When it comes to traveling, we tend to associate it with spontaneity and wild careless days. While traveling can be all of those things but a well-planned itinerary can take your traveling experience from good to amazing. So when you plan an itinerary for your travels, do you jot it down on paper or do you meticulously create spreadsheets to help you decide? Whatever your style may be, there’s always a chance that you might miss something when it comes to planning. To avoid that, we follow this 5-point checklist that gives us a fail-proof itinerary every single time; whether its student tours or a bachelor’s trip. So sit back and relax while we take you through how to create your own fail-proof itinerary.
Know more than you need to know
Great work begins with great research. The research will be the foundation of your travel plans, the more you research, the better options you will discover and it will help you decide what you want to cover and how you want to spread out your days. Make sure you cover your interest areas as opposed to the popular destinations. If you like food and culture, you may want to spend more time visiting museums and local eateries rather than nightclubs or beaches.
Pro Tip: Copy important points, links, pictures, and screenshots on Evernote to compile your research.
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Your travel plans cannot be successful unless you decide what you want. So it is important that you list out a few details before moving further.
- Why do you want to travel?
- What is the purpose of this trip?
- What are your preferred modes of travel?
- Which locations do you fancy?
- How many days can you travel?
Once you have these details, you can take a look at your budget in order to start planning out the actual trip.
Cash it in
Your budget is the most restrictive part of your itinerary, so it is important that you decide your budget before you plan your travels. Your budget will help you decide the location and length of your trip, and there on you can list out the details.
Pro Tip: In order to avoid overspending, allocate a lump sum amount for the entire trip and then break it down into various parts. This way, if you spend extra on food, you can adjust it with other expenses and your overall expenditure will remain the same.
Bring out your inner nerd
Now coming to the actual plan, we need to remember that even though the time and resources are finite, we don’t have to do everything possible in the allocated time. Let’s be realistic, we’ll probably not travel to new locations every day and we’ll have more than one lazy day, after all, we’re traveling! Give space to impromptu plans and details, sometimes spontaneity is rather important (we see the irony!).
Pro tip: According to Forbes, If you build any plan with a 30% contingency, you will foolproof it. This works for budgeting too
Think on your feet
You have the necessary information, you have the budget, and you have the final plan. Now your plan may have contingencies too, but there are way too many variables when it comes to traveling and they may not always be unpleasant. Imagine you visit Goa, and your favorite band is playing at a music festival there. Now you have planned snorkeling for the day and paid for it. This seems like you have to choose, but you can always improvise. You could talk to the manager and see if you can push your snorkeling session to another day, and visit the band. Similarly, in case of an emergency, such as misplacing your luggage, you can always seek help from the locals and find it. Improvising is important too.
Related Read: The Best Guide to Have a Safe and Secure Student Tours
With all of this pre-planning and research, you are bound to have a travel experience that blows your mind. If you don’t like undertaking so much effort for travel, you can always get in touch with Pencil voyages. Do you have any other tips and tricks that you’d like everyone to know? Share below in the comments.
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