HOW TO PLAN A TRIP?

That can be a loaded question.  Picking a travel destination is a personal preference.  If you are going on a pre-planned tour-driven vacation, planning is not going to be at the top of the list because all the hard work is already done.  But what about trips where you have to put extra efforts into the planning?  I’m here to help as I’ve learned a few things over the years that help me and can help you with planning your next vacation.

This is my 10-step list of how I plan a vacation:

1. Where do I want to go?

2. What amount of time do I have?

3. What is my budget?

4. Do 1-3 reconcile with each other?  If not, then rinse and repeat until those items match your needs.

5. Transportation.  How do I get there?

6. Where will I stay?

7. How do I choose activities?

8. Learn about the culture/holidays.

9. Be organized.  Create notes that make sense to you and your travel partners and keep electronic and hard-copy tickets for reference.

10. Enjoy yourself.  

OH, THE PLACES YOU WILL GO….

Where do you want to go?  When someone asks me that questions, my answer is simple.  I want to go to all the places.  Everywhere.  I love travel and experiencing new cities, cultures, and food.  But you cannot go everywhere and do everything all at once.  You have to be more specific and intentional in planning a travel destination.  Factors such as season/weather, budget, and time management are important.  If I’m trying to plan a trip to Europe, I am not going to make that happen over the Memorial Day holiday weekend.  There’s also an old saying about having champagne wishes on a beer budget.  Know what you can spend, whether it be time, money, and commitment, as you make your travel plans so that you can pick the best trip, and timing, to go.

As I am planning my most recent trip, I take into consideration not only what I want but also what my husband wants.  Our trip will be at Christmas and I want to see the Alps and Christmas Markets.  My husband wants to go back to Scotland.  How do I make this work?

TIMING IS EVERYTHING

In my example, I’ve got two geographic areas that are close enough to make work.  If Husband wants to go to Bali and I wanted to go to Paris, we would be flipping a coin because that would not be realistic.  Scotland and Central Europe are accessible by plane so I can work with this plan.  The question is, how much will we need to make this trip?

When taking a trip to Europe from the US, you have to count two days off your schedule for travel days.  You will lose 6-12 hours during a flight across the Atlantic and your body will need time to adjust.  While a return trip is a bit more economical with time, you are still looking at both travel days being somewhere between 12-20 hours, depending on connections.

The next consideration is how long to spend in each destination.  The Alps cover eight different countries and if I want to make my Alpine Christmas Market dreams come true, I need to consider where in the Alps we want to visit.  After much research, we decided on two cities – Vienna and Munich.  While Vienna sits east of the Alps, it looks like an amazing city – especially at Christmas.  In addition to the Christmas Markets, it is a good jumping off point to take daytrips.  Munich is in the Bavarian region of Germany.  We can reach Munich by highspeed train with relative ease while seeing the Austrian countryside.  It’s a gateway to the northern edge of the Alps so we can visit the Romantic Road to see the castles and scenery while also enjoying the city itself.  Edinburgh, Scotland will be a city of second impressions for us.  We visited Edinburgh last year and fell in love with the city.  As we took each place into consideration, we decided to break the trip down with four nights in Vienna, three nights in Munich, and four nights in Edinburgh.  When adding travel time, our total travel time will be twelve days.  Since we are traveling over the Christmas holidays, we can make that work with our schedules.

CAN’T BUY ME LOVE

I wish we lived in a world where money was no object.  If time and money were no object, I’d be on a jet plane with my husband and my dogs going around the world every week.  Once I get a rough outline of what I want to do, the next step is to start building a budget.  Your budget should include not just transportation but also where you will stay and some key activities during your trip.  It is also a great idea to research how much bang you can get for your buck at your destination.  Scotland is easy.  We’ve been there and the Pound Stirling is somewhat comparable to the US dollar.  Things there seemed no more expensive that in the US.  Germany and Austria are in the European Union and use the Euro.  I asked Google, as I often do when looking for random information, if Munich or Vienna are expensive.  Basic search tells me that Vienna is a relatively affordable city whereas Munich is one of the most expensive cities in Germany to live.  Armed with that information, I can build a reasonable budget to account for our time in each city to add to the transportation and hotel costs.

CAN WE MAKE THIS WORK?

This is where you take your champaign dreams and compare them to a realistic budget.  The first draft of this trip left me thinking I was the Tiger King in that I would never financially recover.  So I changed some aspects of the trip, found rooms that were less expensive, and scaled back on an activity or two.  Once I had a rough estimate, I took that to my husband and we discussed what the trip would look like financially and where we could add or subtract.  I’ve gone back to the drawing board on this several times and we finally agreed on a budget that would not make us regret the trip and would allow us to experience as much as possible.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Is it just me or is the best part of travel getting there and not the physical travel?  I love to fly but have a horrible time sleeping on planes.  Regardless, you cannot go to Europe from the US without boarding a long-haul flight unless you have an extra week or two to take an ocean liner.  So how do I look for flights and select the best ones?

There are many websites and apps dedicated to searching the skies for the best deals.  I look for the best prices and compare them with the connections and layovers.  For me, I want as direct a flight as possible with as few layovers as possible.  Credit card travel sites like Amex and Chase have great search engines for flights.  Another tool, especially if flying to Europe or other area, is to Google flight options.  There are small carriers like Ryan Air and Easy Jet that have affordable flights that are not always on the larger travel searches.

How do you get between locations?  For the trip I am planning, we will take a highspeed train from Vienna to Munich.   Even though the flight time is approximately an hour, flights on our particular day of travel are more expensive.  When I compared the amount of time it would take to get to airport before flight, flight time, and then time to get to our hotel in Munich, the train was comparable in time and cheaper in cost.  Plus, it’s a great experience to take a train in Europe.  For our jump between Munich and Scotland, we have to take a plane.  Thankfully, we were ablet to find an affordable option for the short flight.

