Looking for Help from the Bargain Hunters
 

This summer, Mrs. A and I are planning to go on a European (or possibly Hawaiian) vacation. Neither of us has "purchased" a vacation before. We want something between a backpack, granola bars, and youth hostels, but something less than jet setting with the rich and famous.

I am in the stages of beginning to look for deals, etc., but realize that I have no idea how to do this. These are the kinds of situations in which I get my shirt handed to me (buying something with which I am not familiar). So I come to you for help.

Is it cheaper to go with a pre-packaged tour group? Should we get everything separately? Where do the bargain hunters shop for these things? What should I avoid?

Right now, I would be willing to pay a bit of a premium to avoid the hassle of planning this thing for 6 months, but I don't want to get screwed by paying too much for a tour. How much value do they add?

Anyway--you can see I am confused. Anything you can add will help.

It depends on what you want out of the vacation. For international travel, I tend to think travelzoo has pretty good listings (and includes tours). It is helpful to check their top 20 list every Wed.

For Hawaii, I think the best way to go is priceline for the hotel (using the cite biddingfortravel as a guide). Also, joining frequent stay programs like Starwood can help get upgrades (even when you have no points). We managed to stay at a beautiful hotel overlooking the beach using the priceline bid and Starwood upgrade. Of course, different islands are harder to get good prices on.

Expedia offers decent packages at pretty good prices. At the very least, they can give you a good base price for what to judge other "deals" by.

Hawaii is definitely safe to go with the pre-packaged event.

Europe has a lot of small, charming places that may not show up on an internet search engine and may require a travel agent.

If you are considering Hawaii, I'd suggest you take a look into Tahiti as well. The cost is not too much more, or wasn't when I last looked at it, and Tahiti is more exotic. This trip would pretty well require a Travel Agent though, as I don't think some of the ready made travel packages are the best of deals. You can treat the various packages like a menu, and build your own tour with a travel agent.