Vacation Planning TIps
I am a firm believer in the necessity of planning your trips before you go. By planning beforehand you alleviate unnecessary stress and eliminate wasted time. For some people, they don't like planning or think they want spontaneity on their vacations. I get not wanting to feel confined to something and wanting the ability to explore, but you can still have the feeling with some planning involved.
I want to detail how I do my planning so you can do it, too. After many trips, I have perfected my methods of planning and it has never failed me. I often have people ask how I accomplish so much on vacations, and my answer is always, "I plan beforehand." It's key to a wonderful trip. I'll try to break it down, step-by-step, to make it as easy as possible.
I want to detail how I do my planning so you can do it, too. After many trips, I have perfected my methods of planning and it has never failed me. I often have people ask how I accomplish so much on vacations, and my answer is always, "I plan beforehand." It's key to a wonderful trip. I'll try to break it down, step-by-step, to make it as easy as possible.
Step 1: Research
This is sometimes my favorites step. It's where you envision all the possibilities of places you can go. It's a virtual field trip of the world. Sometimes I will know exactly where I want to go and other times, I'm not sure. Do this research online. It's free and can really help you narrow things down. Sometimes, researching online can be overwhelming. For instance, we know we want to go to Europe sometime in the next few years. Where in Europe do we want to go? I have no clue. I've looked online and it's information overload. So, I did a little research about the best guidebooks for figuring out where to go and purchased this one. I am currently reading through it to see which countries make the most sense for us.
Step 2: Pick Your Destination...Well in Advance
Once you research and find out information about different places, determine where you actually want to go. Do this well in advance. We book most of our trips at least 9 months in advance. Part of the reason for this is to simply save money. When you book farther in advance you will save on airfare and hotels. Once I know where I'm going, I will often buy a guidebook, specific to that destination. The guidebook will provide me with helpful hints on where to stay before we book our hotel. I go on Amazon to see which guidebooks get the best reviews. Don't just buy any guidebook, because some are awful!
Step 3: Start Researching Accommodations and Book
When traveling, where I stay is very important. I want it to be nice because a bad hotel can ruin a vacation for me. Start to look at websites such as Tripadvisor to see what people are saying about the accommodations and seeing their pictures, rather than the ones provided by the hotel itself. I suggest picking a few different accommodations that seem fit what you want and then compare prices. When looking at costs, compare them across websites. Surprisingly, I often find the best deals on the hotel's website, not a third party booking site. Always check cancellation policies, no matter where you book. One thing I have learned from the pandemic is that you must have an out! Once you have found a hotel that checks all your boxes, book it!
Step 4: Air Travel
Step 3 and 4 are really interchangeable. So, feel free to do one before the other, but I often do them simultaneously on the same day. To me, the hotel and airfare must happen at the same time, because you can book your hotel, but if the airfare isn't doable, the hotel is pointless. And vice versa. You can use Google Flights to get an idea of which airline has the cheapest and best flight. From there, I always book through the actual airline's website. I do this for one big reason, and that reason is because if you have cancel or change your flight for any reason, it's easy. If you book through a third party, you will encounter many headaches. When the pandemic hit, we had several flights already booked through Alaska Airlines. I was able to text them, cancel my flights, and get a credit. Easy! My friend, on the other head, had a flight booked through a third party. She struggled to get through to them, and once she did, they basically said, "Sorry! Nothing we can do." She lost out on her money. If you purchase trip insurance, then go for it. But again, it will be headache trying to get your money back. My time is not worth the extra savings.
Step 5: Book Rental Car
Once you have booked your hotel and flights, you are ready to book a rental car, if you need one. Again, I often do this on the same day as the hotel and flights, or shortly after. Sometimes, I will actually book this before the hotel and flights because there is usually no penalty to book a rental car and is super easy to cancel. I always book through Costco. They have the best rates by far. We even supposedly get deals through our Chase Sapphire Reserve card, and those deals come nowhere close to the price Costco offers. If you don't have a Costco membership, then definitely shop around to find the best rates. Always book your rental car as far in advance as you can. Never wait! Prices are almost always cheaper the earlier you book. For instance, we booked a rental car for our upcoming Hawaii trip almost 9 months ago. If I were to book it today, which is three months away, it has more than doubled. So, we are paying around $500 for the week, but if we booked today, we would pay over $1,000. Later, I will talk about a tip on getting the best deal on your rental car, the closer your trip gets. Also if you wait too long, you might miss out on getting a car. They do sell out.
