We\u2019re now five months into our latest family gap year and have visited a bunch of countries in Asia, Oceania and Europe.<\/p>\n
Many things remain the same as our previous family gap year travels<\/a> in 2016 and 2019, however there are some things which are markedly different.\u00a0<\/p>\n Here are our observations on five key changes that we\u2019ve noticed, with the hope that these hints\/tips and first-hand experience may help some fellow family travellers out!<\/p>\n In the past we\u2019ve diligently kept our eye out for flight sales, or booked months in advance to get the best possible price on flights.<\/p>\n Increasingly we\u2019re thinking that\u2019s no longer a necessity. Due to visa dramas and on-the-road illness, we\u2019ve had to purchase a couple of long-haul flights at the last minute within a few days of departure, and the price has actually been reasonable \u2013 certainly no more than if we had booked it months in advance. One of them was even in the lead up to Christmas.<\/p>\n This seems to be a continuing trend in 2025 \u2013 we\u2019re planning a trip in a few weeks and so far flights are around the same price as when I checked six months ago.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve kept an eye on all the new year\u2019s flight sales coming into my inbox, and there\u2019s nothing that\u2019s really jumped at me as being a fantastic deal so far.<\/p>\n This is actually great news for family gap year travellers. It means you have way more flexibility in your itinerary and travel route than was the case even a couple of years ago.<\/p>\n You also get to keep your hard-earned cash in your pocket for longer, rather than giving it to the airlines to put into their coffers!<\/p>\n In contrast to not rushing to book your flights, one thing you will need to consider is the need to book certain attractions far in advance.<\/p>\n More and more \u201cmust-see\u201d tourist attractions are putting limits on how many people can visit on a given day and to be frank if you snooze you lose \u2013 which makes being more flexible on visiting locations from point one above tricky!<\/p>\n It\u2019s generally a good thing to help prevent over-tourism and the long-term sustainability of these popular sites, but it can be sad and frustrating if you miss out.<\/p>\n Some recent real-life examples we\u2019ve encountered are:<\/p>\n In extreme cases some people are outsourcing securing tickets to people on Fiverr and Airtasker who do this as a full-time job! (The Ghibli Museum in Tokyo is one example I know of).<\/p>\n This will only increase in the summer months, so if you have your eye on a bucket-list experience you need to research and get ready to book! Take care also to book through the official attraction sites rather than one of the \u2018lookalike official\u2019 sites which are often tour agencies putting a mark-up on ticket prices.<\/p>\n You can of course use a service such as Get Your Guide<\/a> to book tickets or include it as part of a larger tour, but be prepared to sometimes pay a premium.<\/p>\n We used AirBnB quite a lot in our earlier family gap year travels \u2013 a home away from home suited us so well especially for long-term travel with younger kids, but it\u2019s just not as good as it used to be unfortunately.<\/p>\n About 18 months ago they began adding big \u201cservice fees\u201d onto bookings, in addition to a cleaning fee and it just makes everything a lot more expensive. It\u2019s frustrating, because they\u2019re clearly now adding an additional fee on top of the existing fee they were charging hosts to list their property on the platform #greedflation.<\/p>\n It\u2019s getting harder to find decent AirBnB\u2019s also, and I spend a stupid amount of time sifting through the rubbish to find the gems. I wish they\u2019d improve their search functionality and filter\/sort options to save everyone time and effort!\u00a0<\/p>\n A hack I\u2019ve been using to get around the service fee issue is often property owners will have listings on multiple booking platforms or a way to directly book with them, so it\u2019s worth doing a quick online search using the property name or first few sentences from the listing to see if you can spot them on Booking.com, Agoda, Expedia etc which don\u2019t have this service fee, or if they have their own website to book direct (2005 style!)<\/p>\n Using a credit card is an expensive way to pay for things while overseas, but these days with a selection of multi-currency debit cards like Wise or Revolut, it\u2019s not the way to go.<\/p>\n If you use a credit card to pay for goods and services while travelling, you\u2019re essentially stung twice \u2013 firstly a \u201cforeign transaction fee\u201d which is around 3% of the value, then secondly by giving you a \u201cnetwork exchange rate\u201d for the currency conversion.\u00a0<\/p>\n This tends to be a rate that is lower than the mid-market exchange rate that multi-currency debit cards use, and when you\u2019re spending tens of thousands during a family gap year that can really add up.<\/p>\n Even if you have a no foreign transaction fee card (like lucky US citizens with Capital One, Charles Schwab and Citi Priority) you\u2019ll still get the dud exchange rate.<\/p>\n We are big fans of the Wise debit card, and use it for all our spending where possible.\u00a0<\/p>\nYou no longer need to book way in advance to get good deals on flights<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n
You increasingly need to book some attractions way in advance to get your spot<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n
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AirBnB is different (spoiler: not as good)<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n
Definitely carry a multi-currency card rather than a credit card<\/span><\/h2>\n
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