9 Steps To Successful Travel Planning And A Smooth Trip

Although the requirements of every trip are different and need specific consideration, there are certain tasks which need to be completed each time, allowing you to follow a similar process when travel planning your trips. Some of the tasks are obvious, but others can get forgotten about when you’re busy. For reference, here are 9 steps for travel planning for a smooth trip, when you have the luxury of time for planning…

Initial considerations for travel planning

1. Who and what?

Who is going on your trip?

This may seem like a simple question, but if you are anything like us, with older children then we are never too sure which combination of children want to come on our trips. Throw a severe peanut allergy into the mix and the destination can affect whether that family member travels with us or not, and probably explains why we have never taken a family holiday to Thailand as yet.

What sort of holiday do you want?

Broadly speaking, you will be travelling solo, in a couple, with friends, as a family with young family, as a family with teenagers or young adults, which will inform what sort of holiday you should be travel planning, for example, staying in one place (maybe a villa holiday), camping, undertaking a road trip or something different.

2. When and where?

When can you go on your travels?

Deciding where to go on your trip is often closely linked to when you are going, for example, if you are tied to travelling in the school holidays (or the opposite and actively avoiding the school holidays!) or you may only be able to have certain weeks off work, then you may have specific windows for travel.

If you have the freedom to travel at any time, then it could be the seasons and weather systems which also inform when you should make the trip.

Where to go on your travels?

Once you know your travel window, and you have considered ‘where to go when’ in the world, then you should be closer to narrowing down a destination target.

Costs will also no doubt come into your planning considerations, depending on whether you want to travel to certain places at high season when costs are higher.

Sometimes it’s easy to decide where to go – it may be somewhere from your travel bucket list, a repeat destination, or a recommendation. Sometimes it might be a particular activity which drives a destination choice, or even wanting to stay in a particular type of accommodation or resort.

However sometimes inspiration is needed from travel magazines, such as, Wanderlust, National Geographic or Conde Nast, travel blogs or social media (Pinterest, Instagram).

3. Start your destination research

Once you have a destination in mind then it’s time to start your destination research – what are the main things to do, key attractions, natural wonders, interesting places to eat. Ways to do this include:

• Top 10 things – look for on-line articles of the ‘Top 10 things to do’ variety for your destination.
• Who’s done it before – look for blogs on-line from travellers who have done a similar route or trip to the one you are planning.
• Tour providers – look at the activities offered by Get Your Guide or Viatour / TripAdvisor, to see what the opportunities are at your destination.
• Wikivoyage – have a quick look on Wikivoyage (Wikipedia for travel) but bear in mind that the information on the site is unverified.
• Guide books – invest in a broad guidebook to help get a good overview of your destination – Rough Guide, Lonely Planet or DK Eyewitness are good options here.  My guidebooks are usually full of post-it notes and highlighted sections for places, activities, or sights of interest to come back to later.

Stay in one place, multi destinations, or road trip?

This initial destination research will help you decide whether to stay in one location, or whether to stay in multiple places on your visit. If it is starting to look like a road-trip, then I would probably advise buying a map of the country/area as well at this point to start route planning (yes, using post-it tabs!).

Choose a method of tracking your travel plans

At this point I would normally make a very simple spreadsheet on EXCEL (no formulas!) to set out the holiday dates and plans for the stay to build the trip itinerary. Nothing complicated, but it just helps me to start visualising what the holiday is going to look like.

There are also Apps that you can use to plan an itinerary, or paper based Travel Journals. You need just somewhere to start keeping track of all your research and any bookings made.

4. Consider accommodation options

An initial look at accommodation options is advisable at this point, just to see what sort of options are available in your price range. Have a look on Booking,com, AirBnB, and on hotel websites if you are collecting with reward schemes (IHG or Marriott).

Reserve your accommodation – some sites, such as Booking.com allow you to reserve accommodation and pay on arrival (or nearer the time), which can be useful until you have booked your flights and finalised your transport plans.

Note – For a smooth trip, I prefer to know where I’m going to be staying, to avoid any unnecessary anxiety and lost time (I remember how stressful this can be from my inter-railing days). When we’re been travelling with the children, we don’t want to leave accommodation to chance.

Make the framework bookings for your trip

5. Book essential transport

Book your flights or other modes of transport

If you need to fly to your holiday destination, then start to shop around for your flights. Alternatively, if you are like us maximising our airline reward scheme (BA Loyalty Scheme), then you will need to book as early as possible to be able to redeem any reward vouchers.

If you need to book trains or ferries then book early, or diary date to do so once bookings or reservations are available.

Book car rental

It is a good idea to consider booking a rental car (if needed) at the same time you book your flights, as there are often deals available when you do this together. For example, with the BA Loyalty Scheme, if you book a BA Holiday comprising of flight plus car, or flight plus accommodation, there are rewards available for doing this.

Book airport car parking

If required, make sure that you book airport car parking when you book your flight, as this can sell out.

Word of caution – I would recommend booking airport car parking on a separate transaction to your flight and car hire. This is in case your flight details change; it is then easier to chance the car parking. We found out the hard way after booking airport car parking on the same transaction as a RyanAir flight to Seville. Before travel, RyanAir changed our flight times 3 times, but we struggled to be able to change the airport parking to match. Lesson learnt.

6. Check passports, visa requirements and visa exemption waivers

Passports

Whilst you have your passport out to book flights (or other transport) then it is a good opportunity to double check that your passport is in date. Also, double check the requirements of the country you are visiting as some require your passport to be valid for certain lengths of time after your date of travel.

Visas and visa exemption waivers

For a smooth trip, check what the requirements are for the country you are visiting and make the appropriate visa arrangements.

In some cases of short term travel a visa exemption might be in place allowing you to buy a waiver if appropriate, for example, ESTAs for the USA or ETAs for Canada. If you have purchased these before, check to see if they are still in date and whether you can use them again.

7. Make accommodation and any key activity bookings

Accommodation – now that you have booked your flights, or other transport, then you should book your accommodation as required and update your spreadsheet.

Activities – from your initial research you should have a pretty good idea about what you want to see or do on your travels, so you can start to book any key activities – those which may sell out in advance, such as specialist wildlife tours, or theatre productions – to avoid the disappointment of missing out.

8. Consider health requirements – vaccinations and anti-Malaria medication

Vaccinations and anti-Malaria precautions

Depending on your travel destination, you may need vaccinations or to take anti-Malaria tablets. Have a quick look on-line to see if this looks necessary, then book an appointment with a Travel Clinic, preferably linked to your doctor’s practice, to sort out what you need. Don’t leave it too late in case you need a course of vaccinations in the run up to your travels.

Note – some places require you to show proof of your vaccinations on arrival and so check whether this is the case for where you are going. If so, remember to take a print out proving which vaccinations you have had.

9. Sort out care for your pet(s)

At the time of booking your holiday, I would also recommend thinking about care for your pets whilst you are away, as good kennels and pet sitters get booking up very early.

Obviously above is most relevant for those planning trips in advance, so if you book a last-minute trip then you have to take shortcuts or plan at speed, so just take care not to miss the important stuff.

By the time you have worked through the above 9 steps then you will have a framework plan in place for a smooth trip. You can now afford to step away from your planning now until nearer the time of your travels, aiming to pick up the planning again a couple of months before departure.

Let the countdown commence….

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Enjoy your travels!