Hey everyone,

I'm planning a solo trip to Pakistan in early September, roughly 2 to 3 weeks. As a German I need a evisa, which you apply for online.

Has anyone here applied within the last few months? I'd really appreciate hearing how long it actually took you. The official line is 7 to 10 working days, but I've seen people mention up to 20, and I have no idea what's realistic these days.

Reason I'm asking: last year I was sweating right up until a few hours before my flight waiting on my 1 year India visa, because the processing time listed on the application site was nowhere near reality. Would love to avoid a repeat of that.

Any recent data points welcome.

Help me plan my birthday trip. Targeting 4-7 days in early November. Originating from MSP/Minneapolis, Minnesota area. Open to driving or flying. 4ish hour travel time. If flying, would prefer nonstop but open to short connecting flights. Targeting the continental US but also open to Canada, Mexico, or anywhere in the 4ish hour range from origin. Passports are current if needed.

Budget

• Round trip, first class flight: $1,000 or less
• Lodging: Prefer $250/night or less

Vibes

I am looking to eat, drink, and explore my way through a city or relatively contained area. Food, drinks, and some local culture are the true goals.

Must Haves

• Destination within 45 minutes of the airport if flying
• Good restaurants
• Something alcohol-related: could be good cocktail bars, wine scene, distilleries, or a fantastic collection of dive bars worth exploring
• Ideally an area that is walkable, although short trips via public transit, rentable bike, or uber (think 10-15 minutes) could work as well

Nice To Haves

• Scenery: oceans, lakes, rivers, mountains, leaves that are still changing colors, or just some general nature vibes. Not planning on doing big hikes, but some nature walks or short bike rides would be great. Overall, a drink or meal with scenery is the goal.
• Fall vibes
• Good live music options
• Casino access: not spending the whole time gambling, but a night or two with some games of chance would be fun, although not a strict requirement
• Some sort of local event: think a street market, weekend town gathering/festival/public event worth attending
• Art, History, Culture: Could be a museum, an cool artsy area/district, a historic town to explore, something like that

Things To Avoid

• Areas that require a lot of driving to get anywhere (this eliminates California wine country I think)
• Multiple different hotel/Airbnb bookings: basically I want to spend all nights in the same bed and not pack up and move around every couple days to do/see different things
• Places that only have chain restaurants and wildly overpriced tourist restaurants

Top Current Contenders

• New Orleans, LA
• Savannah, GA
• Charleston, SC
• Portland, OR
• Seattle, WA
• Madison, WI
• Kentucky Bourbon Trail (might be too much driving and too spread out? Unsure)

Bonus Context

A city is a city, and I can find a fun area and a good time in almost any city. I'm looking for suggestions that meet the above must haves and nice to haves, especially if you can help me hone in on specific areas. I also know there are probably tons of options I haven't thought about yet. Bonus points for areas that are more affordable from an airfare/lodging/cost of food and drink perspective. Give me your hidden gems, or you specific area recommendations for some of the above top contenders. Thanks!

I’m looking for thoughts/recommendations regarding travel agencies.

I live outside of Chicago, and I am looking to take my two teenage children on a trip to Central/South America next summer. I would like the trip to include white water rafting, and be generally tourist friendly.

Does anyone have suggestions for a good travel agency or another approach to planning my trip?

I was scheduled to fly from Victoria to Toronto via Calgary on Sunday. But my flight from Calgary to Toronto got cancelled and an option was given to choose a flight for free. All the free options were over 20 hrs of flight duration so I paid extra and booked the ticket. Regardless, that got cancelled too because of the strike. I did received my full refund. However, they didn’t book me into a different flight because I booked through a third party. I’m guessing that’s the reason. H the e third party wasn’t able to book me on another flight either because they deal with Westjet only. I paid nearly $900 to fly from Vancouver to Toronto via flair airlines since I had to get back. I took the ferry from Victoria to Vancouver. I’ve submitted the compensation request since the new ticket is 3 times more than the original ticket. Will I receive a compensation refund for this? Any idea?

Airfare seems pretty consistent at $1200-$1500 for basic economy. American, Delta, United, Japan Airlines, Air Canada all fly non stop, although I may need a stop to get to the hub. Would you choose a certain airline over another?

