How do I plan for a trip?

My friends call me an OCD or anal when it comes to planning for a trip. I myself would rate me just 6 out of 10. Hehehe. You ought to meet my friend (you know who you are). His itinerary looks like a brochure or even a travel agent's pamphlet, with pictures! For example the signboards for the airport or train terminals. Hehehe.

Part of my EU2018's trip

Japan 2018's.

Note: The initial drafts were done in excel. As the days get nearer, I printed out the schedule and filling out the blanks until the very day (e.g. in Tokyo). The other spreadsheet tabs include expenses and prayer times.

See, not too OCDC right? 😅. Well, it's good to have some sort of a plan right? Right? Like where to stay, the POI (places of interest), the ETDs/ETAs of your flights and trains.

I have a friend who told me that she once went to Redang (or was it Perhantian?) with her sister without even booking a hotel before getting there. They went from hotel to hotel looking for a room. They didn't mind sleeping on the beach if they weren't able to find a room. No, no, no, that's not me at all to wing it. I need to know I'd have a roof over my head before getting to a place 😆.

When?

I usually go on vacation at the end of April-mid May period. There's always a couple of public holidays, which is Labour Day on May 1st and Wesak Day. But as Ramadan is getting quicker every year, it'd be hard to travel in May in the following years.

But be aware that the shops or POIs are closed during the Easter weekend. When I was planning for the Japan trip, I didn't know that I was going during the Golden Week. I was freaking out. Luckily enough, yes  there was a lot of people but it was manageable. Getting a ticket on the Shinkansen was simple enough.

Sometimes it's a gamble with the weather too because it rains in spring. For example, it was wet when I visited the Alhambra.

Summer travel is always expensive. While I think I'd require lots of baggage space for warm clothing for winter travel. I don't have much vacation days left at the end of the year anyways.

Where to?

Anywhere where there are HRCs (Hard Rock Cafes). Haha. It may sound funny, but that's actually true. I got myself in the hole of collecting the pins when I was studying in the US. They are the cheaper option (if not the cheapest) when it comes to HRC souvenirs. But they do add up when you go from one HRC to another. Tokyo has 3! (if I count it correctly). I would've considered going to Yokohama if I had an extra day 😁. 

Current HRC pin collection

I've been alternating Europe and US every year. The only exception was in 2019 when I went to Japan.  Checkout my previous post for my post Covid19 travel ideas.

How long to spend in each city?

There's no straight answer. It depends on how long your vacation is, how many POIs there are per city. I usually spend 2-3 nights per city in average.

There are websites and tools that could recommend 1-7 day itinerary like Visit A City (website, google app).

I would start with the default Google Map 

Oslo map with some of the POIs

I would then map out the POIs (including lodging) in my own custom google map. For examples: my EU2018 trip. 

It's also helpful when I'm writing my blog about the trip, where you could also map out the path.

Japan 2019: path example

Where to stay?

This is a hard question to answer. Even for a solo travel. I would still want a comfortable stay. I don't think I could stay at a hostel 😇.

I tend to stay somewhere that is accessible by the public transportation, especially the train/metro station; easier to lug my luggage around. That could translate to slightly pricier hotels, especially when they are in the center of the city. My rough budget for a one night stay is 500 ringgit (MYR). You can splurge at a 5-star hotel in Malaysia, but with the low exchange rate that's a mere 2-3 star hotel in the US ($120), Europe, UK (£85), Japan (¥13000) and Sweden (1000kr).  I had to go slightly over budget when I was in Oslo, Copenhagen and Stockholm as the cost of living in the Scandinavian countries is pretty high; even my friend who's staying in London agrees to this.

I would also consider hotels with decent breakfast. I have to stress the word decent because Asians are so spoiled with the spread at the hotel breakfast, even for a 2 to 3 star hotels. To me, even with a continental breakfast, I don't have to spend extra time to find something to eat after I wake up. Plus, I could have my lunch even later and skip it altogether.

Some hotels have local breakfast section so it's nice to try them out.

Japanese style breakfast at Il Cuore Hotel Namba

mini natas for breakfast in Porto!

At times I like to splurge a bit on the last day at a given city. Examples are like:

• In Bali, we stayed at Tijili, a real nice hotel for a couple of nights. And on the final night, we moved to Pullman Hotel. Hey, we're in Bali. We need to be close to the waters. Am I right? Hehehe

Pullman's beach facing room.

• In Jogja, we opted for the 101 Hotel for 2 nights and Hyatt Regency for 1 night.

Hyatt Regency Yogyakarta

• In Porto, I just had to stay in Porto River Apartment.

Who can say no to Porto River Apartment that comes with gorgeous view!

How do you zero in on that one hotel?

Obviously there are ridiculous number of hotels in a given city. Tripadvisor is a good place to begin with. They have rankings for different types of accomodation.

Tripadvisor example for Osaka

My hotel in Namba

No matter how many comments that you read and go through in tripadvisor, agoda or booking.com, you simply can't tell if the hotel would be perfect for you until you are physically there. You'd find comments on each side of the spectrum even for a 7-star hotel.

This is the tripadvisor review section for the 7-star Signiel Seoul. (I just googled for a 7-star hotel :D)

Obviously, this is the part where you could shrink your budget or expand it.

How do you keep track of your itinerary?

I've been using Tripit since 2017. You just need to forward your flight, train and hotel booking confirmations to plans@tripit.com and they will extract out the information and create an itinerary from you. I also have my own printed out schedule (see above).

Now, Google can also do it for you without you knowing it. You can go to Google travel and see it for yourself.

The flight to the KB was already cancelled by AirAsia last month 😞

Transportation mode of choice?

I usually stick with planes and trains for intercity travel. I don't think I can survive a long bus ride. I always have a reservation when it comes to the toilet and my bowel movement 😀. 

When you're given the choice of a 10-hour bus ride from Istanbul to Cappadocia or a 2 hour and 20 minutes on the plane, I'd chose the latter, hands down. Sure, it costs more, but I'd rather fork out the extra money than spending that extra time on the bus.

My colleague opted for a luxury bus ride from Osaka to Tokyo because he says he and his wife doesn't have to worry about a hotel stay. I chose the Shinkansen because it only takes 2.5 hours when you're pressing for time. Besides, who wouldn't want to ride on one!

Conclusion

Anything else that I may have missed? 

Honestly speaking, planning for a trip takes time and effort, especially for a long trip. Unless there are people doing it for you 😄.

But you can spread out the planning. I usually get the return flight tickets first a few months in advance, say in December or January.

Next is the inter-city transportation. Hotels could be booked like a couple of months before the actual trip. While planning and choosing the places to visit is fine until the day of the visit.

Also, by spreading it out, you can pay for the transportation, hotels and entrance fees (from museums to theme parks to ferry rides) in stages. So during the trip, what's left is the daily expenses and shopping (only if you want to) 😉.