The key takeaway is to do your homework and remember that cheap is not always best. 

WELCOME TO THE HOTEL CALIFORNIA…

…or any other hotel of choice.  I think hotels can make or break your trip and research in this area is really important.  If your budget is unlimited and you can stay at a 5-star resort everywhere you go, then that’s awesome and I would love to be your friend or adopted child so I can travel with you.  The rest of us have to make good choices.  

Location.  Location.  Location.  I think this is the first thing you should look at when booking a hotel.  Search engines will allow you to narrow your search down to specific neighborhoods and that’s what I try to do in cities I’m visiting for the first time.  For Vienna, the Innere Stadt area appears to be near most of the sites we will want to see.  The translation is actually “city center” or “inner city” and that’s exactly where we want to be – close proximity to sites and tourist attractions.  It doesn’t mean I get it right every time.  When we went to Edinburgh last year, we stayed at the Caledonian.  Great hotel and I would recommend it 10/10 times.  However, it’s about a mile to walk to the Royal Mile.  Since we will only be in Edinburgh for four nights, proximity is more important to us so I found a hotel closer to where we want to be.

Along with price and location, I think the other thing you need to look at are room amenities.  Hotels outside of the US do not always have a king-sized bed.  Is that important to you?  Maybe not.  Is it important to my husband and I?  Absolutely.  Make sure to look at property pictures not just from the hotel’s website but from other travel forums like Trip Advisor.  We just got back from a conference in Gatlinburg.  The room and hotel looked amazing online.  When we got there, the room we were offered was not the one in the picture.  Do your research.

THE TRAVEL ANTI-HERO

Yep.  That’s me.  I want to do all the things.  I want to see all the places and do all the things.  I’m come close to ruining a few vacations because I overbooked too much.  How do you decide what to do?  I think you need to ask yourself a few questions.

What interests me?  I love history so sticking me in a historic city center or museum is my love language.  I love beautiful landscapes.  Sending me to an Alpine Lake to see the mountains reflect off the mirrored water is my happy place.  Food tours in foreign countries?  Seriously, the best way to visit a new city and to get comfortable in your surroundings.  Figure out what you and your travel group like to do and plan activities you enjoy.

What is the area famous for?  When in Rome, go to the Coliseum.  When in Naples, go to Pompeii.  When in Athens, go to the Parthenon.  If someone travels all the way to one of these cities and fails to visit the most important sites and landmarks at least once, can you really say you’ve been there?  I am all for unique adventures but the gold standard tourist sites are a must.  If I go to London, you better believe I’m going to go to the Tower of London if it’s my first time.  Be a part of what makes a city special.

Utilize tour groups and walking tours. I love to learn and tour guides are knowledgeable teachers.  In the Middle East, most tour guides are required to have a license through their country’s ministry of tourism and even have specialized training in history and archaeology.  We recently discovered food tours and it’s one of the first things we do in a new city.  It’s easy to point a camera at a famous location but it’s another to learn about what’s in the frame of your camera and experience it.  

Don’t overbook yourself.  It’s me.  Hi.  I’m the problem, it’s me.  Tay, I feel you sister.  I’m an over-booker.  I want to see all the things and, in the process of trying to see all the things, exhaust myself.  I have good intentions but so does every other anti-hero.  I promise to do better.  How?  Plan downtime.  If you’re heavy in activities for a few days, give yourself a day of rest.  Book a massage.  Plan a picnic instead of walking several miles.

DO YOU REALLY WALK LIKE AN EGYPTIAN?

Of course not.  But it’s important to learn the basics of any place you’re visiting.  Tipping is cultural.  I worked my way through undergrad waiting tables and bartending.  I tip – and tip well – when out in a restaurant.  If you are in the US, Canada or Mexico, tipping 15-20% of your total bill is the norm.  In Europe, a tip like that may seem excessive.  Do a little online research before you go so that you know what to expect.

In Italy, longer meals are the norm.  In fact, it is custom to eat later in the evening rather than our normal 6-7:00 p.m. meal time.  Also be mindful of food choices.  If you go to Israel, get a basic understanding of Kosher foods and rules so that you do not accidentally order something that is improper.  I’ve been to the Middle East twice and you will not see a pork product anywhere.  Even if you are craving a bacon cheeseburger, do not ask because pork is not something eaten in Middle Eastern cultures.

As I plan my trip to Austria, Germany and Scotland, I’m going to do some research so that I can do my best to assimilate into 

THE JOURNEY OF A THOUSAND STEPS BEGINS WITH ONE STEP….

…and a really good spreadsheet.  At least for me it does.  We’ve been lucky enough to go on some complex trips.  When we went to Greece, we had five different islands/destinations that required multiple flights, connections, ferries, hotels, and tours.  I worked on that trip for months and managed to create a spreadsheet that had all the pertinent information.  I had hard copies of the tickets just in case.  I had electronic copies of our passports.  I gave a copy of the itinerary to a family member and my office just in case.  Our trip to Greece had a few hiccups – every trip does.  But it was made easier through organization and documenting.

GOOD TIMES

It takes a lot to plan a trip. Not every trip you take will include flights overseas or dinner times in Italy.  But the ones that do can be overwhelming.  This is especially true when you have people going with you.  I always feel responsible for my travel partners as I want them to enjoy the experience even more than myself.  I think it’s important to remind ourselves that the planning of vacations may not always be fun.  But the payoff is worth it.  Enjoy yourself and your travels.