Step 6: Create Your Itinerary
Now that you have secured all the important things such as flights, hotel, and rental car, now comes the fun part! This is where you get to plan your dream trip. And the best way to do this is to create an itinerary. For some people, they feel an itinerary is too confining. But it doesn't have to be that way. Think of your itinerary as a guide that allows you follow it if you need ideas on what to do, or throw it out the window if you find something way better as you are exploring. It's not a must-do, but think of as a can-do list of ideas you have at the ready to make sure you are't wasting a single second of your vacation trying to figure out what to do or see. There are steps to planning an itinerary, so I will break that down for you to make it easy.
Step 7: Keep Checking!
After you have everything planned, or you are in the itinerary planning stage, keep checking on your rental car. What I mean by this, is go and see what it would cost if you would book it again. Sometimes, your price will go down. Because there is no cancellation penalty, if your car drops in price, cancel it, and rebook for the cheaper price. Sometimes it will go down and sometimes it won't. For our last trip to Disneyland I did this and saved $100 from our initial booking price. But with our Hawaii trip, it's more than doubled. It never hurts to check!
You can also do this with your flights. Most likely, they will only go up. But sometimes, you can hit it just right and the flight has gone down. With the changes since the pandemic, some airlines will offer you a credit for the difference. I have done this on our past few flights and save those credits to use for a future flight.
Step 8: Print Your Itinerary
Once it is time for your trip and your itinerary is set, I always print it and put it in my backpack that I carry on my flight and with me throughout our trip. Ideally, I will not use this printed copy and be able to access it all on my phone, since it's a Google Doc. But, there have been times in which I don't have cell service and having a hard copy has saved us. So, print it and keep it on you your entire trip.
Step 9: Enjoy!
Now it's time to enjoy all of your hard work. Use your itinerary to guide you through your vacation eliminating wasted time on decision making and guaranteeing you experience great places because you vetted them beforehand.
The biggest thing I want you to know about an itinerary is that's just a list of possible ideas. Nothing is set in stone. If you are out exploring one day and talk to a local resident and they let you know about an amazing restaurant you hadn't heard of, then try it! Skip what you planned and save it as an extra. Or, if you are driving and see a sign for a hike that looks cool, park and do the hike. Or, maybe there will be some historic wildfire and send smoke covering your hotel and the beaches you were supposed to go to that day, so you swap that day with a day you had planned for three days in the future so you can escape to the other side of the Big Island and get away from the smoke. No joke, this actually happened to us on our trip to the Big Island. While people were ending their trips early, we used our itinerary to change and adjust and we escaped the smoke (for the most part), and continued to enjoy or trip.
Also, an added benefit of planning an itinerary, is that it helps you pack. I will pull up the itinerary as I pack and think about what I need for each day. If I'm going on a hike in the morning, pool in the afternoon, and a nice dinner at night, then I know I will need three outfits for that day. I am guaranteeing I pack what I need, but also don't overpack trying to assume what I might need.
I hope that once you try this process out, you will never not do an itinerary again. Or, if you have always used an itinerary, you start this much more detailed process to guarantee the best trip possible.
This is sometimes my favorites step. It's where you envision all the possibilities of places you can go. It's a virtual field trip of the world. Sometimes I will know exactly where I want to go and other times, I'm not sure. Do this research online. It's free and can really help you narrow things down. Sometimes, researching online can be overwhelming. For instance, we know we want to go to Europe sometime in the next few years. Where in Europe do we want to go? I have no clue. I've looked online and it's information overload. So, I did a little research about the best guidebooks for figuring out where to go and purchased this one. I am currently reading through it to see which countries make the most sense for us.
Step 2: Pick Your Destination...Well in Advance
Once you research and find out information about different places, determine where you actually want to go. Do this well in advance. We book most of our trips at least 9 months in advance. Part of the reason for this is to simply save money. When you book farther in advance you will save on airfare and hotels. Once I know where I'm going, I will often buy a guidebook, specific to that destination. The guidebook will provide me with helpful hints on where to stay before we book our hotel. I go on Amazon to see which guidebooks get the best reviews. Don't just buy any guidebook, because some are awful!
