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Travel planning

From Wikitravel

Basics
Itinerary
Contingencies
[+] Ideas
- See
External links

This article is a travel topic.

Planning your travel is generally a good idea. It can make your travel experience more enjoyable and also save you money. Even if you are the sort of person who just hits the road and takes life as it comes, planning your journey to some extent can enhance the adventure. Whether its a trip down the road to the local shop or a journey around the world, before taking that first step you need to do some planning; if nothing else it will set you off in the right direction.

[edit] Basics

Before going anywhere, contemplate where you want to go and why you want to go there. At least that way you will have a destination to aim for and some idea of what to do when you get there.

Think about how you will get to your destination, and get back, if need be.

Do some research about your destination, route, mode of travel. Find out what you need to do to get there and how it can be done, what to take (and what to leave behind).

[edit] Itinerary

Once you have your destination(s), route(s) and mode(s) of travel sorted it can be helpful to put it all into an itinerary. This is essentially an ordered list or timeline that shows how you can get from here to there, with the things you need to do along the way and when you need to do them.

If you have booked travel arrangements or accommodation, your itinerary should show the check-in, departure, arrival or check-out times and the places you need to be at. Any competent travel agent who arranges your travel should prepare an itinerary for you, or you can do it yourself.

One reason for having an itinerary is to make sure that you are arriving somewhere before you are departing from the place and there is enough time to allow you to transit from your arrival point to your next departure point.

There's another mode of travelling though, that excludes building itineraries. If you do not know or plan your next destinations, you have the freedom to make your plans as you go. This approach however is not advised for inexperienced travellers. It is disputable which way of travelling is more rewarding. Not having an itinerary does not mean that you do not have to plan your travel, anyway.

A middle approach may work for others; rather than having a detailed itinerary, you can work on a sort of general timeline. Working on specific times/dates you want to or need to be in certain places (even if it's just your flight home), you can keep a mental plan of what you need to do in the next few days, and then roughly where you need to be farther out.

For instance, if you were starting a month-long overland trip from London to Rome, you might have the month divided roughly five days each for London, Paris, southern France, northern Italy and Rome. You might also know you want to see the end of the Tour de France in Paris in six days (which works with your rough overall context). You now have a good basis for planning the next few days, including possible alternate routes and side trips. You can pick what sites you want to see over the next three days, and then reevaluate -- maybe you want to spend a day in Brussels en route to Paris. The advantage of this technique is that you have some freedom (to, say, cut down on the later stages to add a side trip to Switzerland), but still have a structure (so you don't arrive in Paris on day 27, and realize that it's even better than London).

[edit] Contingencies

By this stage you may be wanting to get up and go there now. However, things can also go wrong, so planning for the unexpected is also a good idea. Going on a short trip on a fine day? It might rain or you could get sunburn. You might be caught out overnight, or held up after dark. On a longer journey, your flight might be delayed, you hurt yourself or get sick. The unexpected can (and does) happen - often when you least expect it. Putting a bit of effort in to planning for the unexpected can be a wise thing to do. What you do will depend on any perceived risk to you and the cost to mitigate or reduce the risk.

Travel insurance for international travel is a must. Be sure to take the time to read the policy wording carefully, check out who underwrites the policy, and pay particular attention to exclusions. But simple things, like taking a jacket or raincoat, or wearing sunscreen can save you a lot of inconvenience (and pain) that no amount of money in the world could compensate you for.