Trailfinders

I had a bit of a sniffy opinion of travel agents until I went to Trailfinders. We were trying to organise a honeymoon, and while we had a rough idea of where we wanted to go, we had no idea of how to actually hammer that idea into a proper itinerary. Trailfinders took care of it, and in double-​quick time.
They organised a great itinerary, along with booking a few recommended tourist spots at each location and made sure we were looked after at each step of the way. The pricing was actually very reasonable, we shopped around with a few other travel agents and they couldn’t touch the package Trailfinders had organised.
While there’s not much reason to use an agent for most holidays, if you’re planning a really big trip I’d definitely give Trailfinders a shout first.

We dropped into trail finders over the weekend to try and find a place to go on a honeymoon. Mary who helped us out was absolutely great. She was a seasoned traveller herself and was able to point us in the right direction to identify where we would like to go based on our criteria (she also knew what the weather was like in a variety of places which was very important to us). We came out with a planned honeymoon destination and lots of material to look up a variety of holidays, so we are delighted! :) Mary could not have been more helpful! If you are trying to decide on your next travel adventure, I would highly recommend dropping in! :)

I couldn’t recommend this place more. As travel agents go, they is the bomb.
Here’s the thing, in this day and age, really, one would think that there’s not much need for travel agents. When I say ‘one’, I mean me. Being a pretty frequent and savvy traveler, I’m not gonna lie, when I walk past travel agents and see the poor josopes queuing up inside, an uncontrollable smugness takes over, and I think; hasn’t anyone told these people about Mr Google?! Or Mr Expedia or his good and far better mate, Mr Skyscanner?
Yet, here I am today, sitting down to recount my experience as the very one of those poor eejits. And all the better I am for it!
So, I’m going to India in April, and, not liking to make things easy on myself, it’s no normal holiday. I am racing in a rickshaw across the country. From one highly random start point on the east coast, to a place so far west, it doesn’t even look like it’s still in India. This all means that it is near impossible to get any decent priced flights as they are all so higgledeepiggledee (there’s that word again.). After about four days of wrangling every search engine known to man, practically using algorithms and quantum physics, I managed to piece together a route that was costing over a thousand, and taking 2 – 3 days each way to get there.
Enter Trailfinders.
I called a consultant I know there (Rory — highly recommended, so helpful and extremely knowledgable). He took all the details, and called me back that day. The flights were A) With a better airline, B) € 350 cheaper, C) Only taking 1 – 2 days each way.
He also hooked me up with travel insurance (called them personally on my behalf to double-​check that I was covered for the rickshaw mayhem), and sent me all the details and instructions for visas. I called him over the next few days to add two more people onto the booking, which he did straight away. AND, the best thing of all, is that the flights were put on hold for us for a week, so that we could make sure the dates are correct etc before booking.
Yes, you are charged € 60 for using Trailfinders, but actually, they saved me € 350 on my flights, a day each way in travel time, and if I had called them in the first place, rather than persevering like an imbecile on the internet on my own for four days, I wouldn’t have missed three of the latest episodes of Corrie.
Go to Trailfinders. Do it.

I’m usually a real believer that you can get much better value booking your flights and hotels yourself but I decided to give Trailfinders a go for booking my honeymoon as I wanted it to be out of my hands this time. We got a decent deal for a 3 week multi centre in Asia after a bit of tooing and froing on the hotels trying to get the best value (tip: ask for room only if you aren’t too pushed about breakfast, it saved us hundreds in Hong Kong). The girl dealing with our booking was very knowledgeable and had actually been to all our destinations before so I felt I was in good hands. People actually commented «oh you must have paid nearly 10 grand for that!!» when we got it for much cheaper.
After we returned from our amazing honeymoon to a bleak and depressing October Ireland we started thinking about heading over to America next year. Some of our wedding guests had given us some Trailfinder vouchers so we went down to see what we could get. I was stunned that for 2 weeks in Chicago & New York in May they wanted nearly 4 grand and that was three star hotels! The guy was also a bit rude like he thought we were time wasting for not wanting to shell out that much on the spot!
I phoned them back a few days later and pushed the dates back to March which lowered the price significantly to around 2 and a half. However the hotels just weren’t good value (the trip advisor reviews for one made me shudder). I found that I could get 4 star hotels in excellent locations for just a smidge more on
. Eventually I just booked the flights with them but then it got confusing. I was told when I booked that I had to go to the Aer Lingus website to enfer my advance passenger information. However, the number they gave me wouldn’t let me in so I emailed Trailfinders and they told me to call Aer Lingus! Most travel agents take care of that for you, even Aer Lingus were surprised when I called them about it.
In summary, for Asia go to Trailfinders, for the US book it yourself!

Now we all obviously use the internet, sure you wouldnt be here reading this if you didnt! I bet you that all of you also got sucked into the diea that booking all of your holiday online was a much cheaper option than going to a travel agent. why, they are only middle men after all arent they? why pay for that when you can do it yourself!
Who came up with this mad myth, always getting things cheaper on the internet is simply not true! A friend of mine booked a holiday to Sri lanka this week, he found a good deal on the internet, but, as his finger hovered over the «book it» button I mentioned that he should try trail finders, just incase! Saving money is what its albout these days after all! you know what? he got a much better deal in trail finders, the friendly travel agent had his flights all worked out in the most convenient way for him and he payed his smaller fee and went away happy! This review is fro trail finders because they really know their stuff but at the same time my advice is to go into any travel agent before you book your holiday online.

Trailfinders makes me yearn for my backpacking days…
Walking past this travel shop in the middle of a grey, rainy autumn day when you’ve no prospect of a holiday any time soon is torturous.
The staff in Trailfinders are much more informed and well travelled than their competitors. I applied for a job here a few years ago, and one of the criteria requested on the application form was that you had travelled extensively in at least two continents. These guys know their stuff.
As Natalie says, they are most popular for long-​haul flights (especially to Oz) and for round-​the-​world trips. When we were booking our big adventure (yearn yearn) we went here for all of our information, but ended up booking with Usit (sorry TF!) as we found they were offering pretty much the same package for a few hundred euro less. If price were no object, I’d rather deal with Trailfinders — at least they let you sit down to hand over your life savings! Usit don’t even have chairs.

As i sat in the waiting area… looking at the rows of travel consultants tapping away the details of all the excited clients… getting ready to step inside the adventure canon, ready to get blown to the other side of the world… i felt like i was in some sort of adventure centre…
they plan everything… they…PLAN…FUN… how bizarre.
then the reality hit me. you gotta have the cash and the time… and the cash… and did i mention the cash?
They will do their best to keep the prices low, and whether you want the whole holiday experience or simply just a selection of cheap flights to the end of the earth, they should be able to help greatly.
Still… the organise adventures… and that’s fairly cool… if you got the cash!

Travel bug? Want to go somewhere fabulous? Trailfinders is your only man. If you want to book a honeymoon, take a regular holiday or even a long haul holiday Trailfinders will find the best trip for you.
Famous for their seven-​stop flight deals, Trailfinders sorts out all of the backpackers with trips around the world to find themselves. I wish I visited Trailfinders more often, but alas, most of the time I have to make do with flicking through their gorgeous brochures and wishing myself away. The only downside of Trailfinders is that their website isn’t as informative as you’d like. On the other hand, their staff know a lot about a lot of places and are super helpful. If you’ve got a holiday coming up, pop in or pick up a brochure.