How to Plan a Trip

I'm obviously a bit of a trip planning junky.  Crazy as it may seem, I enjoy hours of research, haggling for prices, researching destinations, figuring out local transportation and picking my own tours. One reason I like doing this is that I genuinely enjoy the challenge and it also allows me to customize, but the most important factor is money. I find that with a bit of research and using all available resources I can dramatically reduce the cost of any trip with the do it yourself approach. Honestly, with the use of the internet and advice from other travellers, I don't understand how traditional travel agents stay in business!

After having planned countless trips I have developed a sort of pattern or steps to take before I take off for the great unknown....

1.  Decide on the Destination

This might seem obvious, but with so many awesome places in the world to visit, this can be a bit of a challenge. My destinations are sometimes based on where I want to visit but also on my available time, my budget, or my need to be in a particular place for work or family.

2.  Work out a rough itinerary of major stops

Depending on where I'm going I like to decide on some of the key places I would like to visit. For instance, three summers ago I was headed to China to teach but spent two week afterwards going to Beijing, Guilin, Kho Phi Phi, Bangkok and Bali.

3.  Book flights and/or ground transportation

I usually spend quite a bit of time looking for the most economical or safest modes of transport.  I like to compare all of the major booking sites and check for any budget airlines in particular areas. Watching the prices for a couple of weeks is always a good idea.  I tend to book on a Tuesday as flights are supposedly cheapest on Tuesdays and for International flights I find about 4 months before departure to be good.  I like Ryan Air in Europe and Air Asia in Asia for low prices. Low prices aren't always the way to go though...a couple of years ago a opted to forego a ridiculously low priced Air Maylasia flight and instead took Air Qatar just for piece of mind since this was shortly after Air Maylasia suffered a series of unfortunate mishaps.

4.  Research and book accommodation

After ending up in some rather dodgy places, I spend a lot of time checking out reviews and recommendations for hotels, hostels, B and Bs.  I tend towards the more modest establishments and have found some real gems this way.  Different booking sites do have different prices so be sure to shop around. I tend to like booking.com and Agoda for Asia but I always contact the establishment directly to see if I can get a better price. I've tried AirBNB a few times but have actually found the prices to be more than other booking sites.

5.  Send all my itinerary to my Tripit account

I absolutely love my Tripit account. I use the free account and love the ability to quickly check all of my information at a glance.

6.  Research activities, restaurants, and places to visit

I like to have a rough idea of some of the activities I want to do in a particular area but I also leave my self some spontaneous time.  I record my must do items on my Tripit itinerary.

7.  Decide on local transport and make sure I know the costs

Sometimes you just want someone waiting at the airport with your name on a sign but at other destinations it is just as easy to take the local bus and it is much cheaper!  

8.  Organize my electronics

Load PDF copies of all bookings, maps, tickets, etc onto my iPad and into one of my Cloud accounts...just in case.  Make sure my iPhone is unlocked and I know where to get a local SIM Card as soon as I land.  (I'm a bit addicted to my data plan!)  Load books onto my iPad...a must! (Thank goodness I don't need to lug around paper books with me any more)  I enjoy reading novels or any books that pertain to my destination both before and during my trips...it really makes things more interesting if you have a bit of schema to rely on!  I also make sure I have the right adaptors, convertors, cords and whatnot for what I'm taking. Generally, I travel with my iPad and iPhone so things are pretty straight forward as these can handle any voltage but I do still need an adaptor for outlets.

9.  Organize clothes and any medications I'm going to be taking 

I also check out the vaccinations recommended for certain destinations and then ask my GP to give me the necessary scripts...saves on going to a Travel Clinic!  I like to pack clothes according to my rule of three...three items of each type of clothing...one to wear, one clean and one I have washed.  I have learned through experience that I always end up wearing only a few items while away and having five or six types of footwear to choose from isn't worth lugging a huge suitcase.  Being able to avoid checking in luggage is well worth forgoing a closet full of clothing options!

10.  Tie up any loose ends

Making sure all my bills are up to date, someone is taking care of my house (and cats), having someone at home having a copy of my itinerary, and organizing my transport to and from the airport just makes me feel more relaxed when I'm away.

After all of this planning, expect the unexpected and have fun! Bon Voyage!

Top Twenty Apps for Travelling (OK, It's Twenty Two...But I Just Couldn't Decide)

Final post for this trip...and I am not being payed by Apple...

This is the first trip I have taken where I decided that I needed to absolutely have some sort of data connection.  Suffice it to say that I was still working on my travels and I would need to have an internet connection and reliable access to the world wide internet.

My first challenge was using data without paying thousand in roaming charges.  This actually proved to be extremely easy.  My first outing when I arrived in China was to a China Mobile store.  As we travelled to our first hotel I noticed a store every five hundred metres or so and one was conveniently at the end of the drive of our hotel.  I walked down there after settling into my room and despite the language barrier, I was able to quickly switch my sim card and was up and running with 6 gigabytes of data that would last 6 months for about $50.  The only difficulty I had was of where to store my Telus sim card so that I would have it after six week of travel.  I tucked it into my folder that has my little tooly thing for opening my sim card drawer on my iphone.  I was using my iPad for most work and blog stuff so having the data on my phone was super handy since I was now able to use it as a hotspot or connection for my ipad!  The only caveat is that in order to use a SIM card from another country your iphone must first be "unlocked".  Now, I don't really understand how a corporation can "lock" a device, that you have paid for, to their company but apparently this is allowable, in Canada at least...I did call Telus, my provider, before leaving on my trip and asked them to unlock my phone.  At first they wanted to charge me $30 but when I objected, strenuously, they did unlock it for free.  When I tried to do the same for my daughter, with Bell, they were unwilling to budge on their $75 fee...

