We have friends that often ask us how we are comfortable to be traveling internationally and doing all the planning by ourselves. We never use travel agents and generally don’t like group planned tours. M has done a couple of Rick Steves tours and she liked the social aspect of traveling with different people but didn’t like the lack of flexibility of where and when to go places. Also, a group only moves as fast as the slowest person and someone always seems to be late for the bus. So we are independent travelers and we have developed a system to plan long trips that works for us. I thought I would share our methods. We are getting ready for a long trip that includes at least 19 different Airbnbs so we need an organized process…
Our first step is deciding what countries and areas we want to go. We have lists of future trips that seems to be always growing. We watch a lot of You Tube travelers and get inspired by them. Once we agree on our destination, we start learning as much as we can about what attractions we want to see and which cities or towns we want to stay in. Trip Advisor is great for this. I look at the destinations for a country and look at places we might be interested in. I look at the Trip Advisor travel forums and look at other people’s itineraries and trip reports.
I then watch a lot more YouTube. I search on each destination and watch 2-3 videos to see how other people saw the city or attraction. Many videos are tough to sit through (anyone can make videos) but I still learn a lot about what we want to see and how long we would need to be in each town. We also like videos on the best food of a particular region. We like to be prepared so we don’t miss a town specialty dish.
I also like looking at Google Maps and finding places that might not be on everyone’s radar. That’s how I found our favorite Mexican town- Bucerias outside of Puerta Vallarta. It also shows other beach towns like Sayulita, Yelapa, Lo De Marcos that are fantastic places to go.
I then go to the library and get the travel books. I get the most up to date ones I can find. I prefer Lonely Planet and M really likes Rick Steves books. I skim through most of the books and get a better idea on attractions and places to go. I don’t like carrying books traveling but M does, and she will often buy a book or 2 on Amazon…
Once we are smart enough, it is time to start booking. First step is airfare. We learned our lesson during the pandemic to never book airfare on Expedia or any other online travel agency. Our cancelled flights during 2020 were very difficult to get refunds or credits because we to deal with Expedia and not the actual airline. So now we search for flights on Expedia or Google Flights but when we find what we want, we then book directly with the airline. We prefer the least stops possible and try to use miles to keep our costs down. We have United and Alaska credit cards so we often have enough miles for at least one of us to get a free flight.
Next stop is accommodation. If we plan to stay 3 days or less, I will check Expedia for hotels but also check Airbnb. With cleaning fees and service fees on Airbnb it is often a lot cheaper to just use a hotel. But we prefer Airbnb’s and usually book with them because we like to stay at least 3 days in a location. We are still seeing lots of prices of $30-75 per night in places like Mexico, Croatia and Thailand and many of those places don’t have the crazy cleaning fees or service fees that you see in U.S airbnbs.
We have some priorities. It needs to be cancellable. It has to have someone outside space to drink coffee in the morning and wine in the evening. We need a clothes washer every 7-10 days. There needs to be somewhere comfortable to sit inside. I don’t need a TV. We prefer Superhosts. And it needs to have good reviews. We are very hesitant to book places with less than 5 or 10 reviews. Location is probably the biggest factor. We want to be in a location where we don’t need a taxi and can rely just on transit or walking to see what we want to see. I search on Airbnb and put my favorites on wishlists. I have a lot of wishlists…. Many for trips we never actually booked…
M will then go through my wishlists and narrow it down to 2 or 3. We then look at them together and make a decision.
Next step is transportation to get between our destinations and we have our favorites on this as well but we will use anything. Our preferred ranking of options. 1. ferry 2. train 3. bus 4. airplane 5. rental car On our upcoming trip we are using all 5 methods. There are places like national parks where it just isn’t possible to reasonably get to without a rental car.
I use Rome 2 Rio on deciding which method works best. It will show the options and we decide after looking at the most reasonable price and the most reasonable time. Our upcoming trip is mostly during the offseason so we have only booked the flight we need and the rental cars. We think we will be fine getting ferry, bus and train tickets the week before we arrive.
We are currently planning a South East Asia trip for next Winter. I have made Airbnb wishlists but haven’t booked anything yet. Still waiting for a dip in airfare prices before we commit. I am tracking flights on Google flights so we get emails when the prices drop and become reasonable again.
We leave Wednesday for our fall trip. Next blog post will be from Vienna Austria. I should be posting once a week soon!