Bus Travel Service - On the Rise After Decades of Decline

 Brief History

After World War 2 the middle classes deserted bus travel in favor of travel by private automobile, and later by airliner. Just 10 years ago, affluent travelers saw buses as the last resort, a sign of desperation.

Rising Bus Travel  

Today most Americans travel by bus or plane when undertaking long distance travels. High gas prices have boosted bus travel after decades of decline. There are more, and more of briefcase carrying travelers venturing back to the bus, as other forms of travel are slumping. What does that tell us, traveling by bus is on the rise again .

Travel Planning

The Bus systems often run on a schedule of some sort, which allow you to plan your travel agenda and book your tickets in advance. Popular routes have buses leaving every couple of hours, generally all day long plus at least two or three buses traveling overnight. Buses in route on long travel tend to make stops primarily in major cities and are very pleasant to travel in. If you're traveling on weekends or during busy holiday times on popular routes, it is sensible to reserve tickets in advance .

Contribution Factors

The development of traveling by bus corresponds to increasing package tours that evolve every year. In 1983 the number of holiday travelers that participated in package tours was roughly 8.4 million, and has increased each year since then.

A bus requires less energy to operate per passenger mile than air travel, which allows very reasonable fares. No matter what bus route you end up on provides a mode of travel that allows you to view the countryside at leisure, not to mention many small towns between destinations you would otherwise not know existed.
Cities are now involved around the world to improve the benefits of bus travel while they address the issues that have traditionally set back buses effectiveness. For example adding dedicated bus lanes on highways among other plans cities are involved in. This has been great for bus travel systems both locally, and long travel, as they have been able to modify to better promote & serve customers. It allows travel agency's to offer fewer stops, and take additional efficiency measures to add time saving technologies that make bus travel reliable, fast, and effective.

Other factors mostly influencing tourists' preferences for bus travel are the good opportunity's it provides for social interaction and its entertainment value. While traveling by bus you will be surrounded by all different types of people .

There is also a new awareness of our carbon footprint, which has just about affected every industry, in fact if it has not affected a specific industry yet, it will very soon. To that end fuel costs, combined with interest in traveling "Green" have played a big role in the increased interest in bus travel. It is clear the bus is a much greener form of transportation, and as riders return to buses, the old stigma of bus travel is evaporating .

Bus Budget Travel

For a nation that really enjoys there private automobile, they are seeing bus ticket prices that are to attractive to pass up. If you're traveling independently on a budget, the bus will certainly be a lower cost choice. Don't worry cheap tickets can still mean high quality bus travel .

A growing number of budget travelers are taking a close look, and noticing buses are an viable alternatives to flying. There are several bus passes available that give you unlimited travel within a given area. Seems they are so cheap, busing around specific regions should be a serious consideration for the budget traveler .

Bus Travel Training

Did you know there are even self-paced bus travel training programs for people who are interested to learn to travel independently using the regular bus system .

As you can see there is a lot of value in traveling by bus both financially, and for the quality of a trip .



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Selecting Your Holiday Cottage Destination on the Internet

Visitors will be provided with a good standard of accommodation and are able to choose what type of holiday cottage that they want to stay in on the internet.

The main aim of holiday rentals is to provide good food and accommodation for the visitors and gaining their satisfaction. A holiday will be a good time for a person to relax and unwind and get rid of all of the stresses associated with modern day living.

The holiday rentals should be located in an attractive landscape and this will help to get more customers for the holiday home. Usually holiday homes are built on the shore of lakes, by the sea or in the county side. The holiday accommodation should be attractive buildings and well decorated and furnished inside. Many are full of interesting works of art and ornaments.

One of the fun things about staying in a holiday rental is that you can have it as modern or as sparse as you want. If you want a relaxing holiday you can stay in a country cottage full of all sorts of modern appliances. Many have flat screen televisions, superb kitchens and amazing power showers. If however, you want a more basic type of holiday and want to get away from televisions and phones you can stay in a more sparsely furnished cottage in the middle of no where.

