I recommend any time you are planning to travel, do your homework.
- Find out the different modes of transportation such as buses, trains, cabs, subways, walking, or car.
- Start with TripAdvisor
- Find out about the weather right up till the dates of travel. You wouldn’t believe how many times we have spent too much time shopping for something appropriate because we didn’t get it right.
- Weather.com provides good forecast but you have to get past all the videos, etc.
- WeatherBug is another good website and tends to be a little simpler.
- Find the best restaurants for your budget. I use several websites for this
- Opentable is my favorite and I’m a VIP member!
- TripAdvisor is another one I use because many travelers give good feedback right up to the day many times.
- Google is what I use thru the map.google.com and search nearby. A lot of smaller places in the area you are interested in won’t show up any other way. Once you find restaurants in the area then do more research thru search.
- Where to stay. I don’t know about you but this is a must because you always want to be safe and have an environment that is warm at the right time, cool at the right time, clean, bug free, and everything works. Over time we have begun to appreciate Bed and Breakfast places more and more. Owners are usually there, the breakfast are good (at least ours are because we do our homework), and the guest are almost like having family around. Everyone is friendly! My main tool for this is Google.
- Interest. IE What to do when you get there? I start with TripAdvisor and look at the top list of activities. From there I visit the location websites, Google search, and then check the weather to make sure it makes sense to do that particular activity.