How to Cut the Time You Spend Vacation Planning In Half
I love traveling. My mind, camera and belly are all happy campers when I am in a new city, town or village overseas.
But you know what no one loves about traveling? The planning and logistics that come with it.
Behind every amazing Instagram shot are countless hours spent on travel blog research, visa applications and more unsavory tasks that are anything but relaxing. Then, there are all the ridiculous accidents that may come up…including missed flights, crappy hostel experiences, and pickpocketers.
Traveling is fun. But there may not be a more applicable case for the phrase, “Failing to prepare is the same as preparing to fail” than your next trip.
Planning your vacation is key. But let’s be honest. The plethora of travel resources out there is actually anything but helpful. If anything, there’s far too much information, especially when it comes to the more popular destinations.
Having done everything from family vacations to two-week Euro trips to the four-month Southeast Asia backpacking tour, I have seen it all when it comes to traveling mishaps due to poor planning.
Here is your five-step process cut the time you spend vacation planning in half:
1. Download Google Trips
There are a lot of “travel apps” out there. I have wasted a ton of time with them trying to “organize” all of my experiences in one place, but the reality is that nothing comes close to Google Trips.
Why? It’s very simple — all of your travel plans are going to your e-mail anyways, so Google is the perfect app to organize and plan your trip.
Whether you are booking hostels on Hostelworld or entire trips through your credit card provider, all of these bookings will come straight to your email. And when this happens, Google Trips will pick up on it and include it in your itinerary.
Forget Excel sheets and notepads — Trips gives you get a full, comprehensive view of your travel plans this way.
Got some awesome recommendations from a friend? Simply search it up and save it. Didn’t have time to read a travel blog to see the “Top 10 Things to Do in Rome?” Google Trips has a “Things to Do” section, as well as a “Day Plans” function. It basically combines all of the noteworthy things that people love doing (again, this is GOOGLE, the company that knows exactly what people are searching!) into a comprehensive travel map.
Seriously, it doesn’t get any easier.
2. Find a Relatable Travel Blogger to Get Advice From
There is no shortage of awesome travel influencers online. Some of the bloggers and influencers that dominate my newsfeed:
I mentioned earlier that there is far too much information on travel out there. One way to cut through the noise is to be very selective about the advice you receive.
For example, I am a 27-year-old, single Canadian guy. When it comes to visiting a new city, I’m a little more interested in recommendations for nightclubs than museums (that’s probably why The Partying Traveler comes up in my Insta feed all the time).
Last year, I was researching tips on how to do Yacht Week properly. One of the first Google searches that came up was from The Blonde Abroad.
Let’s be clear. Her content is absolutely amazing. But can I really related to the article titled, “10 Reasons The Yacht Week Should be Your Next Girls’ Trip”?
Probably not. You want to find two or three travel bloggers who you can relate to. Ideally, they have the same interests and psychographic characteristics as you. That way, you can be sure that their recommendations are relatable to what you might enjoy doing in that specific destination.
3. Find Yourself a Local Friend To Show You Around
We all know that locals know their city or town the best. They’re able to skip the touristy nonsense and take you to the places that really matter: where the locals live. If you have a friend (or a friend of a friend) who lives in the destination you are going to, you will save a boatload of time on trip planning.
But let’s say you’re going to a new city where you don’t know anyone in your personal network. Thanks to the internet, it’s never been easier to find awesome people to travel with. If you’re a trusting person (like me), you can find people in:
- Facebook groups
- Through Airbnb’s new “Experiences” program
- Couchsurfing
- Showaround.com (yes, there is literally an app that will hook you up with a local to show you around a new city!)
Let’s say you’re from New York City, and you’re headed to Toronto for the weekend. As a native Torontonian, I know that the CN Tower is a waste of time unless you’re daring enough to do the Edgewalk. I literally do not know of anyone who has gone to Ripley’s, and only a local could know that the best Pho in town is on Queen and Ossington. These are things that you cannot find from hours of research online.
Locals do it better. Follow them and you are guaranteed a good time.
4. Find Yourself Another Traveller Friend(s)
While locals can certainly be awesome to hang out with, there’s a downside: if you really hit it off with them, they can’t (usually) just follow you to your next destination.
Longer-term trips with several destinations in mind are often the most difficult to plan. The easiest hack? Simply find a really great group of people you enjoy in one location and do what they are doing. This is an especially useful strategy if you are in a region of the world where you are:
a) doing a long term backpacking trip
b) are flexible in where you go
c) aren’t familiar with any of the regions there anyway
Most likely, one person in that group is the “logistics person”, and has figured out how they are getting from A to B. They have pre-qualified and figured out where the best destinations are. And quite frankly, it really doesn’t matter where you’re going if you have found another great group of travellers.
5. Get Trip Insurance Of Some Kind
The most time-consuming trip planning comes when something unexpected happens. Maybe you lost your luggage. Maybe your flight got canceled. Maybe you met some awesome people in Phuket and they are going to Chiang Mai, so you decide to cancel your plans to head to Bangkok.
For the most part, I get travel insurance either through my employer or my credit card. If you have a travel-friendly credit card, I recommend using it to book your flights. Keep in mind that these cards are normally a bit more expensive. If you travel a lot, I highly recommend investing in one, even if it does cost you $60–120 per year.
I personally use the Scotiabank Gold AMEX card, which gives me up to $2 million in travel insurance for things like cancelled flights for short term trips. For longer-term trips, you will absolutely want to contact a local insurance provider.
A one-hour session with a professional that details exactly where you will be, and what you will be doing, is the difference between a headache-free trip and one filled with unexpected nightmares. One of the most recommended companies? World Nomad is relied on by many vagabonds and travel bloggers and covers residents from over 150 countries.
