The first things to do when you plan your own travel itinerary are setting a budget and deciding the destination you will travel to.
Once you’ve done this, the following step involves laying the foundations of your journey.
How to make your travel itinerary by your own?
Let’s have a look together at what things you should be considering beforedraw your travel itinerary:
Personal interest
The first thing you must know when you’re plan your travel itinerary is “What do I like?”.It is fundamental for you to decide whether you’d like spending your time visiting museums, relaxing on the beach, walking around a well-known city centre or embarking on a challenging hiking adventure.
And what about food? Did you know that some people travel to a place solely because they’re curious about trying a typical national dish?
Plan you best travel itinerary
Once you’ve made up your mind about what kind of trip you’d like go on and what places you will be visiting whilst travelling, you can finally start the proper planning phase.
At this stage, travel guides and maps will come in handy, so grab as many as you can to help you spot the main places of interests of your destination. It is also fundamental to decide what mean of transport you will use to reach all those must-see tourists attractions you wish to visit.
Be careful: travelling from one place to another can take up a considerable amount of time, in certain cases, even an entire day. With the help of the maps and travel guides you bought (Lonely Planet’s travel guides are a great option), it will be easier for you to plan your journey and check arrival and departure times so as to make the best out of the little time at your disposal.
Transport
Choosing what mean of transports you’ll use when travelling is a pivotal step that’s very important for answer to the question about “how to make a travel travel itinerary?”.
If you’re travelling a great distance, then you might want to consider doing so by plane to save as much time as you can. Obviously, the plane is an expensive option which may result in exceeding the budget you’ve set for yourself. In this case, the only choice is to opt for less expensive means of transport which will often increase the time you’ll spend travelling from one place to another.
When I plan my travel itinerary, I find it very useful to draw some dots on the map: these are the points of interest I want to visit.
Once I’ve done this, I then draw a line that connects the all dots one by one: this is the rute I’ll follow. I can now start thinking whether to use the plane, the train or even renting a car to get to the places I pinpointed on the map.
Choose you type of Accomodation
Finding a place where to stay and sleep, whether you want to opt for a cheap hostel or a luxurious 5 stars hotel, is undoubtedly necessary. Your choice depends entirely on the kind of journey you want to experience.
If you feel adventurous and you are backpacking then you could even skip this step, especially if you’re travelling during the low season. Only when you arrive at destination, you’ll then worry about finding somewhere to stay.
If, on the contrary, you like to have things well organised before setting off, get your computer and have a look on the Internet. The web is full of different hostels and hotels to suit everybody’s taste and, what’s more, almost all of them are reviewed by the previous hosts so you know what to expect. One of the most user-friendly and reliable websites to find accommodation is without doubts booking.com.
Have you found the accommodation you were looking for? Grab your phone or send an email and make your booking.
To sum up:
- Adventure + Improvisation = a deeper travelling experience with the chance of unforeseen setbacks;
- Thorough planning = a less deeper travelling experience but much more likely to be a smoother one.
The weather
If you’re days off happen to be in a set week or month of the year and you can’t change them, you should know that in the desired destination the season may unfortunately be the rainy one.
Sure, the weather shouldn’t act as a deterrent and stop you from travelling, yet it is an important factor to take into account when planning your trip. For example, visiting the coasts of Florida between August and October could be dangerous as hurricanes often strike this area at this time of year. The same happens in the South-West of Asia which is frequently hit by fierce monsoons and heavy rains.
Travel Insurance
One of the things that you should never forget when you’re planning you own travel itinerary is purchasing a travel insurance. Indeed, an insurance will ensure you travel safely, with no further worries on your mind thus you’ll be able to focus on enjoying the trip fully.
Many travellers often tend to overlook getting a travel insurance and when something unpleasant happens, they immediately regret their decision. Don’t get me wrong, not all trips do require a travel insurance (I’m used to buying one everytime, just in case…), but for certain types of journeys it is strictly necessary.
Travel insurances offer a wide variety of policies based on where you’re travelling to (I will soon write an article focused on this precise matter). Imagine a world map on a table: what the insurance companies do is dividing the world in different areas, each one with its own insurance premium, the most expensive being for the USA and Canada.
In conclusion, a travel itinerary:
- with travel insurance is a responsible and advisable choice;
- with travel insurance for Europe is unnecessary;
- without travel insurance for extra-European nations is foolish;
- without travel insurance for the USA and Canada is an irresponsible decision.
I’d certainly go for the first option, wouldn’t you?!
The pleasure of creating and plan your own travel itinerary:
Creating a travel itinerary is the most important step of your journey — it is not the easiest things on this planet, but it is not rocket science either!
It’s right at this stage that you have to gather as much information as you can, surfing on the Internet and looking for travel blogs, forum and websites.
Grab a pen and take notes: the suggestions and recommendation of the travellers who have wrote something about their own personal experience on the Internet may be very useful when deciding where to go and what to see. This thorough documentation often puts people off because it requires a good dose of patience and time. But, believe me, it is the stage at which your dream trip will finally take shape and it will soon become a reality.