Next Saturday, I am beginning my 3.5 month backpacking trip through Europe. I have spent a lot of time planning and researching what I am going to be doing and how I am going to do it. I am so excited and feel so fortunate to be able to go on this trip.
So, where do you begin when planning a large trip?
You decide to go.
Seriously. The first step in planning your dream trip is to decide to do it! "I wish I could do that", "if only I could go there", "it's my dream to do that!", are things we say too often. It seems so crazy that this three-month trip is a product of me turning a thought into an action.
I understood the rare opportunity I have of not being tied to anything at home. We all have reasons to not go travelling. Some are real commitments, but others are actually not that important. What is important is living in the moment (as cliché as that is).
So, what's next?
Next is planning your route. Below I have broken down my planning process and provided some really great travel tools that I found along the way!
1) INSTAGRAM TRAVEL ACCOUNTS AND GEO TAGS
Instagram can be a great travel tool to collect inspiration and information. Larger travel accounts are a good place to start. Accounts like National Geographic or Lonely Planet are a good resource for exploring the staples of each country or city. Travel influencers and niche travel accounts will help you narrow down what interests you.
If you have particular destinations in mind, you can use instagram's geo-tag feature. Search the city you have in mind and you will be able to scroll through tons of photos and videos from that place. While you’re surfing Instagram, I recommend creating ‘saved albums’ where you can collect photos from particular locations to save for later.
2) GOOGLE MAPS
Google Maps is a good tool for planning your route and refining what cities to add to your route. Google Maps will give you the following information on a city:
(***Use the mobile app, way more features!)
Summary / quick facts on the city
Weather
Local photos
Iconic locations
Recommended restaurants
City guides
Things to do
Food & Drink
Featured lists
The option to save places to starred places, want to go, favourites, or a custom list
Option to download the map to use OFFLINE
3) TRAVEL FORUMS
Once you have made your route or have a list of potential destinations, you can use travel forums and blogs to refine your list and find more specific information.
A great starting point is joining different Facebook travel groups or Reddit threads such as:
Travel on a Shoestring Budget - r/Shoestring
Travel Partners - r/travelpartners
These groups come in handy when I have questions that google can’t answer. I have posted my entire route into one of these groups and received 50+ comments on recommendations and advice.
4) GUIDEBOOKS
With the amount of resources online, guidebooks are becoming a thing of the past. If you have the luxury of time when planning your upcoming trip, I recommend picking up a Rick Steves or Lonely Planet book for your destination(s). I read through Rick Steves’ Europe Through the Backdoor. It was a great starting point for me to collect general travel advice and a few tidbits on destinations that I bookmarked and did further research on. Most guidebooks have mobile apps that have some free resources i.e. Lonely Planet provides some free guidebooks and itineraries and Rick Steves has a podcast that you can listen to as a guided tour.
5) TRANSPORTATION
While I recommend planning the specific details of your transportation later, it is important to have an idea of what your primary mode of transportation will be when planning your route. i.e. If you are buying a rail pass in Europe, you can refer to the EU Rail Map to select destinations that have train stops and to choose what order your destinations will be in. If you are flying, you may choose to only bring a carry-on and travel to fewer destinations within one country. Or you may be renting a car or even hitchhiking. It is smart to have a general idea of your transportation and you can come back to planning the smaller details later.
6) TIMELINE
The next step in planning is deciding how long you want to travel for and how much time you want to spend in each place. If you are only going to major cities, you may spend up to a week in each place. If you are hopping between smaller cities (like me) you may find 3 days is more than enough in each place . Doing a quick google search on recommended amount of time at a destination is helpful when planning your itinerary!
Depending on the style of your trip, you may only plan the first few destinations. I have my first two weeks planned but after that all I have is a desired route. I do not want to be too committed to anything if any opportunities come up along the way. Also, if you choose to stay longer in a place, you’ll have to adjust all of the bookings you’ve made after that. Most hostels have good cancellation policies, but it is a pain to adjust if you have more than one booking coming up.
I enjoy organizing information, so I have created an excel spreadsheet that contains all of my travel info, travel days, train times, hostels, and activities. I only have the first few weeks filled out and will probably neglect to continue filling it out. But it is a great tool to get started! You can download my planning spreadsheet template here
7) WHAT YOU NEED
TRANSPORTATION / RAIL PASS
This really depends on your method of transportation. There is no need to buy a rail pass well in advance (just plan for shipment of the physical pass). EU Rail usually has month end and holiday discounts – just remember if you buy a discounted rail pass there are no refunds! (But you have the whole year to activate the pass, as long as you didn’t set up a start date when purchasing it)
Even flights within Europe don’t need to be booked much in advance. EasyJet and Ryanair are cheap, no frills airlines that are widely used by travellers. If you are going longer distances, it may be worth booking flights in advance. Google Flights and Hopper are great flight tracking tools to find the best deals (just be mindful of extra charges or non-refundable terms).
ACCOMMODATION
Again, your accommodation will depend on your type of trip. My top two ways of searching for accommodation is Airbnb and Hostel World. They both operate very similarly. Airbnb and Hostel World allow you to:
View all listings on map view
Refine/filter by price
Read reviews
In-depth information on the listing and amenities
Provide address and contact information
Provide check-in information
Sometimes link to popular attractions, activities, and restaurants
Hostels have a lot of perks, especially for young solo travellers. They are cheap, allow you to meet a lot of people, access to local information, sometimes have options for in-house meals, guided tours, and group activities.
GEAR
Everyone’s (or at least my) favourite part of trip planning – buying new gear! I am planning on travelling a lot so I justified a big shopping spree to get versatile, good quality items that I can use for every trip. I would rather spend more money on one good quality item. This is also useful when you are trying to pack minimally. Having lightweight, quick drying, durable clothing and gear is better than filling your bag with a larger quantity of lower quality items.
Some of the main items I bought were:
Backpack: Osprey Fairview 55
Climate appropriate clothes: Helly Hansen Packable jacket, Lululemon jacket, backpack rain cover
Travel sized gear: Gootubes, compression packing cubes, mini toiletries, money belt
Good Quality / Versatile Brands: Helly Hanse, Osprey, Lululemon, Salomon, Birkenstock
Another perk to buying good quality clothes and travel gear is the brands that sell these items usually have amazing customer service. Brands like Lululemon, Osprey, Helly Hansen, and Salomon won’t hesitate to replace or fix broken items.
THE DETAILS
The last things you should plan are the more practical/logistical parts of your trip. Once you have your route, you can now start creating bucket lists of activities and start booking ahead if you need to. You will need to get currency, travel credit cards (I use home trust visa), possibly a phone plan, and travel insurance.
The last thing I’ll note is the importance of double checking your plan. For example, I just assumed that my route will work because it follows the rail line. Turns out, this might not be true! Spain, in particular, has an annoying tendency to not follow the rail map the way you think it would. I recommend spending a bit of time to double check the logistics of how you are getting around to make sure things will actually go as planned.
8) GREAT TRAVEL MOBILE APPS
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