Common questions about how we work
If you’re thinking about trusting us to plan an escape for you, you may have questions about how it all works. Here are answers to some of the most common ones. If you have a specific query that’s not covered, book in a free call with us here.
1. What types of trips and experiences do you typically create?
There is no typical Faraway trip – each one is personally crafted from scratch by us, and tailored to you. This means every escape is completely unique, depending on where you want to go, how you like to travel and what you’re looking for from the experience. There are so many different ways to experience a destination, so we’ll listen to your likes and dislikes, and make recommendations that we think you’ll love.
That said, we specialise in a few things. Firstly, we thrive on organising out of the ordinary honeymoons which are as adventurous as they are luxurious. Secondly, we love planning escapes that are unique, unforgettable and encourage our travellers to experience something new – either for couples, families or groups of friends.
Want to know more? Read some of our latest testimonials, or read our introduction to Faraway and what we’re all about.
2. How far in advance should we start planning?
We recommend allowing between 6-9 months to plan a honeymoon or a special escape. This gives us time not only to plan and design your trip, but also secure all the bookings. Plus, it means you can spread any payments out over direct debits if you need to. If you’re planning to travel during peak season, or have a specific experience you absolutely don’t want to miss, we’d recommend starting even earlier.
3. Is there a minimum budget for your trips?
Yes – we have a minimum budget of £5k, excluding flights, day-to-day spend and our service fee. As a guide, a Faraway honeymoon (or any romantic trip for two) typically lasts from two to five weeks, with a budget of between £6k to £9k. Family escapes and birthday celebrations tend to be shorter, lasting around a fortnight and with an average budget per adult of £2,500.
Of course, this will vary depending on your choice of destination, the time of year you want to travel, plus the grade of accommodation and types of experiences you’d like to include in your escape. If you have any questions or concerns around budget, we’re happy to explore them with you on a free call.
4. How do you research your recommendations?
Many of our recommendations are places we’ve personally experienced and loved – either through our own travels, or research for building Faraway. If we haven’t visited a place ourselves, we get a lot of tips from well-travelled connections or friends in the travel industry.
Sometimes, especially if we don’t know the destination well or haven’t visited for a while, we’ll work with a local partner who may take care of the transport and other logistics too. We also make sure we keep up to date with the latest travel trends, from social media and blogs to the travel press. We always cross-check every recommendation to make sure our information is up to date and relevant for you personally.
5. How much input do you expect from me?
This is entirely up to you. Some of our travellers are much more hands-on and have clear ideas on what they do and don’t want, or a specific experience we need to incorporate into their escape. Others are completely open to recommendations and want something that will surprise them.
Either way, we’ll ask you to complete a brief at the beginning that has a few questions around what you’re looking for, how you like to travel and any ideas you’ve had so far. Then there are a couple of opportunities for your feedback while we’re planning: first when we’ve put together your top-level plans, and then again once we’ve mapped out the details of each hotel and experience.
6. Can you just give me some recommendations, and I’ll book them myself?
Unfortunately, this isn’t something we offer at Faraway. As we work on a commission basis with our travel partners, we are funded through the bookings we make. If you’d like to understand more about this, read our blog post on how we make money.
Also, taking care of everything from research to bookings means we can create a completely seamless and personalised experience just for you. When you make your first payment to us for our services, you are asked to sign our terms and conditions which explains we’ll make all the bookings for you, excluding flights.
7. Will you share a detailed breakdown of the costs?
As the escapes we create are often quite complex, made up of lots of different stops, hotels, experiences and transfers, we won’t give you a full breakdown of prices, just the total cost for the entire trip.
When we share your detailed trip plan with you, you’ll see a full list of the hotels, experiences and transfers included. This will be within (and sometimes under) your budget. We’ll also highlight a couple of opportunities to splurge if we think an upgrade could be worth it, and clearly specify how much extra it will cost. If you need to cut back costs elsewhere in order to accommodate an upgrade, just let us know and we’ll suggest ways for you to do so.
8. Can you find me the cheapest prices on the internet?
We agree rates with the travel partners we work with so that our prices are no higher than if you booked with them directly. We also double check the price of every single hotel and experience whilst we’re planning your trip, just to make sure.
We regularly monitor our rates against the large online booking platforms to keep our prices as competitive as possible. However, as a young travel company that specialises in planning bespoke and unforgettable trips, we simply can’t price match them if they offer promotions or discounted rates on specific hotels.
9. How do I pay for the trip?
Once you’re happy with the plans, we’ll take a 30% deposit of the total trip cost in order to make your bookings for you. Payment can be made by bank transfer or credit card (subject to a 1.4% administration fee charged by our external payment provider).There are two options for paying the balance. You can pay in full 60 days before you travel – as above. Alternatively, we can set up a monthly direct debit for you at no extra charge if you’d like to spread the cost.
10. What happens if I change my mind?
A great deal of time, care and attention goes into personally-crafting a bespoke escape. Before we begin planning, we’ll ask you where you’d like to go, when and an approximate budget (as well as some questions to explore how you love to travel). If you’re unsure on any of these core details, we’re happy to advise you. If you change your mind once we’ve already researched and created your plans, we may need to charge you an additional fee to re-plan your trip. For more information, please see our terms and conditions.
11. What happens if I’m not happy with the plans?
We truly hope this won’t happen, as we’ll have spent time getting to know you and asking questions to understand what you’re looking for, and designed an escape around that. However, you have ten days after receiving the detailed plans to give us your thoughts, and we’ll happily rework things to make sure it’s the escape you’re dreaming of.
If something goes really awry and you’re dissatisfied with the service we’ve provided, we’ll offer you a refund. This must be flagged to us within fourteen days of receiving your plans (see our terms and conditions).
12. What insurance do you have in case something goes wrong?
We’re a member of the Travel Vault (reference EVO/FFI/2018 0016), and compliant with ‘the Package Travel, Package Tours Regulations, 1992’. This means that all travellers are fully insured for the amount of money you spend with us. As well as this, you must have your own personal travel insurance for the full duration of the trip. As a relatively small business, we don’t have an ATOL. This just means we don’t handle your international flight bookings, but we can offer our advice on which flights to take.
At Faraway we create bespoke escapes you’ll never forget; we understand how important your time off is, so we’re here to take away the stress and help you go on an incredible trip.
Would you like us to plan your dream escape? Book in a free exploratory call here to get started.
Team Faraway x
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