FAQ/Travel Planning Guide

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Outside the Resort is a travel website where we share our family's experiences and tips from our travels around the world. Hopefully our firsthand experience can help you plan your own adventures, particularly ones where you stay and play outside the resort.  

We believe travel is more meaningful outside the resort.  Want to know more of the story? Check out the About section.

We update Outside the Resort regularly, at least once a week. Sometimes, we may post more frequently if we have a lot to share, or less frequently if we are traveling or busy with other projects.

That is a tough one. The Caribbean holds a special place in our hearts. But we do tend to seek out islands with a variety of activites - beach, jungle, history, hiking, to name a few. Good food is a very welcome plus. The French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe fulfills all of these very well. 

Every island has something unique to offer. If you are looking for absolutely pristine white sand beaches and beautiful water you can't go wrong with the Bahamas or Turks and Caicos. The snorkeling is a plus. But they have less variety of activities to offer than the jungle islands like Puerto Rico, Guedeloupe, Martinique, Dominica, or Roatan. We love swimming in jungle waterfalls. For the best food we adore the French inspiration on St. Lucia, Guadeloupe, Martinique, St. Martin, and St. Barts. Every island we have been to has fascinating history to experience. 

The first consideration should always be what you want to do. Are you looking to relax on the beach? Do you want some outdoor adventure? Historical experiences? Do you want to be with other tourists? Or get away from the crowds? A combination of any of these? Then think about how much you are willing to spend, and how flexible your travel dates are. Flights and accommodation prices can vary greatly between destinations and times of year. 

Lots and lots of research. Hopefully we can be a helpful part of that process and give you some good ideas and a starting point. Please reach out if you need help finding other information and sources. 

Once again, lots and lots of research. We hope our experiences will help you with that. When a new location or activity  catches our attention we usually first hop onto Google Flights to get an idea of how much flights are at different times of year on all the airlines. Then we check out Airbnb, VRBO, and/or Expedia to get an idea of the cost of accommodations.  Sometimes a location gets added to the bucket list for consideration at a later date. Other times, the timing and pricing matches up so perfectly that we just go for it. Then comes scouring the internet for the best things to do there, recommendations on where to stay, and mapping out what we should do on which days. We would love to help you in any step of the process. 

Airbnb has been our most used resource. But VRBO and Expedia have also come in handy. Occasionally a rental may have its own reservation website. If it does, it's usually cheaper to book directly through their website than to use the 3rd party websites.  

Reading the reviews for any property is a must. We also study maps and satellite imagery to help give us an idea of what a particular area or city is like, what it's near, and what the topography is like. We like to stay near water whenever possible, whether that be an ocean, a lake, or a pool. It makes downtime way more fun and easy. Not sure where to stay? Let us help you decide. 

Lots and lots of research and planning. And communication. We have found the right balance of downtime and activities is crucial. Staying in the right place with easy access to water helps a lot. We make our expectations for their behavior clear as well and make clear exactly what we will be doing so they know what to expect. Starting to adventure with them when they were young was helpful. They just didn't know any differently.  And let's be honest - there is a lot of screen time during car and airplane travel. We have found that our kids pick up on our energy; so if we are nervous or anxious they are too. When we exude joy and fun, even in less than ideal circumstances, we all come away with wonderful memories.  

Being flexible in travel dates and destinations makes a huge difference. We like to look at Google Flights and find the cheapest dates on the calendar and then see if we can make those dates work. Or if we can't be as flexible with the dates we look up any and all destinations we are remotely interested in to see which is the cheapest for that timeframe. Signing up for fare alerts for bucket list locations can help you be in the know for the best time to travel. Flying midweek helps a lot too. We use airline credit cards that give us free checked bags and companions fares; and we use miles to purchase tickets as well. Staying outside the resorts, having a kitchen where we can cook some meals, are other ways we make it work. Some places that have expensive flights have super cheap accommodations and vice versa.  

Plan for the worst and then live for the best! Also, be flexible. What can seem like a disappointment can turn into a grand adventure and precious memory with the right attitude. Make sure to book all of your activities and accommodations through reputable sources. We have found people to be very understanding and responsive. Make sure you have a good map. We have personally contributed to Apple Maps and OpenStreetMap in our travels. They are improving all the time and routing is possible in more and more locations all of the time.  

At this time, we are not accepting guest posts or contributions to Outside the Resort. However, we appreciate feedback and suggestions for future blog posts or topics to cover. In the future, as the site grows, we may look into guest posting.

Yes! We would love to help. Reach out anytime with any questions and we will do what we can.