The Art of Trip Planning

So this is my art to planning a trip.  Big or small, follow these steps when you decide to plan a vacation.  Now there's a reason it's an art.  It's less science and more of feeling and luck.

I think the easy part is figuring out where you want to go because we all have that “bucket list” that we keep in our heads.  What's hard is deciding where to go especially when there are constraints to work with.

FIGURING OUT WHERE TO GO AND WHEN

FIND YOUR INSPIRATION

Now this particular step doesn't have to follow the previous but this is the part where you go through your go-to spots to research your trips.  Everyone has their own style whether it's books, magazines, blogs, social media, and friends & family.

Ask Friends and Family

Know someone that's been recently or is a pseudo-expert?  That's probably your best source of information.  Cut the BS and get straight to what is really worth doing and going to.

Make Notes As You Go Along

As you're doing your inspiration gathering, the worst that can happen to you is when you go “oh wait, I remember reading about this cool place somewhere but where did I see that again?”  Oh I've made that mistake too many times.

Map It Out

This is definitely not the be all and end all of trip planning techniques as I know everyone's different but it's worked for me and has helped me streamline everything to a certain degree.  The bonus is that I can share these with all you lovely people after I'm done!

Piecing The Puzzle Together

I think one of the reasons that we all love (or hate) to plan trips is because it really is like a puzzle.  You have all of these odd-sized pieces from this giant bucket and you have to somehow combine them all together.

Next steps

More Amazing Travel Inspiration

More Stories

Google Flights Explore

The Ultimate Packing List

 Travel Hacking - Caching Your Google Maps For When You Have No Data