A travel idea starts as a vague sentence, perhaps it’s a city weekend away, a coastal driving route, a family holiday, a trip visiting multiple destinations, or something that just sounds interesting. At this point it’s way too soon to start comparing every hotel deal or opening a dozen tabs in your browser. Instead the right approach is to produce a very small trip outline that summarises the plan, shows the boundaries that are in place, and lists some areas that need investigation.
A workable trip outline doesn’t need to be perfect. You don’t need to have all the details but you need to have a little bit of structure that helps you stop thinking of your trip as a cloud floating around in your head. Jot down: destination (and any other cities you may have in mind or that are close-by), dates of travel and how long you will travel, budget, reason for trip, any constraints. A constraint is something like your passport runs out before you return, school holidays for your kids, you work late, there’s a limited baggage allowance and no chance for extras, or perhaps you won’t get to your accommodation until a late hour. While small, a couple of constraints really start to impact the overall plan before you buy anything.
Now look at the route. Try to choose not just by price, but consider if there are two or three ways that it may work for your flight, train or bus. Look at departure times, expected arrival times, the number of transfers, how much luggage you can take on board, if the airport/train/bus terminal is a long way from where you will be staying and how you will get from the arrival place to your accommodation. The cheapest route arriving at night with a complicated transfer from an airport and a long taxi ride will make it harder to enjoy your first day than expected. Your route shouldn’t just be your ticket price but your full route.
Next up is the rough budget. Keep it simple but don’t just look at transport and accommodation, add in your daily spending on food, drink, transport, tourist taxes, booked tickets, data, luggage, insurance and emergency money. You aren’t expected to work out every cent but you are able to tell if your trip is affordable when cancellation policies and deposit requirements come into the equation. A budget template with some basic headings is all you need right now.
Then you can start thinking about the pace. Sketch out each day into a morning, afternoon and evening and look at a calendar or your notes to fill in meal times, travel times, check-in and check-out, hours of opening, plus you need to plan for at least one relaxed day where things may slow down. If one day in the outline already has a museum, a big walk, a booked restaurant, a bus and a late arrival, this outline is telling you that your plan may need some extra space. If you decide to change your plan now, you aren’t making changes later in your trip to your schedule to fix an over-ambitious plan.
Another exercise to try is just planning your arrival day. Imagine walking through to your accommodation from your door. Your departure time, when you get to your airport, transfer time and waiting time, travel time, what local transport do you need when you arrive, how long to walk to your hotel, check-in times and plans for dinner. A simple arrival day exercise helps you figure out if something is missing: that you need an offline map, you can’t get on the bus in time, the hotel has a specific time you must check in and your evening meal should be relaxed rather than active.
The outline will now finish up with questions and not with a pressure to finish. What are the decisions that need to be researched? Which arrival time is the less stressful transport? Is my place for the first day do-able? What do I need for the weather and will this work for my plan? What do I need to gather or print before departure: confirmation emails, document copies, travel insurance documents and hotel addresses to share? Your travel dream isn’t finished but it’s now a one-page outline. A workable first plan isn’t perfect but it’s enough to work on.