Éclat Travel's Blog

Eric Morgan:

I found you online and wanted to reach out to you with a unique request. I actually doubt you will be able to help but I figured it was worth a shot. I am in the unique position of owning my own company in the web design/internet marketing industry. As a family we decided rather than do the traditional 1-2 week vacations every year like most people to take 3-6 week vacations to fun places with our whole family but live more like locals rather than a tourist to experience a new culture and geography of an area. In the last two years we have done the following trips with me, my wife, and our 1/2/7 year old sons:

Maui – 6 weeks – airfare/condo rental/car rental – $6,200
San Antonio – 3 weeks – airfare/house rental/car rental – $5,300
Seoul – 2 weeks – airfare/house rental – $6,500
etc.

We try to save money by renting condos/homes for a several weeks or monthly rates which also gives us more room than a typical hotel room. Part of the trick is to find somewhere that at the time airfare is a little cheaper than normally during the year and finding a home/condo to rent with 2-3 beds for about $500/week. I am guessing timeshares or long term hotel rentals (at least 2 rooms) may be possibilities. I also have to work a little bit during the days to having a little extra space is nice sometimes and I must have an internet connection. We have to schedule our trips around our oldest son’s main vacation breaks which are usually 3-4 weeks long. He has one coming up April 21 to May 12-19 that we want to go somewhere. We were hoping somewhere in Mexico/Caribbean/Europe/Costa Rica. I would love to do it if I could find somewhere for a budget of around $5,000-6,000 for airfare/lodging/car rental (if necessary).

The reason I am contacting you is that it is very time consuming to plan these trips on my own, it works out well but takes several days (usually about 10 hours or so) for me to put a trip together. This is a unique way to travel but I know of a few other people starting to do it often as well and it seems to be gaining in popularity. I am a little shocked there are no travel agents out there offering services to help put together unique plans like this. i.e. I give you a budget, date ranges, and a few specifications and you plan it all for me. I understand part of it may be that if you don’t book via hotel (i.e. if you find a rental home instead) you don’t get any commission, but this is a service I am willing to pay for directly if I could find a good travel agent who could do the research and put something together for me. We want to do 1-2 longer trips per year (3-6 weeks, preferred international) and 1-3 shorter trips per year (usually within U.S., 1-2 weeks).

Let me know if this is something you could help with, or if you know of someone who could provide this service to me.

–
Eric

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