The idea of creating their own trip itinerary sometimes overwhelms people. So they just go to one resort, stay there and come home. Or they sign up for a tour and then are unhappy that they spent so much time on a bus and didn’t get to linger in the places that interested them. Or worst of all they don’t even go anywhere.
We definitely think group travel has a role to play. Blonde went to Bhutan and is going to Cuba with small groups as you can’t go to either place on your own. And, for some people, group tours are the “easy button” of travel. Better a group than not traveling!
But we prefer to plan our own adventures, some of which become misadventures!
We have an itinerary planning approach that is fairly easy and we’re going to show you the basic process. You can use this approach to plan a trip on a budget or for an all-out luxury trip. Our process is best for people who plan well in advance.
We already have trips planned for 8 months from now. Ones planned at the last minute tend to be more expensive, have fewer options available and, if you want to use points, you may be out of luck.
Decide where you want to go and what kind of trip you want to go on
We are voracious readers of travel magazines, travel columns, bloggers and anything with the word “travel” in it. (Except time travel. We’re so not into that!)
Every year-end issue of a travel magazine lists where people are planning to go the next year. Of course this may only represent their advertising clients, but it’s still worth considering. If it is just their clients then at least you’re going somewhere making investments in tourism!
Here’s where the New York Times thinks we should all go in 2015.
National Geographic suggests these destinations for 2015. (No offense to those of you from Oklahoma, but can someone please tell us how Oklahoma City made the list??)
This is where Frommers is pointing us. (Sorry, can’t finish post – have to stop and book a trip to Argentina ASAP!!)
And USA Today offers a list of “affordable dream trips”.
Look at the itineraries on websites of reputable group tour companies
We don’t have any relationship with the sources we’re going to list so don’t get your knickers in a knot being suspicious. In fact, given how we’re going to suggest you use these sites, they may put us on their enemies list!
Luxury:
Mid to lower priced:
Get the details of any itinerary that appeals to you
We plan to take two weeks for a trip in September and almost all of the itineraries are for shorter time periods. Excellent! Our experience on guided trips has been that they allow less time to poke around than we like. But the itineraries on the websites are also fairly general so we’re sneaky and order their catalogs to get more detail.
The catalogs often show what you’ll do at each destination, perhaps identify lodging options and show how long you’ll spend at each city. We are not saying to do the same itinerary. If you’re going to do that then just book the group tour. We’re saying benefit from all of the work that has gone into developing these itineraries and then make changes to create the itinerary you want. (Also note that if they don’t run the tour in certain months that’s probably because those are lousy months to be there.)
Google itineraries
This is one of Brunette’s favorite ways to start planning. She used to always go to the Conde Nast Iconic Itineraries but it looks as if they stopped publishing them when they totally sold out to advertisers. Err, changed their editorial direction is what we meant to say.
But the old ones can still be found online, we’ve had great experiences with them and they’re still worth looking at. The places to stay or eat may be outdated but the destinations and amounts of travel time still hold. (A great site for all kinds of things including figuring out how long it will take to drive from place to the next is TravelMathCalculator.)
Rick Steves publishes some very good itineraries for trips ranging from long weekends to a month. He isn’t a fan of racing around trying to collect passport stamps but rather of savoring the experience, So his have proper amounts of time to allow everywhere its due.
Here’s one he has for 3 week trip in Portugal and Spain.
There are all kinds of other itinerary sources out there on those inter-webs that Al Gore invented, so check them out!
Check the weather and hours of light and dark
Weather sounds obvious but to our amazement we meet people who think it doesn’t get really cold in Europe. Others may not think about the fact that they’re going to a different hemisphere so the seasons will be the opposite.
Blonde went to Iceland in June one year. It was basically 24 hours of light a day. That was great for getting in a lot of sightseeing and never driving in the dark. It was discombobulating when we stopped for dinner and it was 11 at night and the restaurants had been closed for hours. If you go in December you may not have any daylight at all.
You need to know this stuff! If it’s all daylight then it’s critical that you have accommodations with room darkening shades. If it’s dark all the time you may as well leave your make up at home!
A source we always consult when planning trips is Wunderground. (No, it isn’t the Weather Underground. They were a group of social dissidents in the 60s who advocated for and caused violence. Things didn’t turn out well for them.)
You put where you want to go in the search box in the upper right corner of the screen. You will see current conditions. Farther over on the right and lower is a “trip planner” option. There you can enter something like “Lisbon, August”. It will give you average weather for that time of year over many years. If you’re willing to go on the assumption that this year will not be entirely dissimilar, it’s good information to go on.
Use guidebooks for more detailed itinerary information
If you’re lucky enough to live somewhere where you can go into a physical bookstore, peruse the travel section. Spend some time finding a book that appeals to you for your destination. They are not all created equal. Some, such as Michelin are for luxury travelers and others, such as Lonely Planet, are for those on a budget.
Look to see the date it was last updated. For many it may be quite a few years ago in which case you can’t count on their lodging or dining information as being current. Find one that is reasonably current and geared to your travel style/budget and buy it.
Use it for ideas of where to stay, eat and visit. They also tend to have “If you have one day to spend in Paris. If you have 3 days to spend in Paris” etc. sections that can be helpful.
Check holidays where you’re going
You do NOT want to be in a Muslim country during Ramadan or Eid al-Fitr (which follows Ramadan). During Ramadan everyone who is Muslim is fasting, tired and cranky until after sunset. Stay home and be married if that’s what you like! And Eid al-Fitr causes traffic jams beyond your worst nightmares as it comes at the end of Ramadan and there’s a lot of pent-up need for fun, food and family.
You may want to avoid heavily Catholic countries around Easter. Some of them basically close down from Friday through Monday or, in the case of Australia, charge you 15 to 20% more for your restaurant meals!
Chinese New Year? It seems to last for most of the year. Holidays in India can last as long as 8 days. Know what’s going on where you’re going before you go!
And in other hemispheres reverse seasons mean reverse school holidays. So search for that info too before booking anything.
Use local tour providers
Go to a website such as Viator and look for excursions where you’re going. (Disclaimer: They’ve given us some freebie experiences but we only asked them because we’d used them for about 8 years first.)
You may want to book some of their day or longer trips because they do a very good job of choosing high quality local guides. Or you may decide you just want to take their ideas and research and do it yourself. For example, they have a two-day trip from Lisbon. Maybe you’ll want to rent a car and do it on your own.
Sign up for airfare alerts
Do not assume you want to fly round-trip. You might want to fly into Lisbon and home from Barcelona. We used to waste a lot of time backtracking before we wised up and started to buy what’s called “open-jaw” tickets. (We think it means the airlines have their jaws open to swallow as much of our money as they possibly can.)
Orbitz, AirfareWatchdog and many other websites have ways to set up alerts. Use them.
Get excited about your trip and shop!
Wait for those catalogs to arrive and, if you’re like us, while you’re waiting go purchase all new clothes for your trip. We all know you can’t wear anything you wear at home in your new destination. Duh!