Step 3: Start Researching Accommodations and Book
When traveling, where I stay is very important. I want it to be nice because a bad hotel can ruin a vacation for me. Start to look at websites such as Tripadvisor to see what people are saying about the accommodations and seeing their pictures, rather than the ones provided by the hotel itself. I suggest picking a few different accommodations that seem fit what you want and then compare prices. When looking at costs, compare them across websites. Surprisingly, I often find the best deals on the hotel's website, not a third party booking site. Always check cancellation policies, no matter where you book. One thing I have learned from the pandemic is that you must have an out! Once you have found a hotel that checks all your boxes, book it!
Step 4: Air Travel
Step 3 and 4 are really interchangeable. So, feel free to do one before the other, but I often do them simultaneously on the same day. To me, the hotel and airfare must happen at the same time, because you can book your hotel, but if the airfare isn't doable, the hotel is pointless. And vice versa. You can use Google Flights to get an idea of which airline has the cheapest and best flight. From there, I always book through the actual airline's website. I do this for one big reason, and that reason is because if you have cancel or change your flight for any reason, it's easy. If you book through a third party, you will encounter many headaches. When the pandemic hit, we had several flights already booked through Alaska Airlines. I was able to text them, cancel my flights, and get a credit. Easy! My friend, on the other head, had a flight booked through a third party. She struggled to get through to them, and once she did, they basically said, "Sorry! Nothing we can do." She lost out on her money. If you purchase trip insurance, then go for it. But again, it will be headache trying to get your money back. My time is not worth the extra savings.
Step 5: Book Rental Car
Once you have booked your hotel and flights, you are ready to book a rental car, if you need one. Again, I often do this on the same day as the hotel and flights, or shortly after. Sometimes, I will actually book this before the hotel and flights because there is usually no penalty to book a rental car and is super easy to cancel. I always book through Costco. They have the best rates by far. We even supposedly get deals through our Chase Sapphire Reserve card, and those deals come nowhere close to the price Costco offers. If you don't have a Costco membership, then definitely shop around to find the best rates. Always book your rental car as far in advance as you can. Never wait! Prices are almost always cheaper the earlier you book. For instance, we booked a rental car for our upcoming Hawaii trip almost 9 months ago. If I were to book it today, which is three months away, it has more than doubled. So, we are paying around $500 for the week, but if we booked today, we would pay over $1,000. Later, I will talk about a tip on getting the best deal on your rental car, the closer your trip gets. Also if you wait too long, you might miss out on getting a car. They do sell out.
Step 6: Create Your Itinerary
Now that you have secured all the important things such as flights, hotel, and rental car, now comes the fun part! This is where you get to plan your dream trip. And the best way to do this is to create an itinerary. For some people, they feel an itinerary is too confining. But it doesn't have to be that way. Think of your itinerary as a guide that allows you follow it if you need ideas on what to do, or throw it out the window if you find something way better as you are exploring. It's not a must-do, but think of as a can-do list of ideas you have at the ready to make sure you are't wasting a single second of your vacation trying to figure out what to do or see. There are steps to planning an itinerary, so I will break that down for you to make it easy.
- Start a working document. I like to use Google Docs. This way I can share it with others, add links right into it, and continue to modify it as necessary
- In the document, start by listing each day you will be traveling. As I plan things, I will name each day with the big activity we are doing that day. It helps give me perspective about our plans for that day. You can see my itinerary that I started for our Kauai trip in 2020 that never happened because we had to cancel due to the pandemic starting. So, it's not complete, but it should give you a clear picture of what I mean about all of this.
- Start using your guide book, online resources, Yelp (for any dining out), and watching Youtube videos, filling in each day with what you want to do, where you will eat for each meal, and any extra information that you feel is pertinent to know. I will even use the Maps app on my laptop to see how long it takes to get places and write that down. And, always check days and times places are open and write that down. That can sometimes help you determine where to fit that into your trip, if a place is only open certain days and times.
