In my last article, I talked about FIT travel—Fully Independent Travel—and how it can give you the freedom to create a European Christmas market trip around your own interests, schedule and travel style.
If FIT travel sounds like the right option for you, you may be wondering:
“Okay…what’s next?”
There are several ways to plan an FIT trip.
You can research everything yourself and contact the individual travel companies directly.
Or, you can work with a travel advisor or travel planner who can help put the pieces together for you.
And you may be wondering:
“Why would I add another layer?”
That’s a fair question.
The answer really comes down to time, effort and how much flexibility you want in your trip.
First, Ask Yourself: Do I Want to Plan It Myself?
Let’s start here.
If you enjoy researching hotels, comparing train schedules, looking at river cruises, reading reviews, contacting tour operators and putting together your own itinerary, you may be perfectly happy planning your FIT trip yourself.
And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.
In fact, if you enjoy the process, the rest of this article may not matter much to you.
But if you are busy, have the budget to travel, and prefer to spend your time enjoying the trip rather than researching every component of it, that’s when working with a travel planner becomes worth considering.
Because FIT doesn’t have to mean DIY.
You can travel independently without planning everything independently.
Planning an FIT Trip Yourself Takes Time
A European Christmas market trip can sound simple at first.
Maybe you’re thinking:
“I want to visit a few Christmas markets and take a river cruise.”
But then the questions begin.
Which cities?
Which Christmas markets?
Which cruise?
Which sailing date?
How many nights before the cruise?
Where should you stay?
How do you get from one city to the next?
Should you take the train or hire a private driver?
Where should you embark on the cruise?
What happens after the cruise?
And how do all of those pieces fit together?
You can absolutely figure this out yourself.
But figuring it out is the work.
If you have the time and enjoy the research, go for it.
If you don’t, that’s where a travel planner can become useful.
So, What Does a Travel Planner Actually Do?
A travel planner isn’t simply someone who books a hotel or finds you a cruise.
A good planner looks at the trip as a whole.
You might come to me and say:
“I want to spend Christmas in Europe. I have about two weeks. I want to see the Christmas markets, take a river cruise and spend some time in Budapest. I don’t want to rush from city to city, and I don’t want to spend my vacation figuring out transportation.”
That’s not a booking.
That’s a travel plan.
The job is to take what you want and determine how the different pieces can work together.
That might include:
- Hotels
- Trains
- Private transfers
- Drivers
- Tours and experiences
- River cruises
- Pre-cruise accommodations
- Post-cruise accommodations
- Transportation between destinations
- Timing and logistics
The goal is to create a trip that makes sense for you, rather than simply putting together a collection of reservations.
Why Add a Travel Planner as Another Layer?
Because sometimes the “extra layer” is actually the layer that connects everything.
Think about the different companies involved in a European trip.
The hotel company knows your hotel.
The cruise company knows your cruise.
The rail company knows your train.
The tour operator knows your excursion.
But you are responsible for making all of those pieces work together.
A travel planner can sit in the middle and look at the entire itinerary.
That’s especially helpful when your trip includes multiple destinations or different types of travel.
Travel Advisor, Travel Agent or Travel Planner—What’s the Difference?
You may also hear several different terms:
Travel agent.
Travel advisor.
Travel planner.
The terminology can vary, and there is overlap between these roles.
What’s more important is understanding how the person actually works.
Some advisors work primarily with a particular agency, host agency, consortium or collection of preferred suppliers. Depending on their business model, the travel options they can offer may be centered around those relationships.
A travel planner may take a broader planning approach, working with different travel suppliers to build the itinerary around the client’s requirements.
That distinction matters when you want a trip that doesn’t fit neatly into one company’s standard product.
What If I Want Something Completely Customized?
This is where FIT can become especially interesting.
You don’t necessarily have to choose between:
A completely DIY trip
and
A pre-designed tour.
There is a middle ground.
You can have a trip designed from scratch around your preferences.
Or you can start with something that already exists and have the trip adapted around it.
For example, you might already know that you want to take a particular Christmas market river cruise.
The cruise has a fixed sailing date and itinerary.
That’s the fixed piece.
Your FIT itinerary can then be built around the cruise.
You might arrive several days early to explore Strasbourg.
Take the cruise.
Then stay a few additional nights in Budapest after disembarkation.
The cruise doesn’t change its sailing date for you.
Your independent travel is what you customize around the cruise.
That’s one of the ways a travel planner can help bring the different pieces together.
Bespoke Doesn’t Always Mean Starting From Scratch
Another misconception is that customized travel has to mean building an entirely new itinerary from the ground up.
Not necessarily.
There are different levels of planning.
You may want:
A completely bespoke trip
Everything is designed specifically for you.
Or:
A customized version of an existing travel product
You already know you want a particular cruise, tour or destination, but you need help building the rest of the trip around it.
Or:
A simpler FIT itinerary
You know where you want to go and simply need someone to coordinate the logistics.
The right approach depends on your budget, time, travel style and how much planning you want to handle yourself.
When Does Hiring a Travel Planner Make Sense?
A travel planner may be worth considering if:
- You are busy and don’t want to spend hours researching.
- You’re visiting multiple European destinations.
- You want to combine rail travel, land travel and a river cruise.
- You want to add several days before or after a cruise.
- You’re traveling with family or friends.
- You want a customized itinerary rather than a standard tour.
- You know what you want to experience but don’t know how to connect all the pieces.
- You would rather have someone else handle the research and logistics.
But if you love researching your own trips, enjoy comparing options and have the time to coordinate everything yourself, you may not need a travel planner.
And that’s okay.
The value isn’t that you can’t do it yourself.
The value is that you don’t have to.
What You’re Really Paying For
When you hire a travel planner, you’re not necessarily paying to make your trip cheaper.
You’re paying for the time, research, planning, coordination and expertise that goes into creating the trip.
You are essentially saying:
“I know how I want to travel. I just don’t want to spend my time figuring out every detail.”
And for a busy traveler, that can be a very worthwhile trade.
Let’s Bring This Back to Your European Christmas Market Trip
Imagine you tell me:
“I want to visit Europe’s Christmas markets. I have two weeks. I want a river cruise, but I also want time on land. I don’t want to change hotels every night. I want to travel by train when it makes sense. And I want some private experiences.”
That’s enough to start a conversation.
From there, the planning becomes about finding the right combination of:
Destinations + cruise + hotels + rail + transfers + experiences
that fits your requirements.
You don’t have to know the answer before you contact a travel planner.
That’s part of what the planning process is for.
So, Should You Hire a Travel Planner for Your FIT Trip?
The answer depends on how you want to spend your time.
If you enjoy doing the research yourself, you can absolutely plan your own FIT trip.
But if you prefer the freedom of independent travel without spending hours coordinating every component, working with a travel planner may be a better fit for the way you want to travel.
Because sometimes the most valuable part of a travel planner isn’t finding one more hotel or one more tour.
It’s looking at the entire trip and asking:
“How do we make all of this work together?”
Planning a European Christmas Market Trip?
If you already know you want a customized European Christmas market experience but don’t want to coordinate all the moving pieces yourself, let’s talk about your trip.
Whether you’re considering a river cruise, a land-based itinerary, or a combination of both, we can start with what you want your trip to look like—and build from there.
[Start Planning Your Trip →]
