How To Plan Your Best Spring Break Ever
If you want to have the best spring ever, chances are other students will have a better one. That's because they already made travel arrangements and by booking early, got a better package deal. So if you've decided on where to go, whether it's stateside or an international destination, you need to start planning now. Why? Because students just like yourself are also hoping to make reservations with the best possible deals. For each day you procrastinate, the number of available hotel rooms are reduced as well as the number of available seats on a flight, if you are flying. Bottom line: the closer you get to spring break, the higher the prices.
Related: Spring Break Destinations On The Less Expensive Side
Where To Find The Best Deals
If this isn't your first spring break, you may already know where to search for the best deals. But those planning a spring break vacation for the very first time, there are a few student travel sites you should visit – STA Travel, StudentUniverse and Student City. These sites offer you so many travel options that you might not need to visit any other travel sites. These sites offers student discounts for flights, hotels, tours and activities, as well as information guides for the spring break destination of your choice and tickets to spring break parties. Additionally, many of the best spring break destinations like South Padre Island, Panama City Beach and Cancun have an official website (or more) offering student discounts for sleep-and-eat packages, the biggest parties, the hottest nightclubs and much more.
Don't Forget Anything Before You Leave
Before you leave for your best spring break vacation ever, make a list of things you need to bring and things that can be better left at home. Things like your smartphone and charger, credit cards, bankcards, cash and emergency contact numbers are just some examples of what you really need to bring along for the trip. If you're on a budget, consider buying enough groceries for the road and nonperishable goods while you're vacationing. If heading to a beachside destination, remember to bring the essentials needed for this type of environment, e.g. sandals, flip flops, sunglasses, a hat, bathing suit and sunscreen. Conversely, if you're headed to the slopes for some skiing and snowboarding, you'll need to bring layers of clothing, gloves, lip balm, sunglasses, etc. Things like expensive laptops and tablets may be better off left safe and sound at home.
Drive To Your Destination
If your spring break destination is within reasonable driving distance, your transportation costs will be considerably cheaper than flying, especially if you're traveling with a group. Think of it this way, your flight ticket will be in the hundreds of dollars as will everyone else's in your group. On the other hand, with gas prices below $3, automobile expenses will be far less than they were one year ago. To strike this point ever further, consider this - while gas prices have gone down, the airlines have not lowered their fares to reflect cheaper fuel costs. Besides, what's better than a road trip with some of your best friends?
Be Safe And Smart
Being safe and smart starts well before your trip begins. It's obvious to make sure your home is secure before you leave and chances are, there won't be any friends to look after your place because they're traveling too. So if you're like millions of other students who use social media on a regular basis, be careful about what you post to your friends or worse yet, to the general public. It's no secret that thieves will randomly search Facebook profiles to see where they've checked in. The same goes if you over share information on other sites that use geotagging like Instagram and Twitter.
Of course, staying safe while on spring break is equally important. This means staying safe when you're on the road, swimming at a beach, walking around at night, using an ATM machine, meeting new friends at parties and flying to an international party destination. One particularly good website for students to review before the trip is SafeSpringBreak, which provides several valuable tips to make for the best and safest spring break ever.
Randy Yagi is a freelance writer covering all things San Francisco. In 2012, he was awarded a Media Fellowship from Stanford University. His work can be found on Examiner.com Examiner.com.
