What Do You Need to Plan Before You Travel

And What Can You Figure Out When You Get There?

I know how overwhelming it can be to plan your first big travel experience. 

There are so many things you need to think about and plan for. It’s easy to find yourself thinking ahead to every moment, trying to figure everything out before you go. 

The good news is that you don’t have to plan every inch and moment of your trip. There are some things that should be planned in advance, of course. But there are also many things that you can figure out after you arrive. 

Let’s take a look at what you definitely need to determine before you travel – and what you can work out while you are on the road. 

What You Should Figure Out Before You Travel

These are the logistics and plans you should figure out before you set off on your journey. 

before you travel

How to Get From the Airport to Your Hotel

There’s no need to figure out all the transport for your entire trip, but it’s helpful to know how you will get from the airport to your hotel when you first arrive. 

When you touch down you’ll be tired, jet-lagged and might not have access to WiFi or a local SIM card. Your phone might even be out of battery from the long flight. You don’t want to wait until that point to start figuring out how to get to your accommodation. 

Ideally, you should have a step-by-step plan figured out that doesn’t require you to be online. Fortunately, there is a lot of information available to help you with this. Simply Google “How to get from (Airport) to (City)” and review your options. You might even want to copy down or print the information so you can access it even if your electronics run out of battery. 

First Day and Last Day

Although you don’t want to have every second of your day planned, you might want to figure out the first and last days of your trip before you travel. After all, these are days when you are going to be catching flights so you’ll need to be a little bit organized. 

On the first day you’ll have just arrived and (as I mentioned above) it’s great to have your route from the airport to your hotel already planned out. 

It’s also nice to have your last day figured out too. Know where you will be staying on your last night – and how you’ll be getting back to the airport from there. That way, you can plan ahead and make sure you are leaving on time. 

before you travel

Visas and Work Permits

Before you board the plane to your destination, you need to know the visa situation. Can you get a visa on arrival? Or, do you need to apply for a visa in advance? For example, if you are traveling to the USA you’ll need to be approved for an ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorization) before you fly. 

This is especially important if you are going on a Working Holiday. You’ll need to have the correct work permit for your Working Holiday Visa category before you arrive. When you go through immigration in your arrival country, you must show your Working Holiday Visa. 

Often a helpful resource for visa entry requirement information is the “Get In” section of the Wikitravel page for that specific country. Of course, be aware that this information may be out of date and you should always verify it on the official government website of the country as well. 

before you travel
We were glad we got travel insurance!

Travel Insurance

Another important aspect of your trip you need to figure out before you go is your travel insurance. This needs to be done in advance, as often it won’t be valid if you purchase it after you have already left. 

Ideally, you’d purchase travel insurance within 15 days of booking your trip. That way, you’ll qualify for full coverage. However, even if you have already booked the trip you can still buy travel insurance up to one day before you depart.

Travel insurance is crucial to have. When Lee went to Canada several years ago, he ended up breaking both of his wrists while riding a bike. His treatment cost about $5,000, which was thankfully all covered by our travel insurance. 

Researching Local Scams

Another important thing you should research before you go on your trip is the common scams in the area. You should know these before you arrive, because otherwise it might be too late. 

To illustrate this, I have a story about an American backpacker we met in Buenos Aires. Let’s call her Sarah.  

Sarah went out sightseeing and came back to the hostel in tears. She had been walking down the sidewalk and an old woman had stopped her to let her know that there was bird poop on her shoulder. 

Sarah stopped and looked and sure enough her shoulder was splattered with white goo. The old woman offered a tissue and Sarah tried to scrub the stain off her clothes. She even put her shoulder bag down so she could reach the stain better.

While she was distracted cleaning up the bird poo, a young man ran out of the crowd, grabbed her bag and ran away. She lost her camera (with all her trip photos), her phone and her cash. 

When Sarah told me this story, I felt incredibly bad for her. What an awful experience! But I also immediately knew what had happened. This “bird poop” scam is a common one in South America and other places around the world. This is what likely happened:

  • Prior to this moment, another scammer had subtly squirted a fake bird poo mixture on her shoulder. 
  • The old lady (who was in on the scam) distracted her while the theif grabbed her bag. 

