In twenty-seven hours I'll be getting on plane, fastening my seatbelt and hopefully sleeping for 8.5 hours. When I wake up my school will be 4000 miles behind me, woohoo! (Only joking Mr Stredwick.)

Hopefully, our driver will be waiting patiently for us at Delhi airport. He will be our driver for the next 10 days until we reach Udaipur. After Udaipur we will be travelling by train, which is a little worrying at the moment, but I'm sure it will be fine.

The main things I'm looking forward to is riding on an Elephant's back and hopefully seeing some Tigers and taking some photos of them.

Mummy tells me that she loved having banana pancakes for breakfast when she went there last and this sounds great to me. I plan to have a different curry every day but I hope they're not too hot! I can get through a Madras curry okay but I've never had a hotter curry like Vindaloo.

Emilia

xx

It's always difficult to know when to book the flights; is it best to book early or leave it until the last minute?

I booked ours in September before the sale ran out on 27th September 2008.

Since then once a month I've been checking the flights and both British Airways and Virgin had 'sales' in September and December/January. At this time the flight prices dropped by 25%. At other times the prices have reverted back but now, with 8 weeks to go, they have dropped a little, but not below the sale price.

Eight weeks to go and it seems I can still book for four of us on almost the dates I wanted, I'd just have to return one day later as the flight out is okay but not the one back. The price is 13% higher than what I paid.

So it seems that booking six months ahead saves you money and you get the availability that suits your needs exactly.

Price Check Information:

• September (6 months to go), sale on, lots of availability, bought tickets
• October (5 months to go), 'normal' price, 33% higher that 'sale' price, availability okay
• November (4 months to go), 'normal' price, availability okay
• December (3 months to go), sale on, same price as I paid, availability okay
• January (2 months to go), sale on, same price as I paid, availability getting less
• February, (1.5 months to go), price seems to be coming down, now 15% lower than the 'normal' price but still 13% higher than the 'sale' price

Once I know roughly where I want to go the first step when planning a trip is generally to book the flight.

We decided on going to Rajasthan, therefore it made sense to fly into and out of Delhi.

After looking at the prices of flights in July 2008 for March 2009, it seemed the cheapest and best option was to fly Finnair from Heathrow to Delhi via Helsinki. Cheap, yes, but 14 hours with a delay in between. The direct routes were much more expensive although only took 8/9 hours.

Once we returned from 2008's holiday it was time to look at booking the flights. Luckily both Virgin and British Airways had a sale on, 25% off, bringing their price down to a hundred pounds more than Finnair. The timing of flights on British Airways didn't really suit us, whereas Virgin fly out at 10pm and return at 5pm effectively meaning one extra day in India for the same price and time off work/school.