[How to] Plan a Trip

How to plan a trip 

It’s great to be spontaneous and decide on a whim to go to a place but for me I only had 3 weeks and a lot to see so it was important that I planned things and booked ahead. Here’s how I created what I believe to be a pretty great trip:

1. Talk to people that have been/ check blogs- which cities do they recommend, how much money to spend and how to get there

2. Set a budget (with room for air and error) 

3. Make tough choices! Unfortunately if you have a time constraint like I did you can’t see everything so try and weigh what is most important for you 

4. Book! I love using sights like go euro because they aggregate bus, plane and train data for the cheapest and Hostelworld as the reviews tend to paint a picture of the hostel 

5. Pack and go! 

Here’s my personal planning: 

1. Bugged all my travel friends and scoured the interwebs 

2. My budget for Eastern Europe (2 weeks, 6 countries, travel by bus and free walking tours) was altogether 1000$ whereas my budget for Iceland was 1000$ but that’s because it’s a very expensive country – so it’s important to factor that it! 

3. I really wanted to see Slovenia but it’s a bit tricky to get to from budapest so I would have had to choose Slovenia or Croatia and when it came down to it I realized in this trip I valued going to Croatia more. (Don’t worry Slovenia – I’ll come for you another time!) 

4. Booking – I did a lot of research for the best options and had to look if the bus was the best option or if I would gain more by getting to the place faster. Overall night busses are great because you save on accommodation for the night. 

5. Check out my blog on packing (only a carry on!) for a trip 

For all of this I love using a spread sheet because it easily keeps track of costs and you can see different options. Shoutout to comm 290/391 for showing me how. 

Here’s my spread sheet for the three week trip I went on: 

Good luck planning and enjoy your travels! Let me know if I can assist in any way.

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