The best way to plan a city break
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Are you wondering how you can plan to see a city or a place if you only have a weekend to spare? Perhaps you work full time and are wondering how to maximise spending 24, 48, 72 hours in a place? Keep reading as I’ll explain in this blog post how to best plan a short city break whilst making the most of the time available!
Time 🕐
When booking a few days away, consider what days of the week you’ll be away for. We tend to go for weekends so that we’re not using annual leave and usually go away from a Friday to a Sunday or Monday. This is perfect for using minimal annual leave (especially if you plan it alongside a bank/public holiday!). The main downside of this though is it’s more expensive as transport, flights and hotels are all charge more on weekends and bank holidays so just something to bear in mind. If you have a strict budget but are able to travel on weekdays, I’d suggest travelling mid-week as this tends to be the cheapest time to travel and will be less crowded with tourists.
Flights ✈️
This is an important one! If you’re travelling to a place which requires flying, plan your journey carefully and methodically! Our favourite equation is flying out somewhere super early, and flying back very late on another day. For example, catching a 7am flight on a Friday and returning home at 10pm on a Sunday. This will be dependent on the airport and airlines you have available to you, but we have some fantastic budget airlines in the UK.
A favourite one of ours is easyJet who we travel with quite often and will have flights that match this break style. Arriving early in a place means that you have the entire day to explore. We once caught a flight at 7am to Poland and were wandering around Kraków’s old town by 11am, just in time for brunch! Although it does mean getting up early and you may feel tired during the day, we usually find that the adrenaline and buzz of being in a new city usually trumps this and we’re able to see a lot.
Baggage 🧳
Speaking of flights and making most of a weekend away – we never pay for baggage or hold luggage, there’s just no point! Not only does packing one carry on mean that you only bring the essentials, it also saves tonnes of time in the airport as you don’t have to check in bags and when you arrive at your destination, you can sail straight through to arrivals rather than wait for your bag to be unloaded from the plane.
We make sure to check the hand luggage dimensions on each airline we fly. The budget airlines tend to be sticklers so we make sure that our bags adhere to their rules to remove any anxiety around being charged extra, or if our bags will fit in the sizer.
All of them are slightly different and when travelling with easyJet (who have larger dimensions), I always use the Lovevook cabin bag . With so many compartments and zips, it’s super easy to store and easily fits under the seat in front of you on the plane.
The other option I use when flying with Ryanair or Wizz Air is the Ecohub cabin bag. This is a lot smaller, but you can still fit a lot in! Being very strict with yourself and asking ‘do I really need this?’ usually helps. I also pack everything in compression cubes, and love these Cipway compression cubes which helps save loads of space. Carrying smaller bags means that if you need lug around your backpack for a few hours, if you’re waiting to check-in to your accommodation or perhaps after you check-out, it’s not too heavy and is easy to carry around.
Seeing the sights 🎡
Making the most of seeing the sights is a must when you’re in a city for a few days. We tend to book a walking tour for whenever we get there, and the best ones we’ve been on have been free! I’d highly recommend Walkative walking tours, who offer free walking tours around European cities. You can choose to tip your tour guide at the end and each one we’ve had has been fantastic and we’ve been happy to give them a gratuity. A walking tour helps get your bearings and discover some titbits of information around the place as the tour guides tend to be locals.
For any main attractions, we always do our research and book anything ahead of time to avoid disappointment. We tend to use GetYourGuide when booking any major attractions due to the great amount of variety they have.
Hotels 🛏️
Location, location, location
We tend to stay in moderate hotels for city breaks (as we don’t spend much time there anyway!) and always pick wisely when it comes to location as this can have a massive impact on maximising your time in a place.
When travelling to European cities, we always choose hotels within the ‘old town’ as we both love history and we find that this is where most of the interesting areas and vibrant quarters are. They also tend to be centrally located and nearby most major sights. This way, you cut down on transport costs and save time in travelling into city centres if you’re staying outside. I think a lot of people write off staying in city centres for fear of it being too expensive but with a little research, you’ll be surprised to see how affordable accommodation can be, even right in the heart of a city. I always using Booking.com whenever I book our accommodation and making the most of their genius plan helps in getting some major discounts on popular hotels.
Consider breakfast
Another thing we like to do with hotels (and this won’t be for everyone), is booking a room which includes breakfast. We like being able to get up knowing we can have a full meal and coffee before we head out. We find that this is another way to save on time instead of wandering around a foreign place looking for a bite to eat. It’s also a great way to set you up for the day!
In summary…
It is totally possible to make the most of your time in a city, even if you’re short on time. It’s also completely realistic if you work full time, it just requires some handy planning and getting a few of the tips right mentioned in this blog post can help you achieve that.
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