Randy's Travel Tips: Planning Your Trip, p. 1 of 5

Planning Your Trip

Randy's Travel Tips
On Planning Your International Trip

Copyright © 1992-2008 Randy R. Johnson, all rights reserved.
Photo (author): I spent 2 weeks in this hut in Tulum, Mexico

Planning Table of Contents

Defining Your Trip Why? Where? When? How Long? Where to Go? Pick Your Spots Advance Research What Makes a Trip Enjoyable? Take a Break Spicing Up Your Trip Adopt a Theme Budgeting Money -- Spending It Working Abroad

Footloose and Fancy-Free Table of Contents

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Laying Your Plans

The preparations you make before you go on your trip can make all the difference in having an enjoyable time. How you define and plan your trip, what you take, and preparing ahead of time for whatever situations may arise will go a long way toward making your travels go smoothly. On the other hand, if you are really traveling footloose and fancy-free you can easily modify your plans, itineraries, and schedules as you go along. You cannot, however, get all the things you forgot to bring, or arrange to get a new credit card from your home country.

To make your preparations, you need plenty of information that you don't have yet. You have to do your homework, including reading this and as many other guides as you can find, both on general travel information, and specific country descriptions. So find a good bookstore.

For those of you who just dropped in, my Travel Tips focus mainly on long-term travel in the Third World. But you will find a few notes here to help you in planning for any trip.

Defining Your Trip

Where to go? When to go? How long? How much money? These are the four basic questions that define the outline of your trip. Often some of them are already answered. Some people already know exactly where they want to go, and how much time they have to take off from other responsibilities. Some people just want to take off and have a travel adventure, and aren't too sure where would be a good place to start; but it is still guided by where their interests lie. Choosing where to go and what to do is something of an art in itself, so this section will raise many more questions than it answers -- questions that you need to ask yourself about just what it is you would like to do on your own personal travels.

Why?

But before you even get started with your plans you should ask yourself Why you want to travel at all. "What is the purpose of this trip?"

Well, yes, a good trip doesn't really have to have a purpose. So, how about "Why do I want to travel?" If your reason is "to see as much of the world as I can," then you will have a different kind of trip from the person who "just wants to relax and have fun", or "learn about other cultures", "see the art of Europe" or "do something really exciting and adventurous".

So ask yourself, "What do I envision myself doing on this trip?" Give it some real thought -- close your eyes and think about it several times a day! If two or more of you will be traveling together, you should each think about this individually, and compare notes later. Extreme differences in expectations forebode some serious compromises!

What do you see yourself doing? Laying on a tropical beach? Trekking for weeks through the Himalayas? Lounging at a comfortable resort? Visiting ancient civilizations? Hanging out in quaint villages? Hiking? Camping? Scuba diving? Eating gourmet food? Seeing wild animals? Visiting museums and cathedrals? Finding primitive tribal peoples? Strolling in picturesque countryside? Learning Balinese culture? Sailing around? Shopping? Getting to know the local people and culture? Sightseeing? All of the above or whatever comes along? You can do all of these things, but not necessarily all on the same trip, unless you have a really long trip in mind.

Maybe you already have an idea that you want to visit a particular part of the world, or a particular country. If so, you probably have some idea of the things travelers do there. If not, then where you go should depend on what kind of things you would like to do and see on your travels. While this may seem obvious, a surprising number of otherwise quite intelligent people find themselves on vacation in an exotic-sounding place where nothing interests them personally! Maybe the thought of going to Zamboanga just struck them as a very exciting thing to do. So read up!

Where, When, How Long?

Where to go, when to go, and how long? Once you have determined these three things, have put some money together and packed a bag, you're ready to hit the Road. Some people -- not all of them experienced travelers -- will head to a far corner of the world having made no more plans than this, armed with or without a guide book. There is much to be said for this approach and indeed, some people shun popular guide books, because they don't want to be influenced into going to the same places everyone else goes.

However, most of us do a bit more detailed planning and collecting of background information, before we are ready to face the world out there. That's much of what this section is about: reading up on where you want to go, planning your trip itinerary, and maybe even making a schedule and a budget.

