We can’t travel right now due to the Coronavirus pandemic, but that makes it the perfect opportunity to start planning for future travels! Take this time to decide on your travel goals, do some research, and develop a budget. We’re going to walk you through the steps that we take to plan a trip so that you can have some inspiration.
Getting Inspiration
The first step in planning a trip is deciding where to go. Most of us have many dream destinations, so it shouldn’t be hard to think of your top place or places. For others like us, travel is often necessary in order to see family, so that part is sometimes decided for us. But if you have many ideas and aren’t sure which dream destination to start planning a trip for, think realistically and do some research.
Look on Pinterest and Instagram to see things that people do in that destination. Decide if you’re looking for adventure or relaxation, cheap or a splurge, driving or flying, and other things like that. You can also check out other travel blogs for the destinations you’re interested in to see what are activities and estimated costs for the location.
Scheduling
When scheduling a trip, there are two main considerations we will talk about:
Time of travel. Look up events in the area, seasons, and other things that might draw you there at a certain time of year. For example, Liz came to visit me in Minot for 3 weeks and we knew we wanted to visit Winnipeg during those weeks. We found out that Cirque du Soleil was performing only one of the weekends, so that is the event we planned everything else around.
Also think about when you can realistically afford to take the trip, which goes into budgeting that we will talk about more below. Once you have a budget, you can decide how long it will take to save up for the trip, and then you can plan the time of year that you will go as well as for how long.
Deciding What is Most Important to You
Once you have decided the trip you are wanting to take, you can start to decide where you’re going to spend your money. For some people staying in a really nice hotel may be the most important thing, while others may want to save money here and decide to camp. Maybe you want to have dinner at one really fancy restaurant, and then look for restaurants on the less expensive side for the rest of the trip. Finding out where you want to splurge will help you to develop the best budget for you. When I travel I love to splurge on food and drinks, or experiences.
Planning to develop a budget
Next in the planning process you’ll want to start deciding what activities you will do on the trip, as well as looking into transportation, accomodations, food, etc. It is helpful to look at hotels and Airbnbs as well as flights in advance to get an idea of how much it will cost. You can also check out the restaurants in the area and make a general budget for meals. Next, make a list of potential activities and their costs. We like to make a spreadsheet detailing all of the estimates, which can be used to make a budget. This will help you in your future planning as well, since you’ll already have an idea of what you might do on the trip.
Creating your budget
In order to be a smart traveler, it is essential to make a budget outlining all of your expected and incidental costs. Traveling is way more fun when you know you can save up for it and afford to do all of the things! Some things to include:
Accomodations
Food
Activities
Transportation (to/from destination, uber rides, etc)
Souveniers
Travel insurance
Baggage fees
Phone plan (when international)
Incidentals
Make sure to take into account the currency exchange so you aren’t surprised that your money might not go as far in some places. Once you have your budget, then you can start deciding when you can take the trip. For example, if a trip is going to cost $1,200, and you can afford to save $100 a month towards it, you can take the trip in a year! This method of planning is better than first deciding on the trip and then thinking about the cost later. It is a great idea to open a separate savings account if you can, where every month you transfer the money to. This way you won’t be tempted to spend it early.
There’s so many more tips we could give about planning and budgeting for a trip, but these are the absolute basics to help you get started. Responsible travel is way more fun! Trust me, we’ve taken plenty of trips on a tight budget, or spending more than we could really afford, and it is so much more fun when you can enjoy yourself knowing that you have the means to do so! Happy planning!
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