An independent travel agency in Seattle that books one country and nothing else

A booking office, and not a tour company

Farevacation Bookings LLC is the company; Farevacation is the name it works under, at 2292 West Commodore Way, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98199. This is an independent travel agency in Seattle that arranges overland trips through Peninsular Malaysia and keeps a list of twenty three entries, twelve of them a single place and eleven of them two places set together.

It is not an airline, a hotel, a railway or a coach company, and it runs no tours under its own flag. It owns no vehicles and no rooms. Every part of a trip is carried out by a separate company inside the country, working under its own name, and this office stands between you and them for the length of the arrangement.

Why the map stops at one country

One country, learned properly, is the whole idea here. Peninsular Malaysia is small enough to cross by road and rail inside a week, and varied enough to fill a month: limestone hills, tea slopes, two coasts with opposite weather, and cities where four kitchens share one street. The list holds twelve places that stand alone and eleven pairings for people who want a contrast.

Everything runs on the ground. Nothing that flies is arranged here, and neither is passage by water; this office holds no agreement with any carrier of either sort. You reach the country under your own steam, and the arrangement begins on your first morning. Between that morning and the last one there is road, rail, and the rooms in between, each held with a company inside the country.

Which company ends up with which part of it

You are billed by the companies that do the work, in their own names, on their own paper. This office takes a commission from them once a trip runs, and asks you for nothing on top. There is no charge for the planning, no charge for a quote that goes nowhere, and no card number is handled at any point, on this site or in this room.

Being paid that way has a consequence worth saying out loud: the office earns only if you go, so there is a pull toward saying yes. The counterweight is written down. If a month is wrong for a place, you get told. If a pairing does not work at the length you have, you get told that too, and sometimes the honest answer is that nothing on the list suits you.

Four answers that are always no

No money is taken here, in any form. No insurance is sold and none is suggested, because it is a regulated trade and this office stands outside it. No entry paperwork is prepared, checked or advised on; what a country asks of you at its border is between you and that country, and its own published sources are the ones to read.

The fourth is quieter. This office prints no stars, scores, ratings or prizes, its own or anybody else's, and it carries no quoted praise from anyone. Nothing on these pages is arranged to make you feel late. No counter runs down, no notice tells you how many rooms remain, and no figure here is described as undercutting anybody, because nobody here follows what other offices charge.

Whose hand is on the other end

Messages to desk@farevacation.com are read by the people who put the trips together, not by a queue that sorts them first. You will not get a ticket number, a machine written note pretending to be an answer, or a different name on every reply. A request for a quote comes back inside one working day, written by a person who has the whole list in their head.

This office rings only the people who asked it to, and what you send never becomes a mailing list. If you write once and decide against the whole idea, that is the end of it. The office does not chase. The address on the letterhead is a room in Seattle with people in it, and the number printed at the foot of every page rings there.

Asked about this one more than once

Can I hand the money to you instead?

No, and there is no way to do it. Each company that performs part of your trip invoices you itself and collects what it is owed in its own manner. This office holds no account for client funds and no means of taking a card. Your quote says which company will ask you for what, so nothing arrives as a surprise.

Does the arrangement include getting to Malaysia?

No. Reaching the country and getting home again are yours to organize. This office holds no agreement with any carrier by air or by water and arranges neither. What it arranges begins on your first morning in the country and ends on your last, and all of it stays on the ground.

Why is there not a single star or score on these pages?

Because the only honest ones would come from travelers who went, and there are none here to print. Inventing them is common and it is not done here. Instead every entry is described in full, including the parts that might send you somewhere else, which is more use than a row of shapes.