When I start planning a new trip, I usually start in one of two places: 1) a specific location in mind, ie. the Caribbean, or 2) the type of vacation I want to go on, ie. family- friendly, romantic, or sightseeing.
If I have a specific location in mind I start by googling the location and seeing what comes up. This usually generates some basic geographical location information, the country or city’s tourism website, and other articles that discuss the location. I like to look over the tourism website to get a brief overview and flavor of the destination. Once I have a good basic knowledge of a destination, I like to look at the travel websites Frommer’s and Fodor’s.
Both Fodor’s and Frommer’s give a nice overview of the destination, best hotels, and things to do. Probably my favorite feature is the planning a trip section, which provides suggested itineraries relevant to the your destination.
If, however, I am open to destination ideas but have a type of vacation I want to go on, I will usually start by googling, “the best … vacation.” This should generate results from similar websites as below under “Somewhere to Rest Your Head.” I use the results to create my own destination list of options in a spreadsheet and start compiling data to determine which is the best options financially and for things to do.
The Spreadsheet
I like to start a spreadsheet to keep all of my research organized. This is especially useful when comparing multiple destination options. I try to include as much relevant information that I can.
My common categories include:
- Destination
- Arrival airport
- Airfare- includes price of airfare
- Places to stay- includes nightly rate x the number of nights stay
- Food- factor in the cost of food; this will significantly vary depending on the type of vacation you choose. Some will be included with the price of accommodations, like an all-inclusive resort or cruise, others you may plan to grocery shop and prepare some or all of your meals. If you are planning to eat out I try to over budget for food by estimating $50 breakfast, $50-100 lunch, $150-200 dinner for 2 people.
- Price
- Pros
- Cons
- Other categories may include- don’t forget to include other costs like a car rental, activities/excursions, airport transfers, etc.
Always Consider Safety
It is always wise to check if there are any travel advisories to your given destination. A travel advisory lets individuals know about the safety in a particular area, and can include warnings about terrorism, political unrest, war, natural disasters, health concerns, and crime. Multiple resources exist to aide in determining travel safety, which also includes health and vaccinations that are recommended when traveling to a particular region. There are various websites based on your home country, since I live in the US I included those, but also included a few from other countries as well.
Helpful websites include:
-
United States
-
- US Department of State or OSAC -provides travel advisory information for every country and scores the level of caution warranted given current state and events
-
- Centers for Disease Control– travelers’ health provides information on vaccines, medics, and health while traveling
-
- STEP– Smart Traveler Enrollment Program, which is a free service for US citizens and traveling nationals and citizens living abroad to enroll their trip with the nearest US embassy, receive safety updates about your trip, aide the US embassy and family in contacting you in case of an emergency
-
Similar websites for other countries
-
- Government UK– provides foreign travel advice, including safety, security, entry requirements, travel warnings, and health information
-
- Government of Canada– provides foreign travel advice, including safety, security, entry requirements, travel warnings, and health
-
- Safe Travel– (New Zealand), provides travel advisory information for every country and scores the level of caution warranted given the current state and events, also addresses health issues
-
- Smart Traveler– (Australia), travel advice and consular information
-
- Department of Foreign Affairs– (Ireland), travel advice and consular information, also includes an app!
- World Health Organization Travel and Health– provides vaccination and health recommendations and requirements for every country
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
If you will be flying the friendly skies, I like to start by getting a general idea of flight cost by searching on a flight search engine. I prefer the format of Orbitz, but I have found that Orbitz tends to have higher prices. Ultimately, I’m comfortable overestimating the price for flights just to be safe. Obviously, there are many other flight search engines available such as booking.com, Kayak, Expedia, and Priceline, to name a few.
So, head to Orbitz, if it is your preferred flight search engine, and search for flights from your local airport to your destination airport. Note: you can often search by country and a list of all known airports will be listed. If there is more that one, you may need to do some further investigation into what airport you need to fly into.
Since you are just getting a ballpark figure you don’t need the exact number of travelers to be accurate, the default (1) will suffice.
For the dates of travel, I generally try to choose 1) dates close to when I want to travel, 2) dates within the same travel season (high vs low season), or if you are pricing too far out and those dates are unavailable, then I like to use 3) dates around 1 month away.
When the results list is generated, aside from price, I also like to look at the number of stops, the length of the flight, and the flight times. Often the less ideal departure times are less expensive. I personally want as few layovers as possible. Also, consider time zones and the length of the flight. Since you will want to reduce jet lag, sleeping at the right time on a long International flight can be very important.
Somewhere to Rest Your Head
When looking for a hotel/resort, I like to look at the top recommended resorts for a particular destination. Ultimately, I want the best accommodations for the best/lowest price. I prefer looking at ranked lists, so I usually search “best places to stay in …” These are some of my more popular and trusted sources for places to stay.
Helpful websites include:
- US News and World Report – provides “Best Hotels” lists and rankings based on reputation among professional travel experts, customer reviews, and hotel class ratings; other rankings such as “Best Vacation”, “Best Cruises”, as well as travel advice
- Travel and Leisure – “The World’s Best Awards“, “Travel Guides”, “Cruise Finder”, and “Dream Trips.” They also publish great articles like, “The 50 Best Places to Travel in 2018” to inspire trip ideas.
- TripAdvisor – provides multiple ways to search for travel information, such as by type of vacation, popular destinations, romantic destinations, Travelers’ Choice: Top hotels, or by your selected destination.
- Conde Nast Traveler – includes “The Bests”, which provide a list of the best countries/destinations in the world, “Hot List”, which lists the hottest new resorts, “Gold List”, which can be thought of as the gold standard, no matter how many new resorts come out, you can’t go wrong with one of these, and the “Readers’ Choice Awards.”
- Luxury Link – provides access to 5-star accommodations
Attractions and Activities
Generally, if you have started out your research with a country or region in mind, you will have some idea of the attractions that location has to offer. Since I like to be thorough, I want to check if there are any attractions I may have missed, determine the location and feasibility of access, and price (unfortunately price can often be a rate limiting factor for most of us).
Helpful websites include:
- Google search- things to do in…
- TripAdvisor
- US News and World Report
- Forbes
- The country’s tourism website
Using these basic steps, you can begin planning a weekend getaway or the vacation of your dreams! Happy planning!
Leave a Reply