The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and I can hardly believe that after a long, cold winter in Austria – spring has finally sprung!

One of my favourite times of year, spring is when we throw out the old, bring in the new, and start planning our summer holidays to those exotic destinations we have been dreaming about all winter,  so that just leaves one question – where should we go?

Us Europeans are bombarded with package tours to Spain and Greece, much like our American neighbours are inundated with last-minute offers to Cabo or the Caribbean, and while this may be one of the cheapest options to travel, I am afraid it has lost its appeal, and a week “all-inclusive” just doesn’t cut it with me anymore.

For me travel is all about opening the mind, understanding new cultures, discovering the real world and stepping into the unknown, and as we are now more informed and better connected than ever before (thanks to the World Wide Web), we can tailor make the holiday of our dreams with the help of a bespoke tour operator.

Bespoke travel is definitely on the increase, and it does not have to cost much more than your average package holiday.  Many tour operators can work with a realistic budget, all we need to decide is when, where and for how long, and they do the rest.

Multi-destination holidays such as South Africa and Mauritius, Australia and New Zealand or Argentina and Brazil are now easier to book and arrange than ever before, and by visiting two countries on one trip, you really get to see the best of both worlds!

As huge cruise fans, we always like to tailor make our journeys to include a stopover in either Vegas, California, or Florida (depending where our ship is departing), and that way we get to combine a fabulous cruise with a fun stay shopping and eating in the US!

Bespoke travel arrangements give us the freedom to visit the countries we always dreamed of, stay as long as we want, and travel by our preferred mode of transport, so why would we possibly want to book a package tour to the Costa del Sol?