Let’s Plan Your Next Trip Together From Start to Finish

Are you looking for advice on how to plan a trip? This article is going to show you how to plan your next trip from start to finish. Are you ready?

“If I won the lottery I would travel.”
“I would love to travel. I just don’t have the money.”
“It must be nice that you get to travel so often. I don’t have the time.”

These are common beliefs that I hear about traveling all of the time. It’s really annoying. None of them are true. I’m about to slap these excuses across the face like a bad habit. Hold on tight because you’re about to become a rockstar vagabond. All of you!

It’s time to ditch the excuses for not traveling.

Let’s dissect these common excuses for not traveling the world.

“If I won the lottery I would travel more.”

You don’t need millions of dollars to have freedom. You don’t need much money at all. That’s the harsh reality of it all. You can survive off much less in a foreign country than you could in your own home town. I’ve found plenty of cheap accommodations and food in other countries while traveling. The most expensive part of any trip will almost always be your flight out. Once you fly over, everything else is affordable. Often much more affordable than it is at home.

If you start attacking your debt right now, you can earn your freedom. Anyone can earn their freedom. You just have to work for it. You can find a part-time gig, work longer hours, start a business, or sell some of your crap. Any one of these strategies will result in you making more money. You don’t have to win the lottery to increase your savings. We just have this illusion in our minds for some reason that you need millions of dollars to see what the world has to offer.

“I would love to travel. I just don’t have the money.”

Once again, you can easily get the money together. I’ve shared with you guys the only financial tools that you need to save lots of money. For most trips, you only need to save about $20 a week. That gives you over a $1,000 at the end of the year. At the very least, you could find a cheap last minute deal to escape the winter. If you want to get more aggressive, you can put more money aside.

All you really need is a savings account to put money aside on a daily, weekly, or even a monthly basis.

“It must be nice that you get to travel so often. I don’t have the time.”

Yes it is. It’s very nice actually. Traveling is amazing. The world is a book and if you never leave home, you never get off the first page. And we all have time. Every job offers vacation time. If you’re a freelancer, you can bring your laptop with you and work away. All you need is a wi-fi connection. I’ve found wi-fi access in the most obscure places around the world (small coffee shops in Budapest to shady parts of Dominican Republic).

Also with some planning you can always find the time. You just have to earmark this time in advance. Most of us couldn’t just take off by this Friday. With some planning in advance, any one of us can take off on a dream trip.

With the excuses out of the way, let’s plan our first trip together…

You ready to plan our first trip together?

How far out should you plan? At least two months for a one-week getaway.

For a longer trip (over a month) it’s going to take you at least 6-months of advance warning. The reason that you need to plan so far in advance is that you have to make all of your arrangements. This involves vacation time, research on where to go, asking friends to go, paying off debt, saving up for the trip, and picking the destination.

What’s my process for planning a trip?

1. Pick a destination. This is very important because you want to ensure that you go to the right place, for your goals. You don’t want to go in full party mode to a senior’s retreat-style place. You also don’t want arrive at a party place when you want to just relax. You have to pick the right hotels and destination based on what everyone wants out of the trip. The good news is that you can use Trip Advisor, dozens of other online forums, Twitter, and any other resource on the web to find out where to go.
2. See who’s interested in coming. Who’s all going? My trips have ranged from solo to mixed groups from 1 years old to 35. It’s usually important that you ask far in advance to give everyone enough time to request vacation leave and to save up the money.
3. Search for deals. Are there any deals? I recommend checking far in advance to see what the prices are like. Last minute isn’t always the best because prices could sky-rocket or the place you wanted to visit could just sell out.
4. Keep on saving money. We all need money to travel. The closer I get to a trip, the more that I start saving up and hustling to get the finances together. It’s important that at this stage you cut out the crap and try to get creative to increase your income.
5. Gather all of the essentials. You don’t need to stress about packing. All you need is the essentials. The good news is that you can find most items for cheap at your destination. I’ve forgotten everything from sun screen to shorts.
6. Go on the trip. That’s all that you have left at this point.

Alright, but how do you decide where and when to go?

This is an interesting question. Traveling is sort of like real estate. Where real estate is all about location, planning a trip is all about timing. We’ll get into this more during the week (it’s travel week). For now, let’s look at the money involved in going on a trip.

How do I save up for a trip?

Slowly, but surely is the best way to save up. Yes, that sounds lame. No, I’m not boring. The reality is that a trip is a MAJOR expense to deal with at once.

I’m always saving for a trip to be honest. How’s this possible?

You can create a sub-account with most banks where you save money for trips. This is what I use ING Direct for (you can use any online bank account).

How much money will you save? How much more do you need for your next trip? I hope that you consider opening a new savings account so that you have somewhere to put your money while you plan your much needed trip.

Saving money all depends on your priorities. Most of my friends say that they want to travel, but they don’t show it. It’s like saying that you want to get into shape while crushing a bag of chips. If you want to start traveling, you should find a savings account, and start putting your money away for a trip. Don’t just say that you want to travel. Do it.

We have tons more coming at you when it comes to travel. This is one of my favorite topics.

Now you should be able to figure out how to plan a trip moving forward. I don’t want anything to stop you from seeing what the world has to offer.