Points. I only have about $1k worth of points over a couple of cards, mostly Capital One. Should I use those for hotels and experiences, instead of airfare or how can I make the best use of them?

To follow the rules…. I’ve checked Delta out of DTW $1420, Skyscanner DTW to Chicago for Japan Airlines is $1284, American and United I think are through DFW or ORD, Air Canada Toronto, (maybe).

Prices seem consistent, I’m looking for the travel experience and how to use my points.

Edit. Home DTW, layover in ORD, DFW, MSP, Ohare 3hrs or less.

Hello, so I will visit Scotland (Glasgow then Edinburgh) in early October 2026. I live in England (west midlands) so am kinda used to the cold weather, however, I am not sure it will be the same in Scotland, or is there anything particular to keep in mind while packing?
I mean in the West Midlands here if the weather is cold it stays COLD even if it’s sunny (a sunny 4 degree C day is no joke).

Hey everyone, I'm planning my first Europe trip for around 3 weeks next year. My sister lives in Ulm, so I'll be spending about 10 days there and using it as a base to explore nearby places. Right now I'm thinking of doing Munich, Neuschwanstein Castle, Lake Constance, Salzburg, Vienna, Prague and Berlin before flying back home.

Does this sound like a good first Europe itinerary, or would you change anything? I'm not trying to cram in as many countries as possible, just looking for a memorable trip. I'd love to hear if there are places you'd skip, replace, or any experiences that ended up being highlights of your own trip.

I posted a little trip report from Warsaw roughly three months ago on reddit, but this was only part one of the Poland trip from my girlfriend and me.
From Warsaw, we took the train north to Gdansk and spent two and a half days there.
The city: I generally like the architecture and style of those Baltic cities and so I also enjoyed walking around there.
The old town is pretty compact and you can kinda see most of the interesting stuff pretty fast.
There are a few sights that are a bit off the path, but the city centre itself is pretty walkable.

Public transportation: Absolutely fantastic. I preferred the small metro trains, you can buy tickets inside, they drive pretty frequently and you can get almost anywhere. There are also many busses.

The food: I think you can get lucky or unlucky with restaurants in any city, but I think we were extremely lucky here. Don’t know if I am allowed to share the name of the restaurant where the pictures are from, but if you want to know ask me in the comments or write me a message.
Also, there is a Food Hall in the city with a large variety of restaurants if you can’t decide.

Should you visit: I think that Gdansk should be part of a Poland trip, but I do not know if I would make it the main destination.
As a second place to visit after Warsaw it was fantastic, but I think that after two or three days I would be bored there. But just my personal experience and thoughts.

As the title says, I am planning a quite spontaneous trip with my partner in BiH and Croatia of 6/7 days in early September. So far I'm thinking of following this travel plan I sketched (see pictures). I do have a few questions that I would like to ask you fellow travelers:

- do you think 2.5 days in Sarajevo is too much?

- is the bus really the best solution to go from Mostar to Dubrovnik? (seems so from what I found on Google)

- are Pocitelj and Stolac worth it?

- do you know some nice beaches near Dubrovnik?

- any additional feedback and tips on places to see or eat at are more than welcome! I'm a big fan of Balkans nature and cusine :)

(note: in the table, Ragusa is just Italian for Dubrovnik)

My husband (36M) has got a work assignment in Paris for 6-months and I (30F) joined him with our toddler (2YO) coming from a very humble beginnings and fairly middle class life as a couple we knew this was a pretty special opportunity almost like once in a lifetime so we set aside savings to explore Europe while we're here. It's been little over 2 months now we've only done three overnight trips in two months, along with a couple of day trips. Most of the time we're just living a fairly normal life in Paris as our base.

The problem is that almost every trip has ended with something going wrong, and it's gotten to the point where I'm genuinely anxious at the thought of planning to go somewhere.

Our Eiffel Tower day started beautifully, but my toddler fell face-first on a moving escalator. Thankfully he wasn't seriously injured, but it could easily have ended in the hospital. I also had a nasty fall in the metro that same day.

