Curious how I booked my independent travel on Semester at Sea? Or how I really book any travel? You’ve come to the right spot.
Before I begin, I just have to give credit where credit is due! To those who helped me plan everything, book everything, and create incredible memories, thank you, you know who you are. Truly, planning and booking our SAS trips was a group effort!
One of the things I get asked the most frequently is how the heck I planned my independent travel with SAS and what places I booked through. Well, after answering that about four dozen times in the past few weeks, I decided it was about time just to show you!
I’ll show you exactly how we went from idea to execution and all the places we booked! If you want my exact travel plans as a template, here is the Excel and if you want simply the links, here is the PDF!
One of my life mottos for just about everything is over-prepare then go with the flow. Know what you’re getting yourself into, but be able to sit back and let it unfold. That being said, that is my travel-plan approach.
Research will be your best friend when making travel plans, trust me. What do I mean by research? I mean looking into exactly what you are getting yourself into. Here are several things to keep in mind: the safety of the area, the major mode of transportation, how expensive it is, its proximity to things, and accessibility.
Oh, and make sure before you start, you know yourself too. No use in booking a three-day hike only to realize ten minutes in you hate hiking.
Okay, so how do I find this information? For safety, I go here (on SAS they will brief you in pre-port. Otherwise, this is where I go: Google, travel blogs (ie. Google “3 day Iceland excursion travel blog”), Pinterest, Travelocity, other people, travel books, and magazines.
Now you know HOW to find information. But WHAT do you need to know? And WHERE do you put it?
This is the format I use to plan all of my trips. Before I go, it is chalked full of different restaurants recommendations, things to do, I even put flight information/confirmation numbers on it. I’ve since updated it to reflect my actual trip, but this is what it looks like (p.s. I included the full template and PDF at the top and bottom).
Usually, I’ll even put how long train rides are, how long the taxi rides are, how much entrance fees are, etc. ANY info I might need I’ll put it in… generally in a notes section at the bottom of each day.
Alright, now these are the steps I take when planning:
- RESEARCH location. For SAS this might be an entire country, for other trips you might already know the city.
- Decide how to get there. Sometimes a train might be cheaper, but it takes more time. Figure out your opportunity cost! Tip: create a private window to avoid cookies! PRO Tip: flights are cheapest at 10 pm on Tuesday in the place booking for!
- Create a list of different things you might want to do (for our Morocco trip, our big wants included ‘the Blue City’ (Chefchaouen), camel ride, and shopping at Moroccan bazaar).
- Determine the proximity all of these things are (don’t forget to include the location of your arrival in that, ie. train station or airport).
- Determine the major mode of transportation. (ie. in South Africa it was a lot of walking, China was all Uber, and Japan was subway).
- Figure out where you want to stay to make those things possible. (ie. we determined we couldn’t do a camel ride in the Sahara because it was an eight-hour bus ride just to get there so we decided two different locations was best).
- Decide if there is anything else you want to book (ie. we booked several private transfers for longer car rides in Morocco because it was safer and cheaper!). Also, look into entrance fees into things and if you can book ahead or excursions you need to book (ie. in Morocco, our ATV rides we booked ahead!)
- Continue your research! This is when I start looking into restaurants, parks, shopping places, etc!
- Get excited, you did it!
Like I said, so much of booking travel plans is doing research, but allowing things to just unfold! Some of my favorite memories happened unexpectedly.
A few things to keep in mind (especially on SAS):
- Figure out how you travel and lead with that! No use in booking something you don’t actually want to do, trust me. When you know what you want, follow that!
- Don’t be afraid to not follow the crowds. Sometimes the crowd doesn’t really know what they are doing! (ie. I would have loved to see the Taj Mahal AND gone hiking in the Himalayas, but the crowds were only doing the Taj)
- Be okay with things changing, they will.
- Be okay with not having things booked until a week before, its normal.
- Understand that there will always be someone who planned better than you or knows more than you. I can’t tell you how many times we changed our plans after talking to someone!
Here are some of my personal wants or desires when booking, if you’re curious:
- I tend to like hotels that feel a little luxurious. Depending on where you are, they usually are only about $10 more a night and its worth it to me! A clean bed and a good shower are my only ‘must-haves.’
- I’m a foodie, so finding a place that has incredible local food– especially local markets, is a priority.
- My favorite kind of travel is nature travel. Give me all the mountains, beaches, lakes, parks, etc. This is usually what drives where I go.
- I generally prefer to take Ubers (or whatever that country’s alternative is) because its safer, cheaper, and they can’t haggle you for being American.
- Similarly, I like booking private transfers for drives over an hour in more expensive cities, it’s cheaper!
- I’m a morning traveler not a night traveler, so I tend to like day activities and evening activities rather than late at night (which is hilarious because I’m not a morning person at home).
- I like to have a little bit of time to relax when traveling and my favorite way to do so is a pool!
I sure hope at least some of that was helpful, to someone! Truth be told, there is no right or wrong when it comes to making travel plans because you’ll always end up figuring it out somehow!
If you have any questions, just leave me a comment or catch me on Instagram! I’m always happy to help.
Til next time,
Katelyn
Leave a Reply