Travel Planning

"'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'
'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.
'I don't much care where —' said Alice.
'Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat."
~Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland  

Whether I’m traveling for business or pleasure, I use similar approaches for travel planning. For what it’s worth, I thought I’d share my process. The description that follows implies a “self-guided” trip. You can, of course, just sign up with a tour group and let them make all the arrangements. We’ve done this and found it to be a wonderful experience. The tour group option is great if you don’t want to do any driving, are worried about a language barrier, want the benefit of a guide with you every step of the way, and you can find a tour group that will take you to the places you want to see. (Another advantage of a tour group is that anything you may have forgotten or run out of, someone in the group is bound to have it to loan/give you. This is especially true with older travelers and any medication you can imagine.)

Tour group, Greece 2010

Selecting travel dates: A work-related trip will have pre-determined dates of travel and a designated time and place for actual work. Traveling for pleasure is usually more flexible, within one’s allotted vacation days and work/personal commitments.

expedia.com

For pre-determined travel dates: I start with booking my flights. I live 45 minutes from a regional airport (MSN) and 20 minutes from a bus station that will take me to an international airport (ORD) in 2 ½ hours. My departure airport depends on where I’m traveling and how complicated it is to get there. If I count my bus trip to be the first leg of a journey, then I usually book non-stop flights from ORD at times that are convenient to me and fit with the bus schedule. It saves the hassle of worrying about missing a connection—barring severe weather that would ground a plane anyway, the bus is ALWAYS on time. If there is no such thing as a non-stop flight, or the times are horrible (I almost never fly at insane o’clock in the morning or red-eye within the U.S.), then I’ll fly out of MSN. As there are some places that just seem like you can’t get there from your starting point, I have had to resort to landing at an airport within reasonable driving distance and renting a car to get where I need to be.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Google_Maps_%22Mordor%22_easter_egg.png

When there is flexibility: I’m a fan of the “shoulder season.” This is the sweet spot between peak tourist travel time and the off-season. The advantages of traveling during shoulder season are fewer people/less crowds and better prices. The disadvantage is fewer special events like festivals, etc. I take into account where I want to go, what the weather is likely to be during that time of year, how much daylight there will be, etc.  I start to get a rough idea of what I want to see and do when I get there, how much additional travel will be involved, and what my options are for the beginning (and ending) points.  I plot my “anchor points” on a map (My Maps in my Google account works great) and look at flight options and costs (flight searching using Expedia, or similar, helps a lot). There are tons of websites that can tell you the best way to find low cost flights, so I won’t repeat that here. Eventually, I pick my dates and my arrival and departure airports and buy the “bookend” plane tickets.

My Maps - Google

Whether it’s a work trip or a vacation, I add interesting-sounding sites to My Map in my Google account. For a work trip, the location of the meeting or conference is plotted and a hotel is selected nearby; I love hotels within walking distance because walking to/from the place where the work is happening may be my only exercise that week. Google searches of “top places to visit in ____________” help me plot those initial sites.

https://www.britannica.com/list/10-places-to-visit-in-the-solar-system

For a work trip in which I’m traveling alone, I take into consideration anyone I know that lives nearby to try to arrange a meet-up. College friends with whom I’ve stayed in contact, colleagues whom I’ve worked with, family friends, even people I have met through social media are fun to invite for dinner.  Work trips don’t usually provide much time for sight-seeing, but I try to see at least one thing outside of the work. I may need to have several options selected and be flexible with the one thing for which I can arrange the time. Some big cities (e.g. Washington, D.C., London, New York, San Francisco, Singapore, etc.) have a night bus tour that allows you to get a flavor for the place you are visiting even if you are in meetings all day.

Washington, D.C. night tour

Vacation travel puts me in a mapping frenzy. I join Facebook travel groups for tips. I Google. I ask friends who have been there already. I watch documentaries on YouTube and research the filming locations of my favorite movies and TV shows. I look for the places mentioned in my favorite books. I plot points of historic significance. I read TripAdvisor recommendations. Eventually, patterns will start to emerge with clusters of mapped points centered geographically.  These central locations are where I look to arrange lodging.

My Maps - Google

Lodging: I look at the distances between things, what’s realistic to drive to in a day, how much time do I have to cover the ground I need/want to cover. I find lodging using a method similar to my mapping exercise—Google, friends, web services (e.g. Expedia, TripAdvisor, Hotels.com, Booking.com, etc.), social media. I prefer to have my lodging booked ahead of time. We once traveled till 3:00 in the morning to find a hotel vacancy in South Dakota and I prefer not to repeat that experience. If I trust enough to travel without reservations, I want to decide each day early in the afternoon the approximate location we plan to stop for the night and call ahead to book a room.

Lodging, Edinburgh 2015

Transportation: I’m a fan of railway travel. Maybe it’s because our stupid governor successfully campaigned on returning federal money for rail service in my state. Maybe I was a hobo in a past life. If I could fly somewhere and just take a train/subway everywhere, I’d be happy. I do this when I go to Atlanta, San Francisco, Washington D.C., and London. Sometimes it’s possible to stay in a place and take day tours. To cover the most ground, get off the beaten path, and have the most flexibility, renting a car is the way to go. Or renting a series of cars—flying or taking the train for some parts of the trip and driving for others.

King's Cross station, London 2015

Budgeting: I use a spreadsheet to track everything. As soon as I start narrowing down my trip options (flights, hotels, etc.), I add the projected cost into the spreadsheet. I figure in an amount for food, entrance fees, and entertainment. Each projected cost for a rental car is figured in. If my dreams come too close to my credit limit, then I need to trim some things—is public transportation an option? Is the lodging a better deal in a different city?

Becoming realistic and flexible: Time to prioritize the locations I’ve added to my map! What are the things I absolutely MUST see? What are the things conveniently located nearby? What would make suitable back-up plans if something doesn’t work out? I like both waking up in the morning and knowing where we’re going and what we’re doing, but also reserving the right to change my mind. I double check if there is a required check-in time for the place we’re staying that night and keep track of time so we get where we need to be by the deadline. If that means missing some stops in the afternoon because we lingered in the morning, those choices need to be made without regret.

2015 Ireland, Scotland, London Completed Trip

If you’ve stuck with this post to the end, what travel planning trips do you have to add? Respond in the comments!