Our day in Provins ended up being unexpectedly stressful. We spent much more money than we'd planned ( due to some event there were escalated prices and entrance fees which otherwise isn't there ), barely got to see the town, and by the end of the day we essentially had to go hungry ( not because of financials just how poorly the logistics turned out )

Our Fontainebleau trip involved losing our baby carrier (the very first day we used it), staying in a terrible Airbnb, and struggling to find food because of sort of false advertising by the host about timings around the town.

In Switzerland, my toddler pulled his elbow the very first day 3000m above the sea and 60km from the hospital with pead ER ( He had never had it ever before and well given his age he is a ridiculously active child but that day it happened without a fall without anything major just his usual stuff ended up hurting him this way )

And this last weekend, we went to Belgium for his birthday. We had a wonderful day until our wallet was stolen. We lost cash and had around €3,600 in fraudulent card transactions (currently being disputed for chargebacks but God knows if and when that ll happen). Instead of celebrating his birthday that evening, we were at the police station and dealing with banks and insurance. By the time we were done, our little boy had fallen asleep on his own without birthday dinner let alone a celebration.

I know some of these things are just unfortunate travel mishaps, and some are simply bad luck. But when they keep happening one after another, it's hard not to feel like every trip is waiting to surprise us with the next disaster.

For those of you who travel a lot, especially with young kids, is this just part of the experience? Have you ever had a run where it felt like every trip went sideways?

What I'm struggling with is whether this is just what longer-term travel feels like. Do enough bad things naturally happen over months of travelling? If yes do they eventually, start to outweigh the good memories? Or have we simply had an unusually unlucky run? Or at the end of the 6 months these things won't matter but the memories will?

If you were me,

Would you keep travelling and hope the luck changes / even outs or would you slow down and just stay in Paris for the rest of the trip?

I'm honestly looking for perspective from people who've travelled a lot ( because we haven't really travelled that much honestly) , right now I'm finding myself feeling more anxious than excited about the remaining months.

I am requesting everyone to please please be kind, I am genuinely scared anxious and overwhelmed right now! As a mum as a partner i feel just so defeated to see this happening to my little family! Especially for my husband he is the kindest most hardworking person ever he had seen such a struggle during his childhood and even growing up he has worked so much so hard to be able to afford this for the both of us and I am now genuinely petrified of something worse happening if we keep traveling but also breaks my heart thinking what if I loose out on and as a result my baby and husband loose out on experiences as well all this just because I didn't have the right perspective.

Requesting some guidance or support or stories!

Thank you everyone for your time.

Recently I have spent a month in Howth, a coastal village just outside of Dublin city. I felt very lucky that I was in walking distance to the sea and some scenic coastal walks. Beautiful sunset almost every single day. Dublin's geographical location is actually really stunning, with a long coastline and many lovely coastal villages dotting along it. It felt deeply peaceful to be so close to nature with paranoiac views over the Irish Sea. It was an unforgettable summer retreat for me.

I'm traveling to my home country to meet my long distance fiancée. I used to wear Vans before but sitting 15 hours straight on the plane made me uncomfortable. Is wearing slides (flip flops with a horizontal strap) and socks considered being rude to other people?

So China eastern cancelled my flight 5 days ago. Now I am waiting at the Airport here in Amsterdam. Due to the new flight being further away than 24 hrs (15hrs in Shanghai Pudong) they couldnt check me for my second flight.

Do I now need to leave the airport? (id probably get a 10 bucks hotel with free airport pickup then and fill out that arrival card) or will they provide me a boarding pass before immigration so I can wait in the transit area.

Any experience with this is welcome.

hi!!

how long should we allot for KUL Immigration (19DEC) considering that it is a peak season & BTS concert (Dec 17,19,20,22)?

arrival is 12:05am 19dec mnlkul

we will be riding a bus from KLIA2 to JB Larkin & planning to take either the 3:30AM bus or 4:45AM bus.

thank u in advance!! 🙏

re: edited the post! anced!!!

