How To Plan A Trip in 8 Easy Steps

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Planning trips might sound fun when you get ideas of where you want to go, but that fun can easily turn to confusion, stress and being overwhelmed at the sheer number of things you need to do. It’s almost like you need a handy travel blogger to point you in the right direction. Oh, wait…I think I know one! Figuring out how to plan a trip is my favorite thing. Someone casually suggests this place might be nice to visit one day, and before you know it I’ve got spreadsheets, diagrams and at least 20 internet tabs open. That’s why I think I can help with successfully planning your next trip with zero stress.

How to plan a trip when there are so many things to do

That’s right, trip planning isn’t always going to be easy. You’re going to need snacks, some kind of high energy drink and maybe regular stretching breaks. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. So where do you even start? What’s the secret of how to plan a trip without pulling out your own hair? The key is breaking it down. Sizable chunks of the plan all add up to the overall plan. When you break it down, it becomes more manageable. I’m a bit of a control freak when it comes to planning so I tend to swat away help offered by others. Don’t be like me. Share the tasks and definitely keep each other involved in the planning.

1 – Setting a budget

This is perhaps the easiest and the most difficult part of how to plan a trip. Knowing how much you want to spend, and finding out how much things actually cost when you add them up. Your budget may need to be considered even before you pick your destination. Maybe months in advance of you actually planning your trip. You see while some people might be happy to put their latest trip on the credit card and worry about the bills later, it makes sense to see how much money you have and what your options are within that budget. Consider these things when thinking about your next trip:

• What money do you already have saved up?
• How much will the trip you want set you back? Or…
• What trips are feasible for the amount of money you have?

I recommend maintaining an ongoing savings plan for your trips rather than just for a trip you have already booked. That way you won’t have as much of a hurdle every time you want to go away. Check out my tips for saving your money for more travel.

Whether you have $500 or $5000 to spend on your trip, just remember to consider everything you can find the cost of in advance of your trip (flights, hotels, tours) and the things that you don’t know (meals, transport, tipping and daily activities). Always best to overestimate than be living on bread and water halfway through your travels.

2 – Find cheap flights

There are a number of places on the world wide webs that scream out to you to book their cheap flights. Everyone and anyone is trying to entice you to book their ridiculously cheap flight to somewhere you have to Google to find out where it is. But while you might have your own sources, I’m always partial to Skyscanner and CheapOair for some good deals.

A fun tip with Skyscanner: leave the “TO” field blank and it will give you all destinations leaving from your chosen airport. You can then filter by price. Perfect if you don’t have a destination in mind.

Another good tip: search by full month instead of a particular date if you are flexible. That way you can get the best deal for that destination.

But cheap deals or not, flights are both the most important thing and the most misleading thing. Let me explain. When you start figuring out how to book a trip, you know you will need your flights (unless exploring somewhere closer to home of course). So you can budget for the cost of the flights, but the cost of the flight is not always indicative of the cost of the place you’re booking a flight to. Getting cheap flights is only half the battle. Don’t be sucked in with the $400 roundtrip to Iceland if you can’t afford the price of the food and everything else when you get there. Always research your destination for average prices as well as things to do and safety.

3 – Where do you want to stay?

Accommodation may be the most confusing part of how to plan a trip. You might have an idea of the kind of accommodation you’re looking for before you commit to your flights. Like, are you a hostel person? An Airbnb person? Or a luxury hotel person? But that can all go out of the window pretty quickly when you reconsider your budget. I can often be any one of them, and look more at the options in the place I’m planning to visit. But I have also scrapped plans to visit a place at a particular time because while I could find good flights, the accommodation was either really difficult to find or very expensive. So where do you like to stay? Here are a few options to consider:

Hostel

Cheap and cheerful (usually), and you’re almost always likely to meet new people, something you might not get in a hotel or apart-rental. Hostels are budget friendly, generally well located and even sometimes have activities you can sign up for like day tours or experiences. Consider how likely you are to want to smother a snorer before booking a dorm bed though, and perhaps opt for a private room.

Bed & Breakfast

Not available everywhere but I love a good B&B for a more cozy and personal stay. They are usually people’s homes so not always in the center of the city, but maybe a short walk away. Breakfast is included (yay!) but watch out for shared bathrooms in some places. I would recommend a B&B if you’re off somewhere for a short stay, but maybe not for anything longer.

Airbnb

The benefits here are that you can book a whole place to yourself. You can let yourself in and out and Airbnb often works well for longer stays. Unlike a dorm, B&B or hotel, you will likely have a kitchen so can cut costs by preparing some meals. You’ll sometimes even have a proper sitting area instead of perching at the end of a bed. Just watch out for the added fees like cleaning and service fees. Sometimes they end up as much as the “low cost” room rate.

Hotel

With anything from a roach motel to the Ritz hotels are about as varied as they come. Although that also means you need to pay proper attention to what you’re booking, what’s included and where it is. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. If freshly made beds and turn down service are your thing (guilty!) then hotels are probably for you. There won’t often be anywhere to cook or even store leftover food or drinks, so bear that in mind when budgeting for your food and drink allowance. I usually check out sites like Booking.Com for my hotel stays as they often have some of the best deals.