Some holiday homes have central heating and others come with log fires. During the winter months it can be quite romantic staying in a holiday rental with a roaring log fire. Then in the morning you can go for a romantic walk in the country side before breakfast and then return to your country accommodation with log fire and warm up again.

Many people on fishing holidays stay in cottages as they find them an ideal way of being able to have their independence. They can store all of their fishing gear in the rental home and use it as a base to fish many different lakes and rivers in its vicinity. An added bonus is the fact that they are able to take the fish that they have caught back to their holiday cottage at night and cook them and eat it for their evening meal.

Lovers of the great outdoors also like to stay in holiday homes. There are many cottages around the world that are in the country side or on or near mountains. They then use the rentals as a base to explore the surrounding area.

Some holiday makers will take their bikes with them to their holiday cottages and go on bike rides during their vacations. Others will walk around the surrounding area and others may go climbing. The handy thing about staying in a holiday rental is the fact that they then have the freedom to return to the cottage at any time they like.

Holiday cottages in the country are also loved by families on their vacations. They are an idea base for families to use during their stay in the cottage. Families staying in a holiday home may go shopping in local towns on some days and other days go on a trip to the sea or explore the local area.

It can now be seen that there are holiday cottages available in most countries in the world. These holiday rentals can suite all budgets enabling holiday makers to have a cheap holiday cottage vacation.

For those holiday makers with deeper pockets, they can stay in an expensive holiday cottage full of all mod cons. No matter what your tastes or budgets you can find a holiday cottage to suite your requirements.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andy Gibson

Buy Your Holiday With Direct Holiday Bookings on the Internet

It is so easy nowadays to book a holiday on the internet. Long gone are the days when you had to go into a city and book with a travel agent. All you have to do now is sit at a computer and choose the holiday that you want to book. Simply select your holiday site and choose which country that you want to visit.

By clicking on a particular region will bring up properties specific to that region. It will also show a new map of the area that you are interested in. This enables you to work out where exactly the property that you are considering booking for your holidays is located.

If you are happy with the general location of the property, you can then start to search for the type of property that you want to book for your holidays.

When booking your holidays you have to consider what type of property that you want to stay in. You must take into consideration the budget that you have allocated to spend to book your holiday.

Other important factors to consider when booking your holidays are how many bedrooms that you require and what sort of property that you want. By using Direct holiday bookings you can click on any property and it will bring up a detailed account of each property.

In effect you are able to view thousands of individual property web sites when booking your holidays with direct holiday bookings. Each property that you consider booking will have pictures of what it looks like and a full description of what the property has to offer. It will describe what the local area is like and what there is to do once you have booked your holiday there.

If you are considering booking a particular property for your holidays, you can then add it to your wish list. This means that you can come back to the same property when you have looked at other properties on the web site. Then when you are getting ready to book your holiday you can go directly back to that page and compare it with other properties before booking your holiday.

One of the fun things about booking holidays on line is that you can send details of the holiday that you are considering booking to friends for them to have a look at. Direct holiday bookings on line have a facility that you can simply email the holiday that you may book directly to a friend. If they are coming on holiday with you, this will enable them to be part of the booking holidays process. They can then look at the holiday property and email back to you their thoughts on whether you should book it or not.

It is also a useful function when booking a holiday even if your friends are not going to book a holiday with you. It can be reassuring to get a friends thoughts and views of the holiday before you book it. That way when you do book your holiday you can do it with the confidence that a close friend agrees with your choice of holiday booking.

The next step is then to contact the owner to see if the holiday is available to book on the dates that you were considering booking your holidays. You can first of all check the availability calendar to see that nobody else has considered booking their holidays on the dates that you required. If it looks as those the dates for booking your family holiday are free, you can then email the owner to confirm.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andy Gibson

Cottage Holiday

Introduction
The term "cottage holiday" is used somewhat freely, but in essence it means a holiday taken in a self catering accommodation where you have the sole use of the accommodation. Holiday cottages are marvellous for escaping from the stresses and strains of everyday life.