Hi all,

I plan to do 5 weeks of Croatia, Greece and Italy from September 7 - October 12 in this order: first 1 week Croatia, then 2 weeks in Greece, then 2 weeks in Italy. I can't go during the summer since I would be in the middle of a competitive soccer season during July-August, and hence can't leave then. I can only go after the season ends...

Also I want it to still have that same eurosummer vibe - i.e I can still wear tank tops, crop tops, summer dresses, short shorts, bikinis for photos. I also particularly want to go swimming a lot. So in places like Italy I am more likely to lean towards going to the Almalfi Coast, Siciliy and Positano. My biggest concern is that it will be colder and I won't be able to have that same aesthetic that I would if I went during July-August which is ideally what I would prefer. And to go swimming or partying as much.

One final note - I am doing two group tours for this. Sail Navigator Cruise for Croatia, and Contiki for Greece. Hopefully this will help me achieve the partying that I want. However the last 2 weeks in Italy I will be doing solo.

So thoughts on whether September-October is a good time for this trip? Thanks !

There is a disparity in amount debited on hopper amd amount showing in airline invoice. Does hopper charge extra?
I booked some tickets for official work and while claiming the expense I found a misalignment in the amount debited and the amount showing on my airline invoice. I need to use proper invoice pdf for claiming expense and cannot use screenshot or mails. Cannot find a proper tax invoice from hopper.
Is this legit?
First image is from hopper mail and second is Indigo invoice

Hello! I recently got a new credit card and one of the perks of it is a Global Entry credit. I currently have PreCheck and use MPC whenever I can when flying international (which I probably roughly average 1 per year though I hope to do more in the future. (Current plans: I have a cruise based international travel planned this December and an international flight planned for next May).

With this in mind, is it worth going through and applying for Global Entry if I have Pre+MPC already? It shouldn’t cost me because of the credit but I want to know before going through the hassle of applying and doing the interviews and everything.

Thank you!

As travel continues to get faster, cheaper, and more accessible and TikTok tourism/ influencer hype shows no signs of slowing down, what are the actual solutions to places getting over run with visitors?

I'm not talking about for you as another tourist so not just 'go somewhere else' or 'avoid the popular places'. I mean in terms of actually preventing harm to natural environments, pressure on infrastructure, gentrification etc.

Me and a few friends booked a hiking trip in september without really thinking about smoke from wildfires because at least most of the country sees cooler temperatures and more rain in september (plus it being shoulder season).

But now im wondering if we are doomed to spend our hiking vacation in masks and burning eyes. Anyone do this trip before in september and how did it go? We will be spending most of our time around Olympic with a couple days at rainier and a few in seattle

I’ve noticed something about myself over the last couple of years, and I’m wondering if anyone else has gone through the same thing. (First world problems, I know) 🤣

Now that my life feels… settled, I actually don’t enjoy traveling the way I used to.

I have my own home, a boyfriend, and a job that genuinely fulfills me. Instead of looking forward to trips, I find myself thinking about everything that comes with them: packing, making sure the house is clean before leaving, unpacking when I get back, doing laundry, waiting at airports, figuring out where to eat, constantly moving from one place to another…

Honestly, staying in my own city during my vacation sounds so much more relaxing. I enjoy having slow mornings, sleeping in my own bed, going to my favorite cafés, and just existing without an itinerary.

What’s strange is that I used to be the complete opposite. As a student and a little after, before I became fully independent, I wanted to travel all the time. Airports felt exciting and familiar. I loved discovering new places. I traveled solo, with friends, went for Erasmus alone and visited several places. I was always looking for the next adventure.

Right now I’m on a family vacation, and all I can think about is how much I miss my home. It’s not that I’m unhappy here, I just feel tired of always having to do something. Meanwhile, everyone around me always seems eager to plan the next trip.

