How to plan a trip

I met a young lady this week who yearns to travel. She wasn’t sure where to start and what things to consider. Not knowing where to start keeps quite a number of people from traveling. I gave her the tips that I use to plan my trips. Hopefully, they will help you too.

• Look up activities at the destination you plan to travel to. The best resource for this, in my experience, is TripAdvisor. Make note of the cities where your favorite activities are.
• Next, purchase the flight(s) to the cities you chose. Once the ticket is bought, there can be no more procrastination. Google Flights is my go-to website for finding flights. I usually book direct flights for convenience. Money can be recovered but time spent waiting in airports can’t.
• Book accommodation at your destination. Generally, I book at least 4-star hotels. I have been bitten, literally, by poorer quality hotels so now I fork over the extra money and sleep like a baby.I like hotels.com because you get a free night after 10 stays. I have also used booking.com with no issues. However, I have had unpleasant experiences with Expedia so I stopped using them a couple years ago. Airbnb is very popular these days for those who prefer to stay away from hotels. I use them sometimes, mostly when I don’t want to stay in touristy areas.
• Now you can book activities at your destination. Again, I highly recommend TripAdvisor as the users provide excellent feedback on tour operators. In a lot of cases, I wait until I get to my destination before booking activities. The hotel concierge is usually very helpful in planning activities.

Now you can sit back and enjoy the anticipation of the trip. When travel day arrives, everything will already be in place.

Of course, the order of these steps may need to be different in some situations. When I climbed Kilimanjaro, timing was important so I booked the climb first then planned everything else around it.

Feel free to add more tips in the comments. Happy travels!