Having outdoor meals is a common way that we connect with our friends and families. Whether we are gathering with friends and family members or meeting new people, dining at restaurants is an excellent way to spend time together. Therefore, finding the ideal restaurant is one of the most important things to put into consideration if you want to have a nice meal and make a valuable experience. Here are six factors that you should always consider to make a perfect choice while choosing a restaurant.

Price of the restaurant

This is the most important criteria when it comes to choosing a restaurant. First, check your budget and decide to choose an appropriate one to dine at. Choose the right restaurant that will give you value for your money. When planning for Melbourne tours, finding the right place that offers you a good quality taste, excellent service and beautiful decoration will make you feel happy about paying. On the contrary, you won’t be satisfied with what you get when it comes to some fancy restaurant that does not provide a better-tasting meal and excellent service for you.

The General Hygiene of the Restaurant

Hygiene standards of a restaurant matter in choosing a perfect dining place. The places where the food is prepared and the entire dining area must be kept clean always. The research reveals that suggest that the cleanliness of the washroom any restaurant determines the level of hygiene of the whole restaurant. Most of the restaurants having their washrooms clean are more likely to prepare their food in a clean environment. It’s therefore important to use the washroom first before you start to order.

Service Offered At the Restaurant

Having meals at a place that does not even know what an excellent service means makes you unhappy, and it is not worth paying for. To avoid all this, consider choosing a restaurant where you can get the best service from friendly waiters and have an enjoyable dining experience.

Physical Location of the Restaurant

Choose an easily accessible restaurant from your house. Look at the distance from the bus stop, the taxi expense as well as the parking, and select the place which is convenient for you. It is a different matter when the location of the restaurant of your choice is a riverside or within the extensive garden. When that is the case, then you can choose according to your preferences.

The Restaurant Menu

The menu of a restaurant is one of the most critical aspects. Many people choose the dinning places depending on what particular cuisine they want to try. An ideal restaurant should be the one that can adequately serve fresh food and good taste. When you are trying to eat at a new place for the first time, it’s essential to know the kind of menus available first. If you intend to have a group dinner during your Melbourne tours, consider a place where you can get the general menus that all the people will enjoy.

Many of us just dream of a life, which Archana and Vidur are living right now. The married couple, who is the owner of ‘Travel my nation’, spoke to Glamtainment about their experience as bloggers, how they met, tips, their favourite place in India to visit and much more:

What inspired you to start Travelling and writing blogs?

Archana: Curiosity and a couple of personality traits. Both of us are drawn towards nature, simplicity and have a strong passion to be away from the crowds. Our inspiration also comes from the fact that both of us had a love for the outdoors since we were kids, we both lived in small towns that were high on nature and that we both didn’t want to be chained to a desk job forever.

A small cottage next to a bustling stream high up in the mountains, away from everybody! That’s the dream a lot of us have and we are working towards fulfilling that! After we both started travelling and posting pics, a lot of people motivated us to post more and write about it. And that’s how we got into blogging. We are still learning the creative process and it’s been slow progress for us. But we are grateful to everybody who sees our posts, likes them, follows us and read our blogs – every single view / like motivates us to do more and do better!

How do you guys meet?

Archana: I hope Vidur’s ex-bosses aren’t reading! When he was working at a startup, he hired Archana to lead a part of the team he was managing. Over a course of time, we got to know each other’s interest and went on one eventful trip, where we returned as a couple! For two people to find something they are deeply passionate about, creates a strong bond and we think it happened for us in that one trip! That passion is still going strong and that’s what keeps us motivated to do what we love and keeps the spark going in our relationship.

Q. How do you fund your travel?

A. Well, there are a couple of things we do to fund our travel. Firstly, we run www.travelmynation.in and earn money through the articles we post there and for other publications as well. Secondly, since a lot of people support us on Instagram – we have built a good, genuine following and get to work with brands who are looking to reach their target audience.

