4 Steps To Get Started Planning Your Next Trip
Lake Tahoe, CA 2018
Hello friend! Thank you for being here and continuing your journey together with me! I’m happy you’re here! The last post was a big step forward for me and a look into the empath side of my namesake. So today I want to pivot over to the travel stuff. As I mentioned in my introduction, I’ve traveled a lot in the last 10 or 15 years. It started with going on road trips to attend anime conventions, when I graduated college, I got a job teaching English in Japan. It was my first time leaving the country alone and being gone for such a long period but I learned a lot. When I came home a couple of years later, I got another bachelor’s degree and found work on cruise ships for 3 years. I saw a lot of places in a very short amount of time and for a time was flying a few times per month. I’ve been to Multiple countries in Asia, Europe, Central America, and the Caribbean. I even got to visit Alaska as well! All were wonderful places which I will cover in more detail in later posts. But for now, I just wanted to give you a little taste of where I’ve been and why I think I know some stuff about traveling.
I also wanted to get started with some travel basics for those who may not know where to start but know that they want to travel.
“A goal without a plan is just a wish” -Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Tokyo Tower, 2011
1. Set a Goal.
Where do you want to go? The first step is to pick somewhere. It could be the next city over or it could be the next continent over. Find what speaks to you and make that a goal. Currently, I am planning a trip to Japan next year. It will be my first time back since 2013, so 10 years. A lot has changed in the country in the last ten years and a lot has changed with me. Smartphone technology has improved greatly and I’m sure there are better apps that exist to help me hop around to my destinations quickly. I have also changed and I will be traveling with my significant other as well. So, to plan our trip we talked about what we wanted out of the trip.
2. Make a list.
I very much wanted to go during cherry blossom season. When I lived in Japan, I was always changing jobs or moving during the March/April blossom season and I never felt like I could enjoy an afternoon with a lovely picnic to appreciate the beautiful trees. So we chose spring for our when. We also each made our own “want” lists. Places we wanted to visit and things we wanted to do. We didn’t hold back at all with the intent of editing a little bit later. By making lists we can each be conscious about our own wants and needs as well as our partner’s and make compromises. We also looked up the cost of each activity and added up the numbers to find out the minimum amount required just to do these activities.
Seto-Ohashi Bridge, 2011
3. Research your ground transportation logistics.
Is it even possible to get to all of the activities you want to do within the time frame of your trip? My partner has a lot of activities he wants to do in Tokyo but he also wants to visit a whiskey distillery that is outside of the city. I want to go pretty far southwest past Okayama and hit up Kobe, Osaka, and Kyoto before ending in Tokyo. We have 2 weeks. Is it possible? Yes. But will we exhaust ourselves trying to do everything? Likely. It may not be worth it for us to squeeze in so much. We both agreed that we prefer to enjoy our travels with rest days and free days. We don’t enjoy overscheduling ourselves. So I may have to compromise and only take us as far as Kyoto and then back up to Tokyo. We will see. It’s still a work in progress for us. When you plan your trip, take into account the ground logistics required to actually do that activity. It will cost you time, money, and energy, so check in with yourself to see if you have those resources to give.
4. Make a budget
Your research continues! Now that you’ve made big travel dreams and then researched how to do what you want, it’s time to figure out how much the trip will cost. Some categories you should remember will include flight, hotel, food, your activities list, ground transportation, and discretionary spending like souvenirs or impulse purchases. Other optional categories might include international cell phone data packages, travel insurance, and luggage fees. It just depends on how you like to spend your money. I usually recommend over-saving for your trip because you would not want to feel overly limited by a tight budget during the trip of your dreams, or not having funds to take care of an emergency. It’s better to be over-prepared than to get caught in a pinch. However, Murphy’s law likes to come into play when you least want it to, so keep in mind that even if you plan things outs perfectly, expect anything and everything to go sideways. Giving yourself an extra cushion in your budget allows you to be able to pivot easily should that be the case.
And there it is! Four steps to get started planning your new big trip. I hope you found this helpful. There will be more detailed posts in the future and I will also post about some of my adventures in the past few years too.
Comment below what your dream destinations are! Have a lovely day!
