The age old question, what are we going to do on this trip?
And it is hard to plan any trip, but I’d say over the years, I’ve developed a very straight forward itinerary-crafting technique that I think can work for any trip, any group, any family.
Of course, feel free to correct me in the comments. Building an itinerary takes a lot of skills, so best to put all our heads together.
The Bugdet Question
No one likes to talk about budget, me included, believe me. First step of any itinerary though, has to be a rough budget. This is how I do my math:
To start off, estimate a comfortable spend for the whole of the holiday.
What do you realistically plan on spending? This is before booking anything, but try to think of what is comfortable and then substract what the flight tickets would be.
Now, how many days would you, at best, like to stay wherever you’re going? This technique can also help you evaluate how much time you really have because your daily limit will show you if you’re over or understretching. Can always be a nice surprise, or make you reevaluate what you can see and do.
So now that you have your daily limit, you can clearly see your total budget per day by adding your flights cost.
Now it’s time to do the booking. You can see what hotels and activities fit within that budget and stick to it. You’ve done the hardest part of the itinerary building!
Planning the PLAN
With your budget close by, your flights and hotels set up, it’s time to figure out your day to day. Activities, transports, restaurants. Congrats, you’re at the fun part of your itinerary!
I try to not plan out my itineraries to the hour, just because it’s too much pressure to be able to enjoy anything. Once you set a timer on a museum visit, nothing is going to be very memorable.
My advice is to have 2 activities in the morning, long lunches, then 1 for the afternoon, and a nice dinner in the evening. Traveling is about food too! Don’t forget to book in advance, you don’t want to travel all this way and be disappointed.
And do your Research
I can’t stress this enough: do your research!
It doesn’t matter that you’re a tourist, it doesn’t matter that everyone is going to see the same thing, everyone is going to see the same thing because it’s something worth seeing!
Buy the guidebook and mark whatever it is that you think is worth the detour. Just because your trip is the same trip as fifteen other people on TikTok doesn’t make it a bad trip. There’s a reason everyone goes to see the Golden Pavillion in Kyoto and the Eiffel Tower in Paris, it’s worth seeing in real life! No shame in it.
Now saying this, there is more to see that the Golden Pavillion in Kyoto and the Eiffel Tower in Paris, of course. And you might never realise, unless you do your research.
A great trick I’ve picked up is to bookmark everything interesting I see on TikTok or Instagram on my GoogleMaps, so that once you are in any street, you have your own tailored recommendations of what’s nearby.
Time Management
My recommendation is to always leave ample travel time for countries that you haven’t been yet. There’s always going to be confusion, you might get a little lost, there might be delays or you also just might walk into cool shops and spend longer than expected. So never book anything right after you’re arriving from the airport or the train station, especially not something non-refundable.
Also never forget to plan time for rest and relaxation. I’m also very guilty of this, because there’s always so much to see and so little time! But I’ve learned the hard way that traveling is supposed to not be absolutely exhausting. Sad, I know.
And most importantly, don’t forget to have fun! You’re going on holiday after all.
Did you learn anything? Do you want to share your own tips? Let me know below and don’t forget to check out my other itineraries, like this one for your first time in Japan.