If Sarah had done her research, she would have known that this scam existed and when the old lady tried to stop her, she would have just kept on walking. That’s the most powerful defense you have against getting scammed: knowledge. 

before you travel
Buenos Aires, Argentina

What You Can Figure Out When You Get There

These are the things you don’t necessarily need to have figured out before you leave for your trip. You can work them out while you are on the road. 

Your Exact Itinerary

You never have to figure out what you are doing on every day of you trip before you leave. I mean, you can if you really want to. But it’s not necessary.

In fact, I would suggest that having every minute of your trip planned is actually a bad idea. Here are a few reasons why:

  • Some things will inevitably take longer than expected, so you will want your schedule to be a bit flexible to accommodate. 
  • You can’t predict the weather, so you’ll need to be able to adjust your plans around it. 
  • There might be days where you don’t feel like whatever activity you have planned and would rather do something else. 
  • You will discover things at your destination that you didn’t even know were there, so you need to have room in your itinerary to fit them in. 
  • It’s actually really fun to have a couple days of your trip where you just wander with no plan in mind and “see what happens.” In fact, they can be some of the best experiences. 
before you travel
Rome, Italy

Where to Eat

Some of the best dining experiences I’ve had while traveling have not been planned in advance. So, leave some room in your trip to wander and be spontaneous when it comes to the food you try. 

Of course, this is not to say that you shouldn’t research the best restaurants in your destination in advance online. That can be a great way to find a few excellent places to eat during your stay. 

However, sometimes you can also find some absolute gems by wandering through the city and following your nose. 

When Lee and I were in the Algarve in Portugal, we weren’t impressed by the overpriced cookie-cutter restaurants along the touristy seafront. Instead, we wandered back into the backstreets of the village and found a small family owned restaurant on a quiet street. 

Although our server spoke no English, we knew the words for beer and chicken in Portuguese – so that’s what we got. A heaping table filled with crispy and spicy roasted piri piri chicken, salad with big juicy tomatoes, french fries and cold bottles of Super Bock and Sagres. 

It was the most delicious meal of our trip – and one we would have never experienced if we hadn’t been spontaneous. 

Travel Immunizations (Sometimes)

In some countries, you’ll need to show proof of certain vaccinations in order to enter. In some situations, it makes sense to get your immunizations before you head off on your trip. 

However, this is not always the case.

For example, Lee and I saved $1000 by getting our immunizations after we arrived in Bangkok. (You can read more about how we did it in this post.) It made a lot more sense and it was so much cheaper and easier than doing it in Canada. 

Before this, I’d assumed that travel vaccinations were always something I had to get done before I left on a trip. However, that experience proved me wrong. It’s worth checking if you can get your vaccinations done right after you arrive – especially in countries where healthcare is much cheaper. 

before you travel

What else?

Which things do you usually plan in advance before you travel? What do you like to figure out while you are on the road? Leave your comment below and let us know. 

Kelly Dunning

A Canadian freelance writer with a love of art, culture, literature and adventure, Kelly loves exploring foreign lands and expressing her experiences through the power of the written word.

Related Articles

45 Comments

  1. Great article
    Thanks for sharing this nice information to share travel tips before start travelling.
    every person should follow these tips before going to travel so that journey can successfully complete.

  2. The itinerary is one of the most important things need to be planned first. Itinerary let your traveling works smoothly and also one of the most important things, itinerary helps you to cover the most important attractions of that place.

  3. Thanks for sharing this wonderful blog. As you have said above, planning is necessary. When I plan my trips everything gets executed one by one. And that is a good thing.

  4. That’s really useful for any traveler! Like most of the others, I sometimes forget to bring necessary things with me! Your post has made me more creative and more attentive regarding everything that needs to be done before traveling! I have been working at https://flirtymania.plus/ and help people with video chat with wonderful girls ! Anyone could enjoy their online time with beautiful girls across the globe in boobs dot house. By the way, thanks for sharing this post.

  5. Very nice tips! I like the encouragement for improv food tasting. That’s definitely the way to go for at least part of any trip. Also, your travel scams advice is a solid tip for any traveler, both new and veteran.

  6. Great travel tips for sure. I too was born with the travel bug and I think it’s awesome that your grandma is still wandering the world. I also love your tips but also the fact that you gave an estimated reading time!! Will definitely use this post for future travels!

