Having traveled pretty extensively over the past few years, I've
developed a routine way of planning for my holidays. When I first started
traveling, it was one city per vacation and usually a major city with
convenient transportation. But as I gained more experience, I started to plan
trips with multiple cities and countries on the agenda or even including more
remote places that are harder to access. Certain places are simply just not
possible to plan with just a single guide book in hand. Since I've received a
lot of questions and requests from friends, I've decided to organize my
planning process and lay it out in this easy to follow blog post.
Before we start the research, you just need to know what
dates you have to work with.
I'm going to use some examples of my itinerary from traveling to
South Africa, Japan/Korea, and Malaysia/Indonesia. If you would like detailed
copies of my itinerary please reach out to me separately.
You will need: Google
(Images/Maps), Pinterest, Wikipedia, Skyscanner.com, Hotels.com/Agoda/Expedia
Step 1: Google or find
Photos of places you want to go on Pinterest
Take this as window shopping for destinations. Don't worry about
where they are, how far they are or how much it will cost. Just save the name
of the place and a picture to remind you what it looks like. You can start with
Google since it will show you the more famous spots. Also read a little bit
into the links that show up on the first page of Google, it may include website
articles like "Top 10 Things to do" or "Top 10 things to
see".
I also find Pinterest incredibly useful. It will show you more
scenic locations and sometimes less well known that won't necessarily show up on a
Google search. On certain Pinterest photos it also leads to, again, blog posts
like "Top 10 places to go to in..."
Step 2: Look up the
locations and mark them on the map
Now that you have a list of pretty places that you potentially
want to visit, pluck them on a map to give you an idea of where things are. You
can either do it on word, or just print a map out and mark the locations (hint:
Google Maps really help). Again, don't worry about where it is, how to get
there, or how much it will cost just yet.
Step 3: Look at
transportation options (Flights/Train)
Now that you have mapped out things you want to see, the next step
is to look at the surrounding airports. Certain smaller domestic airports will
only serve flights to a limited amount of cities. This is where Wikipedia will
really help you. If you search for the airport name in Wikipedia, it will give
you a section like this:
In this case, I searched for Tawau which is the airport closest to
item 10 in the previous section, Sipadan. You can see that there are only
flights from very limited places, and I can only recognize Kota Kinabalu and Kuala Lumpur. So I will need to use those 2 places as transfer spots, or
potentially spend a couple of days at those places as well.
When you are traveling within Europe, you have to do your homework
with Airports as well. Don't just simply ask expedia to fly you to Paris, there
are 3 airports and one is a 1.5hr bus ride away from the city.
You will also face the "small domestic airport" problem
in more rural parts of China, especially on the western side. Certain airports
only serve 2-3 flights a day between 2 cities, so this information will be
useful later on.
Trains will be the most
helpful when traveling in Japan. They have one of the most extensive and
convenient railway system and you can go between city to city in no time. It is
just very complex and it's good to work out before hand. Google Maps will
really help in this case to figure out which train to take and what direction
you should aim for. In this previous blog post about Japan I have
steps on how to read the railway map and how to take trains in Japan.
After planning out the flight options, you might have something
that looks like this:
Step 4: Choose the places
that you would like to go and would fit into your traveling schedule
Oh dear, you have more
pieces than you can fit into the puzzle.
Don't underestimate the distance. Even though the map above looks
small, the drive all the way to Cape Point was a good 2 hour drive. After
looking at the options of getting to these places, you can either book tours
(which will take up 1 whole day for each location) or you can rent a car or you
can hire a driver. All in all, you can't do everything. I only ended up seeing
Muizenberg, Boulder's Beach, and Cape Point. It was done by the help of some
friends as well as hiring an Uber driver (we paid a set amount for 4 hours of
his time).
Step 5: Look at hotel
options
Next we look at hotels. If you are going to a major city, I'm sure
it will be very easy. I usually go on one of the common hotel booking websites
(hotels.com, expedia, agoda), search the city and go into Map View so I can see
what is closer to the things I want to do. Remember, don't book anything yet,
we are just looking for now.
If you are traveling to a beach destination and
would like to book a villa/resort to pamper yourself, have a look on Pinterest
as well. Usually you will be able to find the high end resort recommendations
near the top. Another tip for booking resorts at beach destinations is to look
for a place that provide booking activities and tours for you. This
will be extremely helpful in case you have some last minute changes
(something got cancelled or the weather isn't helping your original itinerary) and will
also help you save a lot of time trying to find agents or some dodgy dude at
the beach trying to charge you for way-too-much-for-a-jet-ski.
Below is the website of a resort in Langkawi, you can see there
are a variety of things you can do. There are activities for indoor, outdoor on
land, and water sports.
You can even e-mail the
resort and request them for a full list of activities and the cost associated.
They responded me within 12 hours with this complete list. It's like ordering
activities off of a room service menu.
Step 6: Book down flights
& Hotels
Finally, you can to book down everything. I would highly suggest
to list everything in order of time on one page. Include the date, flight time,
airport codes, hotel names, and prices before you start booking. I cannot stress this
enough because I've heard of so many cases where people have booked the wrong flight
(because it's an overnight flight and somehow our brains can't calculate
when the clock strikes midnight) or when people have forgotten to book a hotel on a certain night and were left with no option but a sh*tty backpacker's place for a
night.
So with booking flights and
hotels, here are some things to remember:
- Book
the flights first and then the hotels after. TRIPLE CHECK the date and time
- Leave
enough time for land transportation to and from the airport to hotel
- Consider
different scenarios: sometimes booking 2x one-way tickets is cheaper than
a round trip ticket.
- Let's
say your holiday officially starts on Friday, you may consider to fly out
Thursday late evening.
- If
you fly out on a late evening and land at a city where it is NOT your final
destination (and will continue flying the following day) don't forget to
book a hotel near the airport.
- Hotel
booking websites like expedia aren't necessarily better than booking from the
Hotel's official site itself. Certain rooms might not be available,
certain add-on services might not be available. Always have a look at both
before booking.
And now you are officially
ready for your holiday! Woo hoo!
You can also prebook some of the tours you want to go on, especially the ones that will take up a whole day. Think about what you want to do on certain days. If you are scuba diving, you need at least 18-24hrs of rest time before boarding your next flight.
There's also other things
you would want to look up for your trip such as:
- Currency Exchange Rates
- Visa Requirements
- Recommended Vaccinations
- Scams and things to watch out for
- What to pack (especially if you are going trekking or doing water sports)
This is just an example of
my Itinerary of when I was traveling in Korea and Japan a month ago. No tour
guide needed, just one piece of paper. (And very detailed train transfers, because the railway system is pretty complicated.)
Enjoy your holiday!
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