Last-minute bookings are thing of the past. There was a time that you could get deals last minute, but those opportunities are shrinking. The issue is that there is a tremendous need to travel since people didn’t travel for two years, but the supply hasn’t changed very much. In some cases, the supply has shrunk, as various restaurants, cruise lines, etc. may have gone out of business due to not having travelers for about two years during the Covid pandemic.  

Other businesses shrank to get by when they were fewer travelers, and haven’t been able to amass enough employees to accommodate the fact that everyone is traveling now more than ever. Bryan’s article this month speaks more about this.

 I constantly advise my travelers to book early, and simply get travelers insurance. One of the main reasons that people don’t book well head of time is that they are not sure where life may take them, say, in a year’s time.  However, people generally cancel a trip because of illness, a death in the family, or a work-related reason. All of these things are covered by most travelers’ insurance.

And by the way, the better the destinations, the better the hotel, where you want to stay, and the more exclusive and exciting the activities, the faster all of these things are going to book out, and well in advance. For instance, you cannot generally book a ticket to enter Machu Picchu the day before. Tickets to Machu Picchu actually sell out often times months before! 

For our Rwanda trip, the government releases a limited number of gorilla permits, and these permits sell out months and months in advance, especially during high season. 

Waiting until the last minute also makes things a lot more expensive.  For instance, recently, we received a couple of last-minute booking requests for private trips, and the pricing came back higher than normal due to lack of availability. 

Spontaneity is great, but the reality is that for many of the most incredible things to experience in life, other people want to experience those things too, so they simply sell out ahead of time.   These two sayings: “the early bird gets the worm,” and “if you fail to plan plan to fail” are especially relevant for those with the travel bug.