FIELD JOURNAL · 5 min read
Where is your money best spent?
After planning enough journeys a clear pattern emerges: a handful of upgrades change everything, and a handful quietly disappear.
Worth it — the guide
A great guide is the single biggest upgrade available on almost any trip, from the Mara to Cairo to Kyoto.
It usually costs less than a room upgrade and it changes every hour of every day rather than the six you spend asleep.
Worth it — location
Paying for the right conservancy, neighbourhood or stretch of beachfront buys back travel time on every single day of the trip.
A hotel twenty minutes further out for $40 less per night costs you roughly an hour a day. On a five-night trip that is most of a day, bought back for $200.
Worth it — shorter transfers
An internal flight instead of a long road day is often cheaper than the night you would waste recovering from it.
This is most true on trips of a week or less, where a single lost day is a fifth of the holiday.
Rarely worth it
Room upgrades on nights you arrive after dark and leave before breakfast.
All-inclusive plans in cities with genuinely good restaurants — you are paying twice and eating worse.
Peak dates when a week either side is quieter, cheaper and often has better weather.
Spend on the day, not on the brochure.