Interesting, thanks for all the feedback. It sounds like it may at least be worth looking into, even before I figure out for sure where I want to go.
We used one for our honeymoon return.
We needed to get from one of some set of airports in southeast Asia to one of some set of airports in northern Michigan. We spent half an hour with various internet tools and found a few options, and also sent a request to a travel agent that a friend had recommended.
The travel agent found flights for about $50 cheaper each.
When we pulled up those flights online, we saw that we could have gotten them for about $30 less each than the travel agent quoted, so that was their fee (over whatever the travel search engines make). We figured that the agent earned his $60 (or more), and we saved $100.
If you have somewhat flexible travel arrangements through multiple continents, the agents simply have better tools available to them, and have more experience using them. It can still be worth the commission to have them run the search vs spending many hours with your online search engine of choice. And our agent, at least, was totally on contingency. We only paid his commission if we booked through him, so it was free for us to give him a try.
My dad did when he flew us to New York and took the extended family on a cruise to Bermuda. Four kids, 12 grandkids living in 3 different states. Not sure if there was a fee or not, but it would have been worth it.
My go-to recommendation in Asia is China. The really cool thing about China is there is a signifigant domestic tourist trade (including a growing number of Chinese backpackers), so the tourist infrastructure is well developed but still very inexpensive,
If hostels and guesthouses are your thing (and if you are traveling solo, I recommend considering them-- most have private rooms if you feel like you are too old for dorms,) China has some of the cleanest, most charming, most welcoming hostels on this planet. Places where you’ll eat dinner with the family, share coffee with a healthy mix of Chinese students and world travllers, and places where you can get anything you arranged, from laundry to train tickets, to getting your itinerary for the day written on business cards so you just have to point to show the cab driver where you are going. The Chinese backpacker circuit is well worn, and they’ve done a good job working out the kinks when it comes to language and other difficulties.
The other advantage to China is that it is very, very safe. For a solo woman, it’s about as safe as you are going to get. I’d keep any eye on my drink at bars, but otherwise there are not really “bad” parts of town you have to avoid and the streets at night are often just as populated as in the day. There is just very little street crime, and very little of that is aimed at foreigners.
My go-to recommendation in China is Yunnan, which has a lot of interesting minority cultures and feels a bit more off the beaten path than other locations. But it’s more of a village-and-scenery place than big city place.
If you want big cities, Beijing and Shanghai have it going on. I personally like Beijing, as the history is so overwhelming and it feels so incredibly old. But if you are going on an off season (or just don’t want to risk a pollution day), Shanghai might be a good choice.
How long do you have? What style of travel are you looking at (backpacker? budget? luxury?) We know you like cities, but what else do you like? Museums? Just wandering around? Street food? Fancy dinners?
As for food, China does eat a lot of pork, but if you are in a big city you are going to have lots of options, including dedicated vegetarian restaurants and a selection of western restaurants. China isn’t huge into vegetarianism, but there is a history of vegetarian Buddhist food, as well as a growing young vegetarian community.
If you stay at a hostel or guesthouse, choose one with an on-site restaurant. Often they serve a mix of western and Chinese food at reasonablish prices, and they tend to be clean and convenient.
One thing you can do before going is to work with a Chinese speaker (plenty on this board) to get a printout of dishes you might enjoy. Your standard Chinese restaurant is either going to serve dishes or snacks (noodles and dumplings), and from those they serve a fairly standard repetoire. So if you have a few dishes that you like, you can probably get them pretty much anywhere-- kind of like how if you walk in to a diner, you know you can order a hamburger or a two-egg breakfast without looking at the menu. So you can prep your own mini-menu of dishes you like written in Chinese and English, and use that (with lots of pointing if needed!) to order.
For work we have to - but booking is done on-line and it is more or less identical to booking through a travel site. You never have to talk to anyone.
The only time we’ve used a live one is to book a cruise where there were very few rooms left. We needed a cabin for three. No fee and we got some discount vouchers. Never for any kind of air travel, domestic or international though.
My wife uses one for all trips to China. They make the process of getting a visa painless, and also know local guides in seemingly every Chinese city, not just the ones that have the most Western tourists. My wife is originally from China, but having lived in the States for 25 years, she’s not comfortable making her own arrangements in some of the “second tier” cities.
I did a kind of complex trip to Europe this spring. Specific events to be at at both the beginning & end of the trip (both of which were in suburbs of minor cities/towns, so don’t expect lots of local help & English speakers like you might in a touristy area), but free time in the middle. A trip of a lifetime that I wanted to go perfectly. Multiple countries & even more cities, didn’t speak the local languages, don’t know the neighborhoods (meaning a cheap hotel isn’t a bargain if it’s in a sketchy neighborhood). Should I do more days in place A & less in place B? Perfect trip for a travel agent!
Since every industry has some people who are above average & some who are awful & probably not going to still be in ‘the industry’ by the time I actually take my trip, I had one requirement; I wanted someone good, someone who was recommended, not just the first schlub who was available when I called/walked in.
I asked around, no one I knew had used one in years.
I asked at work since all travel goes through the corporate travel agency but the executive admin told me they didn’t work with a specific person, just whomever answered the phone; she couldn’t even name someone who had helped her.
I even asked here on the Dope & someone PM’d me a contact they had used. I called & left messages; twice. Never heard back from them.
If you can’t return a call to make a sale, I don’t have a warm & fuzzy that you’ll return a phone call if something goes south, a delayed flight/missed connection, an overbooked hotel, etc which was a big part of the reason I wanted a travel agent to begin with.