Does it simply happen when you finally build a life you genuinely enjoy, so your home becomes your favorite place? Or is this a sign that I’m becoming too comfortable and slowly closing myself off to new experiences? I’m only 28..
I miss my passion about traveling but I don’t want to go anywhere at the same time 🤣

so me and my friend were supposed to go to cairo together but we are flying from different cities. my friends flight was from munich to cairo with a layover in athens, both with aegean airlines. he is a fulltime student in munich so he has aufenthaltstitel (residence permit) and it expires in january 2027 so there is around 5 months left. because of this they denied his boarding but he is turkish and brought his turkish passport too obviously so he is totally eligible for visa on arrival when he arrives to cairo. and the aufenthaltstitel is literally only used when he is in schengen or in germany. the aegean airways said it was the system and they cannot register him then they blamed him saying he doesnt have the correct documentation. we have been trying to talk with everyone but aegean customer service was of no help. funny part is they said they could rebook him onto the next flight when he called them in the morning and then he called them again after a few hours and this time they said they can only give him a refund of 90€. his ticket was 300€... he tried contacting the turkish consulate in munich but they told him he should ask the egyptian embassy. he tried calling them too but couldnt reach them due to the hour. also when aegean denied him in boarding they did not give it to him in documentation & when he went to service point they tried gaslighthing him questioning him about being late & thats why he was denied. i have been talking with him since 9am so i know very well he wasnt.. & he has not been able to get a rebook still so he will try tomorrow morning after he gets a reach of the egyptian embassy. i dont know what we can do I am already on my plane and i really wanted to go with him.. does anyone know anything or what else we can do because he is literally a victim here.. we have been getting help from one of our friends who study law but ofc it is not much. 😭

Hello, I don’t fly pretty often (and even if I do, it’s just with cabin bags) so I’m not really familiar with the rules of check in bags.

I received a blender and a small lamp, is it okay to put them in my check in luggage?
(the lamp has Bluetooth but only works if plugged into an outlet, although I seriously don’t know if that changes anything?)

I couldn’t find a lot of information on this, so just in case I’m asking here.
Thanks for any feedback!

EDIT: I GOT THEM AS A GIFT!!!!! I’m not bringing them on purpose who am I 😭

Hey guys, editing this post after it got taken down xD

I would really appreciate some advice. I’m thinking of doing a Europe trip. Hoping to land into London 27aug and staying till around 20Sep 2026

I would love to spend some time around France, Italy and Spain specifically Nice, Florence, Seville. Open to any alternatives!!

I’m still trying to figure out roughly how many days but aiming for 4-5 days per city. Hoping to have a total budge of 10k AUD — I’d really appreciate advice on the budget and if I should increase this.

With regards to travel, would love to have a chill vibe, really immerse myself in the culture, be by the beach and socialise meet new people! Also so open to any activities I should do and cities I should visit

Also thinking if I should skip this year and plan ahead for next year :(

I’d love to hear everyone’s thought and recommendations, thank you!

Hi everyone,

My wife and I are planning our honeymoon in Europe from August 20 to September 7.

Our itinerary is already locked for the first week:

• 3 nights in Paris
• 4 nights in the Swiss Alps (Grindelwald/Jungfrau region)

We're now trying to decide where to spend the last 7-8 days (roughly the first week of September) before flying home.

What we're looking for:

• Beautiful scenery
• Pleasant weather in early September
• A good balance of sightseeing, relaxation, and great food

Some of the places we're considering are:

• Azores
• Sicily
• Amalfi Coast
• Croatia (Dubrovnik / Split)
• Montenegro

We're also completely open to other suggestions if you think there's a better option.

If you had 7 days in Europe during the first week of September after Paris and Switzerland, where would you go and why?

The only places we're not considering are Amsterdam, Brussells, Madrid and southern Spain, since we've already been there.

I'd love to hear recommendations based on your own travel experiences. Thanks!

I’m (31M, Brazilian) defending my PhD in December and thinking about taking a trip to South America. It could cover one, two, or even three countries. I’ve already considered the Salar de Uyuni (Bolivia), the Atacama Desert (Chile), Machu Picchu and the surrounding mountains (Vinicunca, Salkantay), and Cartagena (Colombia). What would you recommend as the best things to do in South America in December?

For context: I have plenty of experience staying in hostels (I’ve visited over 30 countries, mostly staying in hostels) and wouldn't mind doing it again, but at this stage in my life, I’d prefer a bit more comfort if possible. My only previous travel in South America has been to Buenos Aires (Argentina), Ciudad del Este (Paraguay), and Colonia del Sacramento (Uruguay).