How I plan my vacations
Let me just start by saying that I think it's SUPER important to know how to travel.
Everyone has different ideas of what they would like to do during a vacation, so making sure you plan ahead, gives you a good idea of the amount of money you need to save, where you can stay, best restaurants, and plan accordingly overall.
PLUS! You can get some pretty sweet deals for booking early.
I always start with an excel sheet. I know, that's so nerdy and whatnot.. but hey! IT WORKS!
It helps me keep myself organized and my expenses with the right budgeting. I will post an article about how I do my Excel Sheet and link it to this post.
⇸ Destination
The first question when planning a vacation is ... Where would like to go?
Are you traveling to see nature? Hiking trip? Are you looking to explore a big city? Try out the night life? Are you going with your family? Bachelor Party?Etc...
⇸ Airfare
Once you have a set destination, the next step is to check airfare.
There is an app for your phone called Hopper that goes through all the air fares available during the days you would like to travel to your desired destination. It notifies you once the price goes up or down, and it also provides commentary on whenever or not the price will be better at a later time or not. This app saved me SO MUCH MONEY flying to Nashville in October. I recommend it!
Other than that I suggest searching different airlines and price matching them.
I work with a lot of air travel, so you end up discovering which airlines fly straight to which locations and it helps out a lot.
⇸ Accomodation
Next step,
You have to search for accommodations, AirBnB, maybe VRBO (which is a bit older, but great for some areas where there is no Airbnb) or Hotels.com. This is why I always try to get my trips together around 3 months prior to my actual date. You can price check and find some sweet deals on Airbnb. In some cases it's better to use VRBO, although a bit more pricey, they are in some locations like Crystal River, Florida where there are no Airbnbs (Only reason I know this is because I live in Florida guys). VRBO has prime location houses, by the river, and some ever offer kayaks and boats. Pretty awesome right?
⇸Food & Drinks
Part three!
Start looking up restaurants.
Even if you don't want to plan your meals, or where to go (because seriously, life never happens like we want it too, right?) it's important to check restaurant prices. I do this, so I can have the proper budgeting plus some spare. I always plan on spare money on a trip, you never know when you need to use your emergency funds. I love math (nerd alert), so I usually calculate 2 meals per day, one at lunch price, and one dinner, I estimate my meals by the most expensive restaurant that I think I would go (different for lunch and dinner, don't forget) then multiple by the days. This is an important step in my eyes, I'm a big fan of over calculating my math than under. It's a lot less stressful!I rather say ... "wow, look at my account, I have more cash than I had imagined" than... "F**k!! I spent too much money, now I have to eat Ramen for the next month".
I also don't calculate breakfast in because I usually like to have a coffe, or something light.
If you are planning to have brunch or if you are a fan of breakfast, add this to your math.
Something that gets left behind....
⇸ Mobility!
If I'm in a place downtown where I would have no issues getting around, you don't have to worry much. You can walk, or take an Uber and not spend so much.
Be certain of the activities you would like to do on your trip. How far are they from the Airbnb or Hotel? Will you need a car? How much does an Uber cost? If you are planning on exploring big cities or have a very active trip I would suggest looking at car rentals.
Again, if you plan ahead you can get some pretty crazy deals. I paid an average of $31 per day on a AWESOME Pick up truck on my last trip.
Rental cars or Hotwire have good prices and they match different car rental places to show you their comparisons.Gas Buddy is a great webpage to check out how much gas is by zipcode.
I go into a lot of detail on my trips, I like to calculate how far my grocery store is, where my activities are, how far I am from Downtown... that way I know how much I need. I don't like to use Uber, because I love driving around, and maybe I find different routes I would like to take, and just have the ability of moving whenever I want. This is just my personal choice, but feel free to choose whatever you would like. What is your personal choice? Let me know!
⇸ Entertainment
Some places have tourist traps. Actually, not some... MOST.
I love going to some, but then again, it's a waste of a money if you don't check their reviews.
I am a HUGE fan of Yelp, or Tripadvisor. People write their honest opinion about their experience, and share what they liked or not liked. I also love using Pinterest to find out cool things to do! A lot of the times Pinterest has blog posts about travel. Those pins come from blogs or pages where actual people have gone to and experienced these things. For nature hikes, camping, best roads, and etc.. I would suggest visiting the webpage. A lot of "secret" places are shared, or some beautiful hidden gems.
It's a lot of work going through all these steps.
WARNING!
It might even cause some headaches (ugh, tell me about it, I get migraines often).
But hold on.... you are almost done!
⇸Expense Money
YAY, this is the good money!
The one that allows you to have extra cash... maybe you want to take some gifts back home? Christmas gifts? To your loved ones?
I love bringing home to my friends or family something cool ... I recently went to Gatlingburg Tennessee, and made a stop at a Moonshine Distillery. I found a pretty cool one after all, the only one in Tennessee that makes their Moonshine in house (uhhh, on top of having some delicious flavors, it was natural fruit juices in their mixes! YUUUUUMM). The only problem is that they do not ship, or sell to other stores....making it impossible of getting this anywhere else other than their store.
This is an awesome gift because it's something distinct that you cannot purchase anywhere else. The best part was the price! Since they do not deal with sales outside the store, their prices were pretty low! Anyway... this was my little story for the gifts!
I calculate the expense money based on how many days I am going for.. Let's say we go for 5 days, I would suggest taking $100-200 expense money (if you plan on staying domestic). You also have to take into account the location, if you are planning to go to a state or country where the cost of living is high, your purchases are going to be more expensive, and so will be the taxes. Taxes vary by State, and they affect the cost of a trip a LOT! If you are planning to go internationally, you have to take into account the Dollar price (X Rates gives you the dollar exchange amount). All these variables change the budget on your Expense money. So please keep an eye out for this.
Ok guys, one last thing... if you are planning to take a roadtrip instead of flying, there is a great webpage that helps you plan your trip ahead of time.
Roadtrippers helps you with entertainment, hotel, food & drinks, camping and mostly anything you might need.
⇸ Comment!
Let me know what you guys think!
Any questions? Ideas? Concerns? Thoughts? Comment bellow and I will get in contact!
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