- Make sure whatever you list, you have researched and people recommend it. Or, you can use my blog for ideas on places that I recommend. Again, see my the itinerary I started, for what this looks like for me. Feel free to use this template that I have created, for easier planning.
- I have parts on my itinerary of a to-do list, so I don't forget anything. I also have a list of things I need to remember to pack. I will often read something that someone recommends and add that to my list.
- I also have a part where I will list extra activities. This way, if something doesn't work out, I can look at this part and pick something for us to do. Or, as I'm researching and planning things out, I might not be sure of which day that thing will fit into, so I will put it in the extra category and then cut and paste it into the day it belongs, once I figure that out. It just helps me remember that it's something we want to do.
- You will also noticed a section for coffee, restaurants, and dessert. I used these sections to add places I come across in my research and place them where they fit in the itinerary. If they don't fit, I will leave the list as back-up options when something doesn't work out. Coffee gets its own section because it's a essential we have good coffee while on vacation.
- I also add in links to specific places for extra information or restaurant menus to easily remind myself of the food they serve. That way, if it's not what we are feeling that day, I will go to my extras section and pull out a different restaurant.
- Ask the people you are traveling with what they want to do, and make sure to fit it in. This is another perk of an itinerary. You ensure everyone gets what they want.
- Alternate days between being really busy and exploring with more laid back days. I tend to make our first full day somewhere a relaxing day by the pool and then the next day we are off exploring, going on hikes, or playing at beaches. Then the day after, we might stay at our resort. This will guarantee you aren't run ragged while trying to vacation and relax. Along these
- You can sit down and do this all in one day, or break it up. I like to doing a little here and there between the time we book everything all the way until the week before we arrive. But, there is usually a day or two in which I will really sit down and dig into researching and planning. After that, if I come across something else, I can take something out, or add something in.
Step 7: Keep Checking!
After you have everything planned, or you are in the itinerary planning stage, keep checking on your rental car. What I mean by this, is go and see what it would cost if you would book it again. Sometimes, your price will go down. Because there is no cancellation penalty, if your car drops in price, cancel it, and rebook for the cheaper price. Sometimes it will go down and sometimes it won't. For our last trip to Disneyland I did this and saved $100 from our initial booking price. But with our Hawaii trip, it's more than doubled. It never hurts to check!
You can also do this with your flights. Most likely, they will only go up. But sometimes, you can hit it just right and the flight has gone down. With the changes since the pandemic, some airlines will offer you a credit for the difference. I have done this on our past few flights and save those credits to use for a future flight.
Step 8: Print Your Itinerary
Once it is time for your trip and your itinerary is set, I always print it and put it in my backpack that I carry on my flight and with me throughout our trip. Ideally, I will not use this printed copy and be able to access it all on my phone, since it's a Google Doc. But, there have been times in which I don't have cell service and having a hard copy has saved us. So, print it and keep it on you your entire trip.
Step 9: Enjoy!
Now it's time to enjoy all of your hard work. Use your itinerary to guide you through your vacation eliminating wasted time on decision making and guaranteeing you experience great places because you vetted them beforehand.
The biggest thing I want you to know about an itinerary is that's just a list of possible ideas. Nothing is set in stone. If you are out exploring one day and talk to a local resident and they let you know about an amazing restaurant you hadn't heard of, then try it! Skip what you planned and save it as an extra. Or, if you are driving and see a sign for a hike that looks cool, park and do the hike. Or, maybe there will be some historic wildfire and send smoke covering your hotel and the beaches you were supposed to go to that day, so you swap that day with a day you had planned for three days in the future so you can escape to the other side of the Big Island and get away from the smoke. No joke, this actually happened to us on our trip to the Big Island. While people were ending their trips early, we used our itinerary to change and adjust and we escaped the smoke (for the most part), and continued to enjoy or trip.
Also, an added benefit of planning an itinerary, is that it helps you pack. I will pull up the itinerary as I pack and think about what I need for each day. If I'm going on a hike in the morning, pool in the afternoon, and a nice dinner at night, then I know I will need three outfits for that day. I am guaranteeing I pack what I need, but also don't overpack trying to assume what I might need.
I hope that once you try this process out, you will never not do an itinerary again. Or, if you have always used an itinerary, you start this much more detailed process to guarantee the best trip possible.
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