I know 2010 is several months away, but when it comes to planning vacations, the best way to really plan the best trip is by planning in advance. This way you are able to do the proper amount of research on the destination and you can gather feedback from all of the people that will be traveling to make sure everyone will be getting what they want out of the trip.

A major bonus to planning vacations in advance is that you are likely to find deals and discounts since you will be an early bird and companies will be more than happy to lock you in to a deal to guarantee that they will have a vacationer traveling with them in the future. Whether you prefer to book your vacations online or have a travel agent readily available, booking in advance gives you flexibility and many times, if you need to make adjustments or need to add to your vacation, the changes will likely be accommodated since more options will be open now as apposed to later when everything gets booked up.

My favorite way to travel is on a luxury cruise with some of the top name cruise lines like Regent, Oceania, Princess and Azamara. What's great about the luxury cruise experience is that you get the all-inclusive vacation experience like you would in resorts in Mexico, but at a different level of class since they completely pamper you during the whole trip. The luxury cruise ships are smaller than the more family/party related ships, so the experience is more elegant, private, and intimate.

And as is the case with cruises in general, you can visit several different destinations in one vacation. So on a one week European cruise; you could potentially visit 4 different countries. When will you be able to do that by foot!?

Traveling on a ship makes things much more manageable because you have a safe place to call home and it's easy to keep track of where the kids are at since they can only wander off on the ship.