Did the trip make it out of the groupchat?
I don’t know about you, but planning travel or a trip is literally my favorite part. Of course I love the actual trip, the airport, the experiences, all of that, but planning?! Oh yea, I’m in there. Let me get a good spreadsheet or google doc and it’s a wrap. You know when a group of people are talking and are like, “we should take a trip” and everyone’s like “yea let’s do it!”? I used to be the one building the google doc right there and then. I’ve learned my lesson from that lol, and now know to wait little to start the planning process. However, from the trips that I’ve taken (and not taken) I have a specific method for how I like to plan trips. Whether that be a group trip where all of us together bring our input, or a solo trip where it’s just me. Here is my method for how I like to plan trips!
First, why would you trust me to give advice on traveling. I’ve been blessed to go on my fair share of travel through group trips, organized travel, and most recently, solo trips. If you check out my about me page, you can see the places that I’ve been able to travel to. However, my most rewarding and educational trip was my solo trip this past summer. I went to 6 different countries across 3 different continents and had the best time ever. So, here’s how I like to plan my trips, whether it be group or solo!
1. Get people on board and weed out who’d for real or not
Find the people who are truly interested in going on a trip, or make it a solo trip! Once you get the group, do a preliminary search of what plane tickets are looking like, how much an average hotel/airbnb/hostel is, and the average that people spend in this location in a day. You can search those three questions on google to see about how much you think the trip will cost overall. Find who’s really okay with that ball park amount and move forward
2. Book flights
I know not everyone does this, but I do not plan trips until everyone or enough people have booked the flight. I have made that mistake before and get excited, start the planning and no tickets in sight and none come. My idea is that the flight really locks you in. I don’t know where I’m staying, I don’t know what I’m doing, but I know I’m going. Even for my solo trip, there were some places where I didn’t book my hostel for the next location until I was at the location before it. But I knew I was going there since I had a flight.
My favorite site to use is Google Flights, since it give a pretty comprehensive view, especially if you’re not locked in to a particular airline. Also, if your dates are flexible, you can easily see the cheapest date around the time that you’d like to leave!
3. Figure out the main things that you’d want to do to pick your stay
Find what type of vacation you want it to be so that you can book your stay. Do you want to rely mainly on public transportation, book a place closer to a metro station. Do you plan on renting a car, maybe you can choose an airbnb then. Would you rather do more mountainy activities than stay by the beach, maybe book a stay more inland than on the coast. Figure out the vibe and rough idea of the trip to then book your stay, since that is probably the next biggest cost after the flight.
For my solo trip, I knew that I wanted to do this on a budget, so I used Hostelworld, to find hostels in the areas that I wanted to stay, but were also nice enough to my standards. I’m incredibly particular about bathrooms, so reading the reviews on Hostelworld saved me from staying in a place with a bad bathroom, or bad rooms in general!
4. Pick out your excursions
If you’re in a group, decide on what excursion(s) everyone wants to do, and go ahead and book that to have it solidified.
5. Write out each day and put down the things that you know for certain are happening
What time you land, when you take off, if you need to pick up a rental car, what time you check in to your stay, when is your excursion, any special events that you want to have or go to. Write all of that out on a schedule for each day. For me, I used Goodnotes on my iPad to keep things electronic and easy to keep track of.
6. Go through tiktok, IG, google, to find restaurants or other things to do in this location
Make a list of potential restaurants near you and for all occasions (breakfast, brunch, dinner, lunch, drinks, fancy, cheap, etc). This will help for when you are there and want to eat, you don’t have to spend a lot of time searching for somewhere but you have options of places to choose
7. Go through the rest of the days and fill in the space
Are you leaving space to go with the flow instead of having a plan for everything. BE SURE TO INCORPORATE REST AND RELAXATION TIME!! Especially if you have a lot of jampacked days. Plan out when you will eat. Does your stay offer a free meal, how many times do you plan on eating, do you need to go to a grocery store when you get there?
8. Create a packing list and enjoy your trip!
Now that you have everything outlined, you have an idea of what you’re doing, figure out the things you’ll need to bring from home and get ready to enjoy your trip! You can find so many necessary packing lists on Pinterest and Google!
Bonus tip, if you’re going with a group, make the itinerary pretty! It’ll make people look at it more lol
So, here are my tips for how I like to make the planning part as stress-free as possible! If you’d like help planning any type of trip, do not hesitate to email me, or DM me on Instagram so that we can work together!