We have also started our own marketing firm under Travelmynation, where we offer creative marketing services for brands of all categories. And lastly, we have our own tour the company, Moto Overlanders (www.instagram.com/motooverlanders) which specialises in curated, offbeat tours especially for inbound customers.

Q. Would you encourage other people to make their blog and travel?

A. No cause that increases our competition!! Just kidding. Obviously, we feel everybody should journal their travels and share their experiences with the world. And that can only happen when they travel! All though, there aren’t a lot of places you can actually discover, but you can always discover new experiences and stories! And we feel that’s what a real traveller would like to read about!

Q. What do you know now that you wish you knew when you first started travelling?

A. That we could turn this into a full-time career. If we had gotten into this 15 years ago, it would have been easier for us to establish ourselves. Now it’s tougher because everybody is a photographer or Instagrammer or a blogger. Apart from this, we learned how to take part in green travel where we try to leave as little a carbon footprint as we can wherever we go. The challenge with our tourists’ spots is that they are heavily crowded and suffering from an ecological crisis. Take the J&K region for example. Now that anyone is free to buy properties there, hotels & resorts are going to make a bee-line for land purchase. But has anyone thought about the impact on nature? Through our travels, we try to educate fellow travellers and hoteliers how they can be more eco-friendly and reduce their wastage.

Q. Do you think Instagram (or any other social handle) verification helps in getting better deals and audience?

A. There are a lot of content creators posting amazing content and in return monetising this through Instagram without verification. However, we feel that the verification badge comes handy if you are setting up a shop on Instagram.

Q. Where is your favourite place in India? Why?

A. Ha-ha, this is a really difficult question to answer! So let us break this down. Archana and I love the mountains, their serenity, and beauty so obviously our favourite destination has to be up in the Himalayas! We loved the time we spent in places like Aru Valley, Kashmir, Arunachal and Sikkim and probably these are the destinations we love the most. Apart from this, we are hardcore wildlife lovers and that’s why Masinagudi is also one of our favourite places to be!

I was introduced to Alpfly.com by a colleague after he heard of the trouble I had while booking tickets from Bangalore to Darjeeling for a solo trip that I took to relax. I am usually a flight traveler but in January while looking for flights to Bagdogra that is the closest airport to Darjeeling to take some time off work and relax in the lap of nature I saw that there was no direct flight available and as it was a last minute plan, I did not have the time to take a stop over flight as I had a limited number of vacation days in hand for the trip.

So, I thought of booking a train instead I knew it was a peak season and finding a train would also be like an adventure but then I knew I had to take this trip so I decided to book a tatkal ticket as tatkal tickets are always available. But the cherry on the cake for my journey was when I saw that there was only one train available for the date I had selected. Yes, it is true that it is always better to book long distance trains about 3-4 months before hand to get availability and also good seats. But I was not sure if I could even manage a leave from office. Well, back to the incident Even while booking a tatkal ticket I had to prepone my journey by a day to get trains as trains to New Jalpaiguri that is the closest station to Darjeeling were only available on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. I got a ticket at last but the price of the ticket just blew my mind.

What Happened Exactly?

I had planned my journey in such a way so that I can reach Darjeeling from Bangalore by Monday but the train availability made a mess of my plan, so I booked my tickets for a Friday train which would reach New Jalpiguri on Monday night. The normal fare would have been around 3200 – 3500 but as it was a tatkal booking the price for a 2-tier ticket was between 3800 – 4000. Then I thought of checking for 3-tier ticket and the price showed between 2600 – 2800 but the catch was even tatkal was on waiting list. So, I was bound to book a 2-tier ticket.  It was a 2 day journey. But when I reached the station on the day of the journey I got to know that the train was running 2 hours late delaying my journey a little more. I was already irritated because of the long journey that I would have to take and this delay was another icing on it. After leaving Bangalore the train got little more delayed on the way and the journey in which I was supposed to reach the destination by Monday night, but I reached at 3 AM on Tuesday morning. My whole journey plan was spoilt due to the delay.

