Planning basics
How far in advance should you book a trip?
Book international flights two to five months out and domestic flights one to three. Hotels in places with limited rooms, like the Amalfi Coast or Banff in summer, go six to nine months ahead. Restaurants with tasting menus release tables one to three months out. Timed-entry attractions are the tightest: some release on a rolling window and sell out the same day.
The deadlines that matter are the ones with fixed supply. A flight can be expensive and still available; a shuttle ticket to Moraine Lake or a slot at the Anne Frank House either exists or it doesn't. Those are worth a calendar reminder for the release date, because they don't reappear.
Peak-season accommodation in small places is the other genuine constraint. A town with a few hundred rooms fills months out in a way a city with thousands does not, so the same trip taken in Positano and in Lisbon has very different booking horizons.
Everything else has more slack than people assume. Day-to-day restaurants, local transport, and most museums can be handled a week out or on the ground, and holding those open is what lets you change plans once you see the place.
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