Vacation planning is fun and easy, so you don’t need to get overwhelmed. The first thing I want you to do is take a deep breath and not panic. If you’ve never done this before, relax. I’m here to help you with a few simple steps to plan a great vacation.
1. Determine your budget.
There are many ways to determine your budget, but I usually set a price of how much I want to spend (per person) and then go from there to figure out how to find the best travel deals based on where I want to go. a cheap vacation You need to be reasonable about what your budget for your vacation or getaway will be. A very realistic and reasonable budget for a cheap vacation ranges from $800 to $1,200 per person, including airfare, hotel, car rental, food, tips, and airport parking. I’ve traveled all over the country on business and the average budget for a two or three day business trip is about the same amount, so it’s very reasonable for a budget vacation for a full week (especially when it comes to air travel). and a much longer stay).
2. Choose your destination.
Here’s a little insider travel secret. I’ve traveled to some amazing vacation destinations at amazing prices, but I don’t normally choose my destination. Fate chooses me. It can be a bit frustrating, but I can tell you that if destinations hadn’t caught my eye, I would never have gone to Jamaica and seen a live starfish swimming underwater when I was snorkeling off a Negril beach, climbing the Great Wall of China. . , traveled through the Panama Canal, or met a baby sloth at a sloth sanctuary in Costa Rica just for starters. I went to those vacation destinations not because I had a deep desire to travel to Montego Bay, Beijing, Panama City, or Puerto Limon, but because I was looking for a travel deal. Now vacation planning by chasing a deal is a great way to get cheap vacations and save a lot of money. I’ve been on some amazing trips and gone to vacation destinations that I never would have made at the top of my “bucket list” of travel destinations, but I realize that chasing the travel deal has so far kept me from going. to the paradise island of Bora in Tahiti. Bora (my life’s travel dream) and I still want to do the “Sound of Music” tour in Salzburg, Austria. Therefore, you usually have a choice: search for the best travel deal or choose the trip of your dreams.
3. Reserve your airfare, hotel and car rental.
When planning your vacation, the best way to save hundreds of dollars on your vacation is to book everything together as a complete travel package. I don’t have any technological reason why this saves you money, but it does. Feel free to experiment with your own online travel booking engine of choice with this concept doing inquiries separately and then as a package, but it’s been done before and proven to save you money. I know that Rovia Travel has the best price online 68% of the time compared to Travelocity and Expedia based on a recent independent survey by Topaz International, so you may want to check them out.
4. Research your vacation destination and plan your travel itinerary.
Researching my vacation destination and planning great itineraries is one of the things I excel at in vacation planning because I love researching the most popular tourist attractions in the vacation destination I’m visiting. I know some people just like to improvise, but that lack of vacation planning can really add hundreds of dollars to your trip. There are two great ways to do your research. Firstly, there are so many online tools at the local tourist offices in the areas you visit that have all the main information at your fingertips, plus many have coupons or travel deals that you might not have been able to find in other ways. The second thing I like to do is pick a great guide for the destination I’m going to. Frommer’s travel guide books and Rick Steves’ travel guide books for Europe are very well researched and written and these authors update their books almost every year so you know you have up-to-date information.
5. Make two checklists.
Now you need to make two vacation planning checklists. One is a list of things to do before you go on vacation. This includes finding a pet sitter, having a neighbor pick up the mail, calling your cell service to arrange a text/email package while you’re away if you’re traveling internationally, getting a passport or visa (if you need them), get medical shots if needed, call your credit card companies to let them know you’ll be traveling and in which cities or countries you can expect charges, and the like. The second checklist for planning your vacation is a packing list.
That wasn’t so bad, was it? Now see how simple it is to plan vacations even for an inexperienced traveler. These are the basics of vacation planning and now that you know how to plan your vacation, we’ve got plenty of extra travel tips on my travel website (see below) to help you discover a world of ways to see the world. Have a safe trip and have a fabulous vacation.