All my explore plans were put on hold, the train journey and the delay had already spoilt my mood and it made me so tired that I was not even able to enjoy the drive from New Jalpiguri to Darjeeling. Long distance trains generally get delayed due to some or the other reason that is the very reason it is always better to keep time in hand when you are travelling by train. But if you are in an emergency then taking a train is not an appropriate option but for that matter even flight rates are soring high. Because when I checked for flights rates from Bangalore to Bagdogra that is the nearest airport to Darjeeling the flight rates for economy class itself was close to 9500. This is why I decided to take the train as the price was relatively lower.

Here Is What My Colleague Said

When I told him the whole story of why I had to take an extra day off from work he told me about a site called Alpfly.com. Alpfly Private Limited is an independent travel Company that provides unique travel solutions to their Customers. He told me about its Star Plan which costs 32K. I asked him how is it cheap then? He told me that the cost is for 10 tickets and not one. They provide 10 tickets which I can use for the whole year from the purchase date. She also said that the ticket price remains the same even during the peak season. This interested me and I logged on to their site to know more about the plan.

What Got Me Interested In Buying The Plan?

Fare Per Ticket: On paying the one-time price of 32K your per ticket price remains 3199 whenever you book a flight. Well, it does not mean that you have to pay each time you book a flight. When you decide to travel you know that you have a ticket and you just need to book it. This really interested me as every time I decide to travel I do not have to waste hours in searching for cheap flight deals just to save few bucks. And the best part about this price was that it did not change even during the peak season. My most travel plans happen during the peak season so, this point got me very excited.

Availability and Validity: I mostly travel to the main cities in India by flight and Alpfly is available in all the main cities in India. The 10 tickets that I buy will be valid for a whole year from the date of purchase. This is the best solution to my travel woes. I am a frequent traveler and for me travelling on a budget is a must so this plan became perfect for me as now I could take 10 trips in a year.

The Main Highlights Of The Plan: Being a frequent traveler myself I know sometimes it is just not possible that a plan is so good to be true. So, during my research I read through all the Alpfly reviews and started noting down the best things that other Alpfly customers have said about it. And these are those points that molded me to buy the plan myself.

• The plan from Alpfly can be registered under 2 names. Well, this is an advantage as if I didn’t want to travel it could be used by any of the friend whose name would be registered with me. In that way none of the ticket would go for toss at the end of 1 year.

• It is true that we do not have to pay every time we want to fly but we need to raise a ticket request where we need to just confirm our travel date and the Alpfly support team would find the best flight for us. We will receive all the details 48 hours prior to our journey date. Well, but the request has to raised 7 days prior to the journey date.

• Each month the traveler can use 1 round trip. I do travel for work and booking a roundtrip on other sites sometimes costs a lot thus this plan is also perfect if I am travelling for business.

My Alpfly Experience

After being molded by all the attractive points I finally bought the Star plan. Here is my experience. The first flight that I booked was again from Bangalore to Bagdogra the nearest airport to Darjeeling. I raised a ticket request 7 days prior to the journey date as per the rules and I received my ticket confirmation and details 48 hours prior to my journey date. I was thrilled that they had booked me on a morning flight and it was also a direct flight. It took me only 3 hours to reach my destination. Well, the interesting part was if I had booked the same flight ticket from any other site I would have to pay almost 10K for the journeyand when I travelled through train the previous time I had to pay more and also had to face loss of time due to delay. Alpfly was a better experience than any other travel site as you do not have to pay every time you fly and you certainly do not have to spend hours on travel sites to find the best airfare or flight deal.

Alpfly is a one-time investment then it’s a ride of smooth travels for a year. The Star Plan was perfect for me as I usually travel alone but there are many other plans available as well which you can check out. Trust me it is a great experience and their plans solve travel problems for almost all kind of travelers including families. There plans are inclusive of all taxes and there is no hidden cost. So, you know that you do not have to pay any extra charge when you reach their payment gateway, you pay what you see. If you still have doubts buy the plan and get the best experience for your self.