4 – Planning the length of your trip

Length of trip depends on a couple of factors. Budget and the distance you’re traveling. If you live on the West Coast of the USA you’re unlikely going to travel to Paris for a weekend. But if you are working on how to plan a trip with a $5000 budget, you’re going to want to go further than within an hour or two of home. Planning the length of trip depends on where you are going. If you have a dream trip to go on, you want to make it worth your while. Especially when you factor in length of travel to get there and time changes. Don’t rush yourself.

But there’s also no use in planning a trip around Europe if you have about $50 a day to spend. You’ll be pushing it even with the cheapest bed in a hostel. Your budget should not only determine where you want your destination to be, but also how long you will be able to spend there. Is it worth booking a short trip to your dream vacation? Probably not. Maybe save a little longer.

5 – Moving around or staying put

Are you planning on going to one place and staying there before returning home? Or are you more interested in multiple locations? This will have an impact on your accommodation and flight booking too. For example when I wanted to work out how to plan a trip to Thailand, I found flights were better arriving into and also leave from Bangkok. Therefore I had to create a bit of a loop to go to Chiang Mai and one of the islands. But when I visited Vietnam last year the flights were just the same to fly into Hanoi and out of Ho Chi Minh City, therefore I didn’t need to return to any places again. This helped reduce unnecessary travel time.

If you are adding multiple stops to your itinerary it also means you might want different accommodations at each place. Perhaps an Airbnb for a few days to start, with a luxury resort for a couple days in the middle and end with a more moderate hotel before leaving. Don’t forget to see what’s out there.

6 – Transportation

You might need a flight to get somewhere but how will you get around when you are there? Will you fly domestic flights on your travels? Or take buses or trains? How easy will it be to do this and will you need to book in advance? Maybe you’ll even want to rent a car. All things to consider. Take the transportation part of how to plan a trip as seriously as you can, because if you don’t want to spend tons of time traveling once you get somewhere it may determine the length of your vacation or how many different stops you make in one trip.

Are you going somewhere you don’t speak the language? If you aren’t then you might want to spend extra time researching how to get around once you’re there and the best way to buy tickets for transportation. As much as I don’t like booking too much in advance, sometimes it is easier to buy the bigger pieces of your puzzle in advance to save extra time spent bargaining with a lack of local language skills.

Remember to take a reusable water bottle with you on your travels, like this one from FastTech

7 – Planning activities

When it comes to activities you might suddenly find you want to do everything. All the tours and experiences look good. So how do you decide? I would say have a general idea of a few things you want to see or do. The main things that you feel are must do activities but don’t over plan your trip or you’ll need a vacation to get over your vacation. If you do want to plan anything in advance I recommend checking out Viator for great ideas.

My top tips for activity planning

• Book a couple of activities that are your must do things but leave the rest of your time free to choose what to do when you get there.
• Weather or the discovery of a local tour you didn’t know about are good reasons to wait.
• Your itinerary may also change if you have not planned it all in advance.
• Check if any of your activities must be booked in advance. Popular activities like the Statue of Liberty, Alcatraz or an Elephant Sanctuary visit for example do.

8 – Decide what is most important to you

I work in travel and when working on how to plan a trip for a guest, the second thing we do (after building a rapport with someone) is ask questions. We want to know what makes them tick, what is important to them, and what are the things they are willing to let go if it comes down to it. So whether you are planning your budget or your itinerary it’s worth noting what is most important to you and others you may be traveling with.

For example you don’t want to spend your whole budget on accommodation if you’re a big foodie and now you can’t afford a lot of nice meals. Or if the aim of the game is a nice relaxing vacation you’re not going to be happy if you’ve planned your itinerary to the minute. Here are some of other things to consider when planning your trip/choosing a destination:

• What is the food like? Do you have dietary needs?
• How much free time do you want?
• What time of year do you want to travel? Maybe you have only certain times you can take off work
• Are there any must see things on this trip for you?
• How important is the accommodation to you? Is it somewhere just to sleep, or part of the experience?
• Will you need transport to get around, an airport shuttle or is transit good here?
• Make sure to allow for travel time to/from places and time differences
• Do you and your travel partner have similar taste or will you need to make some compromises?
• Is there a hard budget you have to work within?

How to plan a trip with ease

It might seem like there are a lot of things to consider but I promise breaking it down will help. The main things are flights, accommodation and overall budget. After that you can decide on trip length, how you’ll get around (and if you will need to), and activities to do there. It will soon all fall into place and you’ll wonder what you were ever worried about. Asking yourself the big questions early on will help you narrow down your choices – either destination or the parts of your trip. You might need to compromise on some things. But you also won’t get the trip of your dreams if you give up on the most important things to you. Whatever you do, wherever you go, and however long for…HAVE A GREAT TRIP!

If you’ve enjoyed this post leave a comment or share using the social media buttons below. What are your biggest challenges when figuring out how to plan a trip? What part of the trip planning do you enjoy (or hate) the most?