Not everybody does.
And some people don’t even want the kind of holiday I want.
Their perfect holiday might genuinely be booking a package, getting themselves to one hotel and lying by the pool for two weeks.
Absolutely fine.
It’s their holiday.
It’s just not my bag.
I’ve got far too much FOMO for that.
But I also think there are people who would love to travel a little differently and just don’t feel confident enough to put it all together themselves.
When your life and your brain are already full, there’s comfort in handing your holiday over to a big company you trust.
They sort it.
And if something goes tits up, there’s somebody to call.
Doing it yourself means accepting a little more responsibility. You have to research. You have to make decisions. And there’s always that fear in the beginning of, what the hell do I do if I get this wrong?
I’ve been there.
My confidence with this didn’t appear overnight.
The more trips I’ve planned myself, the more confident I’ve become. Every time I’ve worked out another transfer, booked another experience, contacted another company abroad or figured out how to get us from one place to another, I’ve trusted myself a little more the next time.
And I’ve also realised how much doing it this way can give me.
More flexibility.
More control.
Sometimes, significant savings.
And most importantly, the ability to build something that actually fits us.
I’m not going to pretend it doesn’t take extra time and thought.
It does.
But for me?
Look at what it’s given me.
A Holiday That Just Fits
So after all the research, the ridiculous amount of tabs open, the Facebook groups, the flight comparisons, the hotel indecision and the hours spent moving little pieces of an itinerary around…
Why do I bother?
Because travelling this way has given me so much.
Flexibility.
Freedom.
Movement.
It’s saved me money.
It’s given me beautiful moments with the people I love.
But most of all?
It’s given me holidays that just fit.
I’m not locked into somebody else’s idea or structure of what my holiday should look like.
I can build it around what I need from that trip.
Around what my husband needs.
What my son needs.
What my daughter needs.
Sometimes that’s moving through three completely different places in one trip.
Sometimes it’s staying in a caravan in the middle of a forest and using it as our little home while we explore everything around us.
Sometimes it’s climbing a volcano before sunrise.
Sometimes it’s drinking wine on top of a Tuscan hill.
And sometimes it’s having absolutely fuck all planned and deciding we’re not moving from the pool.
That’s the freedom I love.
Not doing more just for the sake of saying we’ve done more.
Not collecting destinations.
Just having the freedom to build a holiday around us.
Because ultimately, I don’t really care whether somebody else would have planned it differently.
It’s ours.
And when I think about what all those hours of planning have actually given us, it’s not the itineraries I care about.
It’s the memories.
The sacred ones.
The ones we’ll still be talking about years from now.
That’s why I bother.
And I think that’s probably the biggest thing I want Suitcases & Stories to show you.
I’m never going to tell you that everybody can afford to travel. Sometimes money is genuinely too tight. Sometimes life gets in the way. And I’m definitely not going to tell you that if you stop buying coffee you’ll magically be able to afford three weeks in Bali.
But if you do have the money and time for a holiday and you’re sitting there thinking the kind of trips you see me taking are only for people with more money, more annual leave or fewer responsibilities than you?
They’re not.
You might just need to look at the holiday you can afford a little differently.
Because I don’t have unlimited money.
I don’t have unlimited time.
I just want the time and money I do have to give me as much life as possible.
And maybe I can help you do the same.
Want to build better holidays with the time and money you’ve actually got?
I’ve turned the way I plan our trips into a free 12-page workbook to help you do exactly that.
Start with the experience you really want, then work out the route, the budget, where to stay, what to book and what to leave the hell alone.
Pop your email below and I’ll send you Build Your Holiday Around the Experience for free.
Leave a Reply