There are properties available to suit most people, including: families with children, pets, or elderly parents wanting to go away together; small groups of people wishing to celebrate on a holiday; or couples  wanting some alone time.

Finding Properties

There are two primary methods for finding holiday cottages, via a travel consultant and via the Internet. The method you use will most likely be determined by the degree of detail and amount of effort you are prepared to be involved with during the process of selection process:

1 - Travel Consultants - A travel consultant should have good access to agents dealing in properties for self catering holidays. Should you already be using a travel agent for your holiday transport, it may be of benefit to also get them to find you appropriate accommodation as well. As long as you accurately define what you are looking for, using a travel consultant to do all the hard work of searching for and booking a holiday cottage could be a great advantage. On top of that, you would only need to make one payment to the travel consultant for both your accommodation and travel costs.

If the travel consultant provides it, an additional benefit may be that you could obtain a payment option so that your costs could be spread over a number of months.

2 - Internet - As for many things, the Internet and search engines are super tools to help you search for and find suitable holiday cottage accommodation. The advantages of searching online include:

  • Choice - With a wide selection of search results, searching online enable you to choose on the basis of your own criteria or preferences.

  • Viewing - Many websites provide photographs of properties so that you can view them and get a sense of how suitable they are for you. Some websites may even provide virtual tours of properties which let you do a virtual walk through of the property.

  • Tourist Information - Many websites will provide additional tourist information. This can help you make a decision on which property to book by identifying sights to see and activities of interest to you.
You can make use of search engines such as Google or any other and you will be presented with various options for finding holiday cottages. There are quite a few websites run by either agents or tour operators where you can find a holiday cottage. A number of them also enable owners of homes to place their properties on lists and hence offer them as available for hire. You can search the Internet for a holiday cottage in several ways as outlined here:
  • Nationally - You can search on a national basis for holiday cottages. If you want to find a cottage in the UK you could use terms "UK Cottage Holidays" or "UK self catering accommodation" or something similar. This should provide search results for a number of agents and tour operators that have a national property database. It may be that they also handle properties in a number of countries, including overseas.

  • Regionally - You can search on a regional basis for a holiday cottage if you use a county term like "Devon Cottage Holidays" or a popular holiday area such as "Gower Self Catering Cottage". You can also try a term that covers a broad sub region of a country such as "North East Holiday Cottages".

  • Locally - If you already know the name of a local agent or owner of holiday cottage, you may go direct to the website or search based that name. However, if you do not know of a local agent or owner you can search on a local basis for a holiday cottage using either: a city, town or village term like "Whitby Holiday Cottages"; or an area such as "South Devon Self Catering Cottage".
Whichever method you use, it is highly likely that you will receive a large number of search results from which to start your search for a holiday cottage. It ma be that each search you make will provide results which include national, regional and local providers of accommodation. This happens as the bigger national providers also market to the smaller local areas.

When I want to go on a cottage holiday I initially go to a bigger national holiday cottage provider with a good reputation. My favourite is Cottages4You. If I do not find an appropriate cottage with them that matches my criteria, I try other big providers or even smaller agents, depending on what is available for the area I want to visit.

Summary

A holiday cottage is self catering holiday accommodation where you are the only user of the property for the duration of your stay. Holiday cottages are great for escaping your hectic everyday routine. There are properties to suit everyone and they are especially suitable for families with young children, pets, or aged parents; small groups; or couples.

You can find a cottage for your holiday either via a travel consultant or via the Internet. When searching the Internet you can use search terms on a local, regional or national basis. Whichever type of term you use you will probably get a large set of results from which to continue your search. Over time you will probably develop your own preferred search method.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Richard T Griffin