I have a few trips planned this month so I thought it would be helpful to share with you all my thought process when planning a trip abroad. I normally have an idea of places that I want to visit and things I would like to see so I enter the planning process with some knowledge. Although more often than not, when I begin looking at my budget and availability, the destination changes multiple times. Due to my work pattern, I am currently mainly focusing on short city break trips where I can tick a new country or city off my list in a short time span. I would normally have an idea of the time that I would like to go, e.g if I have a specific time period booked off work or a short weekend trip, where I don't need to use too much of my holiday allowance. Once I have an idea of the time that I would like to go abroad, I then focus on five factors to plan my ideal trip. These factors are: destination, budget, flights, hotel and excursions/sightseeing. Below I have given a run down of each of these components and my logic behind each one.
Budget
Whilst times are tough financially, budget is one thing that should be top of your planning list when arranging a trip abroad. It is easy to get carried away when looking through all the incredible destinations and stunning pictures, which is why it is important to set yourself a realistic budget and try not to overstep the budget. This will also help you to ween out the unrealistic destinations and focus solely on the large amount of exciting potential destinations. I would advise your budget including hotel, flights and transportation to and from the airport. It is up to you whether you would also like this budget to include spending money, however I have found that the best way is to book a holiday in advance and buy currency nearer the departure date so you can set some money aside for currency each pay packet.
Destination
Normally I have some type of idea of what destination I would like to visit but depending on my budget, I like to leave this open to interpretation when trip planning. My most effective method to help me decide on a destination, is to visit holiday websites such as British Airways and lastminute.com where they have options such as 'BA holiday finder' and 'Lastminute deal finder'. These helpful tools allow you to input your ideal dates (which can be as broad as a whole month) and filter onto the necessary components such as budget, timeframe, star rating etc. Once I have whittled my destination down to a few choices, I then begin to google reviews from people that have visited the destination, including travel bloggers and influencers. I then also have a search through social media sites such as TikTok and Instagram to view a variety of pictures and videos posted by explorers. This normally helps me to decide on a destination because I am able to see real-life experiences and images from a unique point of view, rather than the generic travel pictures that are shown on holiday websites.
Flights
For sense of ease, I like to book package holiday deals which include flights and hotels together. However, I have found much better value deals when looking for hotels and flights separately. A personal favourite website of mine is skyscanner, which browses thousands of flights to find you the best value for money. On skyscanner, you can also search without a specific destination in mind by typing 'anywhere' into the destination box. This will then bring up the cheapest deals for your time frame, which is also a great way to choose your destination in order to stay within your budget. Depending on how long I am planning to visit a city for, I normally like to choose early morning departure flights and afternoon/evening return flights to help me experience as much as I can within a short timeframe. It's handy to note that not all airlines include luggage, particularly the budget airlines where you have to pay around £60 a person for one cabin luggage on a return flight. I have recently started packing very light and taking a small rucksack on board instead of paying the extortionate extra baggage charges. Although this is not a good choice for everyone, especially if you are someone who likes to have multiple changes of clothes just in case. Overall, by looking around and being flexible, you can find some great flight deals. My fiancé and I are travelling to Dublin for the day from London soon and we managed to get a return flight for less than £20 a person, leaving early in the morning and returning late evening, which will give us a whole day exploring Dublin for less than the cost of a train ticket to certain locations in London.
Hotel
Some people are very picky about hotels that they stay in and whilst I like to think that this is not me, I am quite particular about certain accommodations and I put a lot of time into searching for the best base for a trip exploring a new city. Location is very important to me and I like to find hotels which are within walking distance to some of the main sights. I also search for the distance between hotels and the airport to make sure that I am in easy transport distance to the airport, to ensure that I don't have to waste a lot of the day travelling when I could be exploring instead! I personally normally go for 3* and above hotels, however if the destination is known for being quite affordable, I will change this to 4* and above. I like to look through pictures of hotels and get a feel for the atmosphere, eg. whether there are bars/communal areas and what the restaurant areas look like. I normally try to get hotels with breakfast included so if I can find pictures of the breakfast, that is a nice bonus! Once I have narrowed the hotels down to a few, I will then look at the reviews of each one searching for certain key words such as 'location', 'room', 'staff' and 'breakfast' to get a feel for whether I think I would enjoy staying at this hotel. Similar to my destination tips, I would also advise conducting a social media search of your potential hotels, to receive an honest point of view from guests that have stayed there and see some pictures/videos that aren't promoted by the hotel.
Things to do/ Excursions
I am a keen sightseer and want to make sure that I see all of the popular and 'must see' areas of each place that I visit. This is where Google becomes my best friend as I frantically search for 'Top things to do in [location]', once I am aware of my destination. If my hotel has already been decided then I also look at things to do and see around that area and excursions that can be taken within my timescale of being in the city. Some of my favourite websites to look for excursions on are Tripadvisor and Viator. I would normally search for the location that I am visiting and then see if anything takes my fancy. I have found some of my best tours this way, including a wine tasting tour in Sofia, a vodka tour in Kraków and a catamaran trip to see dolphins in Madeira. Due to me trying to visit 30 countries before 30, I also see if there are nearby countries that I can visit via train to help me tick another country off. A highlight of doing this, is being able to experience a mixture of cultures and locations. One of my favourite memories is travelling from Vienna to Bratislava for an evening and having some incredible food and drink whilst appreciating how fortunate I am to be able to travel freely and effectively to complete my goal 🧳
I also want to note here that another potentially important factor that people think about when planning a trip, is weather. I am not too fussed about the weather when I'm exploring new places and I personally am happy to experience whichever weather condition fits the location best e.g snow in Iceland or extreme heat in Dubai. However, if you are someone that is easily affected by weather, in the sense that rain could potentially ruin your trip, then this is definitely a factor that should be taken into account when trip planning.
I hope that you have found these tips useful and feel free to message me with any questions that you may have. Happy trip planning 🌍