How to Choose a Travel Destination
Fellow Traveler,
I, personally, want to travel to as many places as possible. If you are anything like me, you may have issues choosing a destination because you LITERALLY want to go everywhere. I hope I can provide some guidance on how you can go about choosing the perfect travel destination for your next adventure. Follow these steps in this order; it will help you quickly narrow your options of places you might enjoy visiting.
Budget
Let’s figure out how much you want to spend on your trip; the entire trip.
Did you just get a bonus from work and you want to spoil yourself?
Are you looking for a cheap vacation?
Do you and a friend just want to skip town for the weekend?
Are you looking to explore multiple countries at the same time?
These are questions that you will need to ask yourself when you are thinking about a budget. Your budget is pretty much going to be the foundation of how you make the rest of your travel plans. I like to budget a minimum of $500 for a trip but depending on what deals you find you can travel for less than that. I have booked entire vacations for $250 per person so believe me, it is possible.
2. Length of Stay
The next thing you will need to do is figure out how long you can be gone for your trip. If you can only be gone for 3-5 days that is going to narrow down your choices of where you can travel to. The more days you have to travel, the more options you will have. This is also why it’s so important to plan your budget before you think about how long you want to travel somewhere. For example, if your budget is $500 you probably won’t want to travel somewhere for 2 weeks.
3. Geographical Location
Now that you know how much you want to spend and how long you can travel it’s time to pick some location options. I have found the quickest and easiest way to compare flight prices and locations at the same time is on Google Flights.
***Click this link for a detailed tutorial on How to use Google Flights.***
Here are some things to keep in mind when choosing a location.
Weather
Length of Flight Time
Time Zone
Visa fees
4. Activities
Ask yourself what kind of vacation you want to take. Go through this little quiz to help provide you with some guidance. Try not to think too hard about what type of vacation or trip you want to take. This is supposed to be fun remember.
5. Safety
By this time, you should have a good idea of a place that you want to visit. This is the step where you will want to make sure it’s safe to visit the location. You can easily check the safety of another country by doing two easy steps.
Step 1: Check your government’s travel website, if traveling internationally.
Step 2: Ask your travel friends.
If you live in the United States, you can go to the US Department of State website and look up the country you want to travel to see if there are any issues with the area. Another great way to learn about how a safety in a country is to contact a traveler who has been there. I usually will put a poll on Instagram asking who has visited a country and then I will contact the people who said yes. If there’s a place you want to go that you know I have visited feel free to reach out and I will always give my honest opinion.
Enjoy Your Trip!
By now, you should be ready to start booking your trip! Have fun!
