After viewing my blog are you eager to explore that next wonder? If so, I know you have questions and here you will find your answers. When booking a trip, I always follow a four- step process when brainstorming and planning my next wonder. I encourage to give yourself 4-5 months of planning, depending on how much your next wonder may cost you. In this four step process, I will use my trip to Switzerland as a example to give an idea of how to brainstorm and book your next wonder.
Step 1: Picking The Right Place
Step 1 is always the hardest step being that there is so many places to visit. A easy way to help with this decision, is using a app that I use called Skyscanner. This app allows you to plug in the desire dates you plan on vacationing and getting the best cost for flights and hotels around the world for that desired time. After you make this decision on where to explore, the next three steps become the fun part. As promised I am going to use my trip to Switzerland as my choice to visit.
Step 2: Accommodations
My recommendation on hotels is mainly in my opinion always based on location. Like explained in About Me section, my aim when visiting places is to always think about taking advantage of excursions available to do. So in Switzerland scenario, I chose the best hotel I can afford that was in prime location to minimize the use of extra spending on trains and cabs. Hotel I chose was Bristol Hotel in Zurich which was walking distance from the bus terminal that managed pick up/drop off for majority of the excursions from Zurich. When picking a hotel, yes everyone wants a five star luxury experience, but my personal opinion, with so much excursions you will have on your itinerary to do on a daily basis, how much time will you really spend at the hotel besides sleeping? Saving money on expensive hotels will give you extra money to spend and for excursions you wish to do. Some people ask me, “Why not a hostel, especially if your solo traveling?” me personally, I have no experience or any desire to stay at a hostel. Yes they are cheap, but the idea of sharing a sleep space with complete strangers never sat well with me. But like mentioned before, there are definitely affordable hotels in the desire region you need to be, in order to book the excursions you want to do.
Step 3: Excursion Brainstorming
Now we made it to the fun part. Brainstorming and planning out your excursions for your daily itinerary. My motto for booking excursions is to always “Maximize Your Time.” What do I mean by maximize your time? With things that you are interested in, try to choose excursions that has a duration of 6-8 hours. Depending on where you travel, some places have excursions that last 10-12 hours. These may seem like long days but when you are doing something you wish to do those hours fly by. I recommend to always lookup day trips wherever you are planning to go. To make this easier, I recommend using the app/website Expedia to book excursions. This website when searching excursions, have the option to click and filter out things you wish to do. As mentioned previously about day trips, Expedia has that option to find all available day trips for the time you will spend in your destination. As for my trip to Switzerland these were my excursions I had picked and had a blast. My trip to Switzerland was from Oct. 9th to Oct. 15th with a day layover in Spain. So technically I was in Switzerland from the 11th to the 15th. As you can see in my itinerary of excursions, “Maximize Your Time” is something I live by.
Step 4: What To Pack
Last step in planning the perfect trip, is what to pack. Depending on the excursions you picked to book, packing should consist of the daily excursions you plan to do. My list and recommendation for what to pack, depending on any season, is most important footwear. A great pair of walking sneakers and hiking boots is essential for any trip and situation despite any weather conditions. Switzerland weather in October was perfect. Highs were around 65F and lows at night were around 40F. This range of temperatures for my time in Switzerland, constructed my packing with mostly hoodies and sweatpants. Along with the sweatpants and hoodies, my footwear I used were Hoka One Bondi 7 for walking and for hiking tours, Foxelli hiking boots. I always recommend booking your excursions first so that packing will become much easier. (Check out “What To Buy & Pack?!” section for more detailed description of items I use to explore my wonders).
I hope my page inspired you to plan that next trip you desire to do. Always remember these steps as they will make your planning much easier for any trip in your future. Don’t forget to look at my resource page to see which websites I use in order to plan the perfect trip. Thanks for reading and always come back to check for new blog posting as I continue to explore endless wonders.
Exploration Wonders 