I have planned a lot of trips in the past couple of years. Pretty much every long weekend, random holiday, or major break from university has ended up in some sort of trip. I’ve gotten to travel all over Scotland and Europe in the past two years. I have also started planning a whole year of trips in China and Asia for this year. I thought it might be helpful to share some tips about how to go about getting started planning a trip.
Time
There are two main factors that will pretty much decide how your trip will go: time and money. Let’s first talk about time. The amount of time is one of the most important factors in planning a trip. If you only have a weekend, you’ll probably be looking at a city break (probably somewhere that’s not too far from where you are) and you won’t get to explore the place you’re going very thoroughly. Weekends are great for domestic trips to places that need more than a day trip to get to. Some of my favorite weekend trips have been to Inverness for the anniversary of the Battle of Culloden and a weekend in Dublin with my friend. For those trips, we picked a convenient place to stay and then planned a couple of things to do each day, focusing on the main attractions (whether that be popular tourist attractions or just the things that drew you to that place).
For longer trips, you have more flexibility. You can stay based in one place and take day trips to explore the area. You can also slowly move from point A to point B, seeing what you want along the way. I personally have a lot more experience with the former, since it means you can leave your stuff wherever you’re staying. Also, you can often get a discount if you stay in one place for the whole week (like on Airbnb). Though this style of travel doesn’t really suit trips longer than a week or so.
If you do have a month or so to travel (lucky you!), you should probably consider moving through a region, country, or a few countries. Like I said, I don’t really have a lot of experience executing these trips, but I have a lot of them planned. Maybe I will put those dream trips into a separate blog post. Moving more slowly, especially if you walk, cycle, ride horseback, etc. as your mode of transportation. If you move location every day or two, your transportation costs will drain your budget a lot faster. It’s a bit counter-intuitive, but if you travel more slowly, your money will go further and you can travel for longer for less money.
Money
The other big factor is money, unfortunately. However, you can make your money go as far as you want. Like I said, if you travel more slowly, your money will go further. If you want to take a train to a different city every couple of days, your trip might be a lot shorter, depending on your budget.
The main factors you have to consider in relation to your budget are lifestyle, location, mode of transport.
Lifestyle is pretty obvious. Food and accommodation are most likely going to be the biggest costs, so how much you spend on those will decide your budget for the most part. If you want to stay in a 5-star hotel, your budget is going to look very different than if you were staying in a hostel, camping, or couchsurfing. Similarly, if you eat at Michelin-star restaurants you’ll be shelling out a lot more money than if you try to eat at local dives or try the local street food. Whatever your budget or priority, traveling is definitely possible, since you can tailor it to fit your lifestyle. But if you’re trying to stretch your money, try street food and stay in local or independent accommodation, because you might find the same amount of money could pay for a trip twice as long.
Where you go will also decide how far your money goes. Some countries are just more expensive than others. If you go to Southeast Asia or Eastern Europe your money will go a lot further than if you go to to countries like Norway, Switzerland, South Korea, or Japan. And even within a country or region, the closer you are to bigger cities and tourist attractions, the more expensive things will be.
One of the biggest expenses when traveling can be transportation, so your mode of transportation can make it or break it for your time budget or your money budget. Flying is the fastest mode of transportation, but it can also be really expensive. Trains and buses can be a good alternative if you have the time. If you have a lot of time, but not a lot of money (and especially if you are a bit more adventurous), you can walk, cycle, or hitchhike wherever you’re going. Slow travelling is cheaper and can also give you an opportunity to see a bit of the countryside or what’s between point A and point B.
Location, Location, Location
Now that we’ve talked about time and money, we can talk about the “where.” I’ve never really had trouble coming up with inspiration for where I want to go, since I pretty much want to go everywhere. I just follow where my interests lead, whether that be language, culture, food, climate, etc. If you are having trouble coming up with inspiration for places to go, check out the travel category on Pinterest or the #wanderlust tag on Instagram.
If you have lots of ideas, but need help deciding where to go (like me), think about your time and budget. That will usually give you an idea of what continent you’re looking at. After that, ask yourself these questions.
1. Where do you have connections? Do you have any family friends, long-lost cousins, or high school friends you could visit? Anywhere where you can get local insight or free accommodation?
2. Where is the cheapest flight? I have booked several trips this way. For example, from Edinburgh it costs 30GBP round trip to go to Dublin or Oslo pretty much any time of the year. I have gone to both of those places for that reason! Also, Google Flights has a really helpful feature, where you can look at a map and see how much it costs to fly pretty much anywhere from a destination of your choice on any given dates.
3. Where is on my “someday” list? I’m a firm believer that if you have the opportunity to go somewhere, you should just go. Travel is a unique opportunity, which you should always take advantage of. If you’ve got a free weekend, you should go check out that park nearby you’ve been meaning to go to, or to the city just an hour away that has a really cool museum you’ve been meaning to check out. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a place on your bucket list, but if you have always wanted to go to India and you have a week or two that you could take off, and maybe you’ve saved up some money, just go! It’s really cheesy, but if not now, then when?
Another big factor in deciding where I’ve gone in the past has been where I have friends that can host me or at least give me some good recommendations. This is one of the best and richest ways to travel, because you get to know the place you’re visiting so much better. The human element is also, I’ve realized, a really critical part in my overall travel experience.
I hope this was helpful. I will follow this up with a more in-depth post about what to do once you’ve decided to go somewhere. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!
