Welcome to this series of hints and tips designed to improve your travel experience. One of our people asks whether if travelling out of Australia towards Europe should they be considering a stopover on route and if so should they book the stopover arrangements directly through the airline. Is it a good idea to think about a stopover on a long haul flight and if so then which is best? Going out or coming home. First suggestion is to research from home. Research what the destination offers before you leave home and plan accordingly. This will give you a chance to think and plan about things that will be on offer to you to turn your trip into a really memorable vacation. It's up to the individual. The issue of how well people are able to cope with flights between Europe and Australia varies with many factors. These can include your age, stamina, how tired you are at the beginning of the journey, your mental state and diet during the flight. Depending upon the selected route, the trip usually consists of a long haul and a shorter haul sector with a total time in the year of more than 21 hours. Which way is best? We generally find that a break on the return sector works well for us when we're travelling through Asia. This gets the long haul sector behind us, allows us to adapt our body clock to a time zone which is much closer to that at home. And with many flights arriving into Australia in the early morning, combined with time zone differences, can combine to make the day of arrival feel chaotic without such a break. Booking through your airline. It is generally possible to book your stopover accommodation through your airline's booking services. This comes from linkages between the airline at a number of hotel and resort groups. However, your choice of options will generally be less than you can find by searching online. But a combined flight and accommodation package may well offer a slightly lower total price. We do recommend if you are looking at a stopover trying to book an included transfer. In general, the last thing you want to worry about after coming off a long haul flight is trying to find a taxi, struggling to make your instructions, understood by the driver, and having to ensure that you have sufficient local currency to cover the fare and a possible tip. We suggest that you try to book stopover accommodation that includes an airport transfer service to avoid having to worry about such issues. For much, much more, please visit www.trevaltipsandhins.com