Ended up talking to someone who had been to one of the cities & was able to recommend a hotel so I ultimately did it all on my own. Sorry I can’t offer more advice than: Good Luck, have fun (& take me with you)!
Oh, man, having a list of foods is a genius idea! Regardless of where I go, I’m definitely going to do that (and regardless of where I go, between the internet and living here there shouldn’t be a problem finding a native speaker to help me out.)
I’m looking for budget travel - borderline backpacker type (I’m actually right now sitting in a somewhat overpriced private room at a hostel, until I get my housing for the next couple months here sorted out). I love museums, I love wandering city streets, people watching, finding strange and interesting little shops*, things like that. I can pretty happily kill day a day while traveling with a good museum and a coffee shop, so long as there’s a window onto a street with a lot of foot traffic.
Regardless of where I end up going there’ll probably be several more threads here asking for advice. I’d take you guys with me if I could. The best I can do is shamelessly pimp my (sporadically-updated and poorly-written) travel blog about Australia.
*When I first got to Sydney I found a store that sells nothing but buttons. I have precisely no need for such a store, but I love stuff like that.
Awesome! You’ll get plenty of advice.
As for travel agents-- I’ve never used one, except for when required for work or when traveling to areas that require it. I think they could be helpful for for complex and inflexible logistics, but if you are just going to a couple cities in not sure they would provide the help you need.
What you really need is just to decide on a place and not worry about the places that you aren’t going (Asia is huge, you could spend a lifetime traveling there, and most of it is great. Whatever you choose will be amazing.) and get a very good guidebook.
Recently, while searching for airline tickets, I visited the airline website (I am a FF member there). Price was X. I then went to Orbitz, Price was X-$30. I have bought many times at this site. Someone suggested Kayak. I went there and Kayak gave a price of X-$50 for Orbitz. So, if Kayak sends me to Orbitz, it is cheaper! Interesting.
Possibly travel agents have the same arrangements with bookings for extra savings.
For another trip, I spent 5 hours (via internet) comparing rates for a flights to and from Europe. As I was comparing rates, they were constantly going up, $10 at a time. It was very frustrating.
I think I may try a travel agent next time. How do you find a “good” one?
We’re using one for our upcoming cruise to the Southern Caribbean. We know the cruise company and how to pick flights and hotels and everything, but he just makes things smoother. He arranges transportation. He arranges mealtimes. He knows what flight times are best based on experience. He arranges tours on the islands, and knows the smaller companies on each island.
He specializes in the cruise industry, and usually arranges big tours with bus transportation. He’s comforting and friendly and makes life easy.
A good travel agent will help you turn your vague itinerary into a solid trip, and ours charges us one price for the whole package (flights, cruise, his cut, fees, etc.).
I have been trying for a while to find an actual professional experience travel agent, to no avail. Fairly complicated trip involving a very tall person (flight), smoking accommodations, centralized lodging to sights we want to see, trains etc. etc.
Most of the people I talk to just drop me (it’s been 4 attempts). I think it’s too hard for them. Look, I expect to pay $20K for this trip, and I want it right, but I need someone with familiarity in the regions I’m visiting. One woman, when I asked the best time of year weather- & crowds-wise (we’re very flexible) said oh I don’t know, we can Google it.
Year ago there were what was called “fam trips” for agents, or familiarity trips, so they would know what they’re talking about. I guess that’s gone away along with professional travel agents.
My mother always uses one for trips abroad. She’s not very Internet-savvy so I encourage this practice. My employer (a law firm) also uses one to book any overnight or long-distance travel.
For business trips yes, every single time and it is an absolute necessity. For personal trips never, I can fend for myself. The difference is time value, I don’t want to be stuck on a business trip any longer than need be and having an agent can get you thru the cue quickly. On a personal trip I’m more cost conscious than time conscious and might even choose to sell my ticket to someone less fortunate and take a later flight if it means I can stay away from the office another day. 
One thing I do is make ample use of my FancyHands subscription (which is something I couldn’t live without.) I’ve used them to price out flights, recommend activities, sort through hostel reviews and manage random travel tasks.
I have used Asia Travel, a company out of Seattle, to book a weird flight itinerary. They are a small operation and only book flights, they don’t offer any other services. I was able to fly from Alaska to my parents house for X-mas then fly to Thailand and back to Alaska for somewhere around $1500.00 it was over a thousand dollars cheaper then anything I found on the net.
Not for domestic travel, no. But I always use a travel agent for visiting Caribbean all-inclusive resorts. The TAs have access to deals and packages and group rates that the average joe on a web browser would never be able to book. I think the resorts like it that way. They are also a good resource to have on speed dial when things go wrong, which they often do on international travel. On the other hand, I usually still book my airfare myself.
My mother and I used one for a recent 26-day cruise, but frankly, I did most of the research and sent most of the info to the agent and I’m not sure why we bothered. I found the cruise we wanted, I found our flight, I found our hotel for the one night before we left, and ultimately, I worked out our transportation home.
The woman was nice enough (my mother’s friend) but her husband was having health issues, so she was hard to get in touch with, and many questions I’d emailed to her went unanswered. And she almost screwed us because she was late paying the cruise line and our reservation disappeared for a day.
My husband and I are considering a South American cruise, and I think we’ll just do it ourselves. I think we can manage to book our own cabin, flight, and transportation to and from the ship. Why would we need a travel agent?
I would love to see your itinerary.