  7. Hi, thanks for this great article. Planning is important before any trip. Like most of the others, I sometimes forget to bring necessary things with me! Or I don’t have time to visit all the interesting places in the new country. Thanks for sharing these important tips.
    https://viplikes.net/

  8. Thank you for such a detailed and interesting travel planning blog! Once I was on vacation with my family and we had a lot of problems, starting with planning, and ending with a trip back to our city, I cannot call it a terrible experience, but it definitely spoiled the mood. I recently read interestinginformative essay examples with a detailed description of what a wonderful vacation people can have and decided to try to organize something like this, and I got to your article. Hope I have a great family trip! All thanks to your experience.

  9. Travel planning allows you to prioritize your experiences and make the most of them. Depending on where you go, there may be a lot of attractions or only a few. Whatever the case may be, prioritizing what you want to do during your holiday will determine how many of these experiences you may have. For your journey preparation, you may also add Demon Blade – Japanese Action RPG or look at this image.

  10. Oh after this article have huge desire eating gelato in center of Rome, and after eating Napoly pizza with sparkling wine. The best place I ever been, annoying situation with covid, literally makes me cry, because I like to travel a lot!

  11. In today’s business world, it’s difficult to get by without using a decent outsourcing service. I can recommend service​​​ because I personally use their services. It was a pleasure to work with their platform and they can help professionally. They’re really product-oriented. and know how to adapt their work to our requirements and they assisted me in all of the needed areas i the start of build my business. https://get-accs.com/

  12. Only some cleaning suppliers provide ones own services quite as. That’s why should you double-check if you are cleaning crew will take all that cleaning components. Ask if necessary to make some other items, or when you require various special programs – ensure that you communicate considering the cleaning small business. cleaning services

  13. Transportation. This is actually relatively easy in most European countries but it still nice to have all of this planned in advance for when we arrive. We will be traveling back to Germany this fall and having our train tickets from the airport is just as important to us as the plane tickets themselves.
    On a side note. I was happy to see that you guys are still traveling and still blogging. I have so many of your stories to catch up on. You guys were trail blazers for us and it was always nice to get tips from you.
    Stay safe,
    Nick and Silke

  14. Really Interesting Blog !!
    These are some of the most important things one should keep in mind while planning a trip. Thanks a lot for sharing. Keep sharing such great content.

  15. I want to use this opportunity to tell the whole world on how I become rich and famous. I’m 93 years old. I was passing through difficulty in business and there was no hope of me coming out of my debt. I borrow money in my bank to do my business and I run at lost on the business I got frustrated and decided to be playing lottery to see if I can win and make my business grow and I have played for years now nothing good is coming my way on till I meet someone online talking about Dr Ayoola on the internet. He was taking about how this Dr Ayoola help him to win mega million lottery game. I said to myself if this is true and decide to contact him and told him to help me as well I later read more about this man and see how he has been helping people all over the world. I have faith in him and choose to work with him. After working with him he told me what I need to do for the number to be given to me which I did after he finish working he said I will have a dream and the number will be review to me in the dream. That night has I was sleeping I dream a number immediately he call me and gave me the same number I dream of and ask me to go and play the number. Today I’m here testifying of the good work he did for me I played the number and I won the sum of 1, 000,000 million dollars in a lotto max. You can contact Dr Ayoola for help if you want to win big in lottery game he has the gift of giving right number contact him today and thank me email him today Via email: drayoolasolutionhome@gmail. com or https://www.facebook.com/Dr-Ayoola-105640401516053/ text or call +14809032128

  16. Since the data you offer is genuine, reflecting accurately and objectively, and is very helpful for societal development as a whole, I have no choice but to follow you.

  17. I would also add: to take security measures for your home. Before traveling, be sure to turn off all electrical appliances at home. When it comes to electrical services, it is crucial to select the right electrician company to ensure a safe and efficient experience. Electrician Mississauga stands out as a reliable and reputable option in this regard. You can get a glimpse of their extensive range of services, including electrical repairs, installations, lighting solutions, and emergency support, on their website: https://electricianmississauga.ca .

  18. Wonderful & very informative blog. Thanks for sharing such a informative and useful travel post. Thank you for such detailed description of the destination. Good you explained everything in detail it has been a great help.

  19. I was able to win back my Ex lover with the help of Dr.ma c ‘ ‘ ya ho o…co m......................................................... says:

    I recommend..

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button