Seventeen trips sit on this page. They are not filed by continent, by price, or by season, because none of those three tells you the thing you need first, which is whether the trip you want is still available for the dates you have in mind. So you reserve a vacation package by how far ahead it books, and the four tiers below run from a few weeks of notice to a year and a half of it.
Birchway Point is a booking office in Greensboro, North Carolina. We take reservation requests in writing, we work out what is actually open on your dates, and we place the reservation with the company that runs the trip. Nothing is charged here. We hold no card number, there is no checkout on any page of this site, and the operating company bills you directly on its own terms once the reservation stands. Our side is paid by that company as commission after you travel, which is why the price you see is the price the operator sets and not a marked-up version of it.
What the notice tier is actually telling you
The tier is a statement about supply, not about difficulty and not about how far away a place is. A short-notice trip has capacity that turns over week to week; a two-winters trip has one book that opens once a year, or a cap set by whoever issues the permits, or a single small vessel. Two trips can sit twelve hundred miles apart and share a tier because both depend on the same kind of scarce thing.
Reading the figures on every card
- Where the number starts
- The operating company's own per person rate for the dates and the room class named on the card
- What it is read as
- A starting figure for two people sharing, which moves with your dates and party size
- What lifts it
- Single occupancy, a higher room class, extra nights on either end, small group departures
- What is never folded in
- Airfare, gratuities, meals not written into the day plan, anything you buy on the ground
- What it does not buy you
- A held seat. The figure is a price, not a reservation, and nothing is held until the operator confirms it back to us
The seventeen, in tier order
A few weeks out
Book a short notice vacation package and you are buying whatever the calendar has not already spoken for. That is a smaller list than the brochures suggest.
Bornholm, DenmarkAn island whose whole letting stock resets on the same day each week.ferry, bicycles and a kitchen of your own6 nights, from $1,890 per person
Extremadura, SpainMore beds than demand, which is why three weeks is enough.hire car, oak pasture and Roman stone7 nights, from $1,980 per person
Abruzzo, ItalyNinety minutes from Rome and still nearly empty outside August.hire car, a high plain and hill towns6 nights, from $2,140 per person
The Rhodope mountains, BulgariaArranged demand barely exists here, so late works and costs little.guesthouse to guesthouse, driver on call7 nights, from $1,920 per person
Three to five months
Reserve a vacation package a season ahead and most of the ordinary decisions are still yours. The unusual ones are already gone.
Gotland, SwedenThe whole of Sweden goes in July, and the ferry fills before the beds.ferry, bicycles, a walled town and sea stacks6 nights, from $2,380 per person
The Alentejo, PortugalFour months gets the house you want; four weeks gets the leftover.hire car, cork country and a cold Atlantic7 nights, from $2,460 per person
Maramures, RomaniaFew good rooms and one guide worth having, all spoken for early.guesthouse based, driver and guide6 nights, from $2,290 per person
The Peloponnese, GreeceMay and late September are the trip; July is a different one.two bases, hire car, stone towers and olive terraces8 nights, from $2,640 per person
Eight to twelve months
Book a vacation package most of a year ahead when one piece of it is scarce and the rest is not. The scarce piece sets the whole timetable.
Shetland, ScotlandBoth the boat and the plane cap out, and the houses go to regulars.boat or plane, then a house and a car7 nights, from $3,180 per person
The Kackar mountains, TurkeyA walking season about ten weeks long, and that is the entire supply.village to village on foot, with support8 nights, from $3,260 per person
Masuria, PolandPoland books its own August first, and the moorings go with it.a house on the water with its own mooring7 nights, from $2,880 per person
Saxon Switzerland, GermanyAutumn fills first, and the good places take autumn bookings first.one base, walking and rail6 nights, from $2,740 per person
Eighteen months or more
Reserve a vacation package two winters ahead and you are not booking early, you are booking on the only day it can be booked at all.
The Mont Blanc circuit, on hut nightsThe huts open their books on one day and are gone within hours.hut to hut on foot, bags moved ahead9 nights, from $4,180 per person
The Overland Track, TasmaniaA capped number may start each day, and the season releases at once.six days on foot, permit capped9 nights, from $4,450 per person
The Kumano Kodo, JapanInns of six or eight rooms, taking reservations a long way out.inn to inn on foot, bags moved ahead8 nights, from $3,980 per person
Isle Royale, MichiganA short season, a boat a few times a week, and very few rooms.boat or seaplane, then on foot7 nights, from $3,540 per person
The Dry Tortugas, FloridaSeventy miles past the end of the road, on a boat that counts heads.one ferry with a fixed cap, seventy miles out6 nights, from $3,620 per person
Send the dates and we will tell you what is open
Write the tier you are looking at, the dates you have, and how many people are going. Requests reach the desk through this form at any hour, and the form is the only thing here that runs There is no attendance timetable on this site and there will not be one. Hours on a door answer a question nobody is asking, which is whether a human being happens to be sitting down at this moment. The question that matters is how long you wait for something useful. So: the request form is awake 24/7 and shuts for nothing, whatever lands in it is opened by a person before that working day is out, and a number against your own dates takes two to four working days because a second company has to answer first. No figure is guessed at to make the wait shorter.. A message sent through answered within the working day and answered by looked at before the working day ends; a written figure with the operator's terms attached putting a price on it takes two to four working days, because we ask them before we quote you. If you would rather talk it through, you can call a travel agent in Greensboro on (336) 680-4173 and we will pick up the same thread.
Two things are worth knowing before you send it. First, we will ask you nothing about payment: no card, no account, no deposit through this office at any stage. Second, a request is not a booking and does not put your name against anything. It starts the checking. If a tier has already closed for your dates we say so in the reply rather than steering you toward whatever is left, and we will tell you which departure of the same trip is the next one with room in it.
What you get back is a written figure per person, the room class it assumes, the dates it holds good for, what the operator includes and what it does not, and the cancellation terms as that company writes them. Read the cost of pulling out before you agree to anything, because those terms belong to the operator and vary from trip to trip; the short summary of ours sits at what people ask before they commit, and the order of what happens next is set out at the order the work happens in.
If your dates are firm and inside three weeks, say that in the first line. It changes which of the seventeen are worth even asking about, and it saves you a reply that lists trips you cannot get on.