General Guidelines

The most common mistake of travel planning -- one that is made by all travelers, at least at the beginning of their travel careers -- is planning to see way too much in too little time. If you just make a list of the places and sights you want to see, it will take at least two times as long to see them all as you would originally imagine. And this will be at a moderate pace -- the fastest pace that you can reasonably maintain over a month or two of travel without completely burning yourself into an emotional and physical wreck.

Now add in all the exciting new places that you learn about along the way -- places that the travel guides don't even know about yet. Finally, imagine seeing it all at leisure, taking your time to savor the atmosphere, getting to know the local people, and giving yourself a well-earned rest every so often.

Let's say you've planned to spend three days in Hong Kong. After two days there, you realize that you'll need more time so you give yourself two additional days. (If you don't like Hong Kong, substitute Paris, Kathmandu, or Cuzco). After five days, you still don't want to leave, but you head to the airport because you have so many more places to see, and "it's time" to leave. You're already two days "behind your schedule" and feeling a little concerned about it, as you study the guide book for your next destination, planning your itinerary there.

Wait a minute! You've just spent five busy days of non-stop sightseeing, you still haven't seen all you'd like to have seen -- let alone taking any time to leisurely stroll around and enjoy the local atmosphere -- and you're telling yourself that you'll have to come back some day to see it again! And now you're on the road again, planning to do the same thing in the next place. You're going to come back with some great photos, but you may have trouble remembering if that temple was in Hong Kong or Singapore. And you're going to get tired of this routine very quickly.

People who travel quickly often imagine that four weeks is about the physical limit for traveling abroad. Certainly at their pace, I would fall apart long before that! The slower you go, the more relaxed you feel, the more fun you have, and the longer you will want to stay at it. If you have the flexibility, your trip can easily expand not only in time, but in new destinations. Now perhaps you can imagine why people take off for years at a time to explore the Third World.

How Long?

How long you plan to travel actually defines the nature of your trip at least as much as where you go. You plan to make a dramatic change in your life for X number of weeks, or months, or years. If it's just a few weeks, then you might be trying to cram in as much as you can as fast as you can. You will need to have your travel schedule and itineraries all planned out (and reserved) ahead of time, and you will try to take along everything you'll need. You'll still spend some time thinking about what's going on back at the office, what events you're missing at home, and what you'll do when you get back.

If you plan to travel for several months, your itinerary can be much more open and flexible. You can allow yourself to stay as long as you like in a place you like, and to add new destinations as they present themselves, perhaps leaving out some others. You can intersperse weeks of sightseeing with weeks of leisure, and take days off just to read a book, do your washing, and write home. You can take a week or two to study Spanish or batik or watch birds. When you're six weeks out with six more weeks (or months) to go, your thoughts are of your daily life on the Road -- all the amazing things you've already done, and those you plan for -- and you think less about what's going on at home. You've entered the Traveler's Zone.

Just because you're only going for three weeks, doesn't mean that you have to rush around; you can still be footloose and fancy-free! Just go to one country and get to know one part of it well; stay in one or two places, and use them as bases to explore everything around. You can have breakfast in the same cafe for a week and get to know the people who work there. You can see all the local sites and still have time to relax and feel at home.

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I met an older Italian gentleman who was on a three week holiday. A friend of his had talked him into traveling to Malaysia, and then had to cancel at the last minute. But Enrico went anyway, alone, although he had no experience traveling outside of Europe, and knew nothing of what to expect. He stayed at the YMCA in Kuala Lumpur, where one of the rough western travelers told him that Cherating beach was a great place to visit.
Cherating was not the type of place that gentlemen European travelers frequent; it was then a very basic little traveler's beach hangout on the east coast, and that's where I met Enrico, in the bungalow next to mine. He was perplexed because he hadn't brought a towel, soap, or toilet paper and none were provided. We fixed him up from the shop down the road and added a stronger light bulb so he could do some serious reading.
Enrico was happy as a clam! Although I pointed out that there was a new Club Med a few miles down the road, Enrico spent a lovely week on the quiet beach, getting to know the local family, eating coconut curries in their basic cafe, soaking in the South China Sea, lounging on his verandah, reading, and discussing life and literature with the guy next door.

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