I basically did the same thing in Indonesia (the store was called Smile) and Thailand and the cost was actually much less.  I just showed someone my iphone and used my translation apps to ask where I could get a Sim and someone pointed me in the right direction.  The store people put the SIM in for me, reset the phone and made sure it was working and I was on my way!

It was very comforting knowing that I could check my phone whenever I thought I was lost and to know where I was and to be able to translate a few english words and communicate with non english speaking people.  I was also able to talk to my kids and stay in touch on a real time basis with everyone at home.  This might seem to take some of the adventure out of the whole travel experience thing but it is also very liberating and I don't think I would have had as many adventures as I did if I wasn't relying on my technology!

I had researched many apps before I left for Asia but I actually fully relied on just a few.  Here are my top travel apps, for now...

1. Viber.   This is a free app for just about very device out there.  In layman's terms, if you have the app and one of your contacts has it then you can call and text, for free, from anywhere in the world.  The negative is that some conspiracy theorists think this is an app which is designed to track your every movement and thought.  Personally, I really don't have much to hide so I will take full advantage of this freebee.  Just make sure that the people you want to call also have the app.  There is a bit of a delay when calling across the world, but still, it beats the post system that I relied on some thirty five years ago when I took my first trip abroad.
2. Google Translate.  I tried a lot of different translation apps, including "SayHi", and other apps that weren't free (Google Translate is free) but this turned out to be my "go to" app when I needed something fast, quick and reliable.  I especially liked the fast, full screen written view as most people I tried to speak to, preferred reading rather than listening.  Drawback is you need wifi or data connection but usually I found it was too inconvenient to ask someone to wait while I tried to find the correct word or phrase that was stored when I didn't have a data connection. When this happened, I usually resorted to sign language or my few phrases in the local dialect that I had committed to memory.
3. Compass.   Free compass app was a godsend.  If you are told to go East (or West, or North, or South) while coming out of a subway there is no way to do it unless you have a handy, dandy compass on your phone!
4. TextPlus.    Text anyone, anywhere, for free....'nough said.
5. SayHi   Translation app but I actually used it to learn how to speak.  If the app recognizes what I say in Mandarin (or whatever) it gives an accurate translation!
6. Google Maps  Absolutely accurate and invaluable...especially riding a motorbike on my own in Bali!
7. Blogsy.  Terrific app for making blogging easy!
8. Panorama.   Great photo app for taking panoramic shots.  I will print these one day!
9. Instagram.  Cool little app that allows you to zip up your photos a bit and easily post them to your followers or faceboook.
10. Flashlight.  I also had an old fashioned, LED, flashlight in my purse but on those very dark walks this was very handy!
11. XE Currency.  Easy and free currency converter.  You can get very confused about currency after numerous countries!
12. Card Mate Pro.  Great app for keeping contacts and hotel information handy.
13. Pocket Guide.  This and Rick Steves are my favourite travel guides.
14. Tripit.  I never plan a trip without this cool free app.  I just forward all my information and make a few edits and all my information is handy even without an internet connection.
15. TripAdvisor.  I always check this for hotels, activities, and outings...
16. Agoda.  Never used it before this trip but after ending up in a dive in Bangkok and finding a five star, luxurious hotel for $50 a night in Bangkok, I'm hooked!
17. Aviary.  Cool photo editing tool!
18. iBooks   iOS Standard    I really couldn't travel without downloading a load of books onto my iBooks app.  What a difference from lugging a load of books with me!
19. Travel Charger.  Ok, this isn't an app and I didn't have one but I did see many people with one and I did get a charge from many kind fellow travellers.  I will definitely pick one up the next time I am out and about.  Basically, this is a device that holds a charge and provides you with a portable charge when an outlet is just not handy.
20. iPhoto...damn, I went over the twenty, but I nearly forgot...after 2000 plus photos and videos on my iphone (i didn't bring another camera with me) I needed to dump my photos somewhere so setting the automatic upload to iPhoto was invaluable.  I was then able to delete the photos from my camera app and free up a lot of space.
21. Youtube...and finally, my videos took up way too much space on my phone so whenever I had wifi, I would upload my videos to my youtube account.  I set them for private until I was sure they were suitable for public viewing and then deleted them from my phone.
22. Dropbox - useful for uploading photos but you may need extra storage

I'm sure that other smart phones probably have the same capabilities but I must say that I was very happy that where ever I went, and even with language barriers, if I showed someone my iphone they were able to set me up with whatever I needed.  My phone worked flawlessly and got me out of many difficult situations.

The best fun I had was when I was in a remote area of Bali and I was using iTranslate with a group of people.  Once they realized that they could just speak into my phone and it would translate for me into English, it was awesome!  We had a great time conversing after that.  Great way to make new friends!