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.