Planning planning planning.....

With the growing hectic schedules of everyday life, vacations come as a little oasis in a desert or work pressure. While many of us love to plan their vacation overnight, or take it as it comes, I love to take time to plan my vacation so that its the perfect oasis amidst the scorching heat of the desert. Planning is what makes complete utilization of the time and money you spend on a trip and brings you a happy and safe vacation. 

To plan a vacation the first thing to decide is a location. In case of family trips, members might wants to go to a different locations. To have a happy vacation, please do consider what your family members want before deciding on the location.

Choosing a location also depends on budget as well as time. If I am low on budget obviously I will choose for a weekend trip in a neighbouring city rather than planning a month long gala trip. Also, planning a trip saves quite a lot of money. Hence, again plan your own trip. Personally, as I prefer going for trips at least once a year. Hence, I keep saving some amount monthly and once its decent enough, I get my fund my vacation.

Once a location has been finalized, the next point to decide is the duration. Whether its a weekend trip or a weeks trip makes a huge difference. The duration again will depend on 2 factors:- 

• How many days you want! and 
• How many days you can afford to in terms of again budget and location! 

You may wish to take a weeks break but if you are low on budget you may have to change your location or the duration in order to fit in. Also, if you are a party person...staying in a lonely corner of the planet may be suffocating for you. Hence, a tradeoff needs to be maintained between the location, duration and budget. 

Once your location and budget has been fixed, depending upon the expenses you can plan your duration too. On deciding the location and duration, you can look up inspirock to find an approximate plan of your trip. Inspirock is a wonderful website that helps you plan your trip once you specify the location and duration. It considers the approximate time that will be required for each "place to see" and the time in transit. Hence, if you provide it with the information on when you want to start your day and end it, it will provide you with a itinerary of must see places. Also, you may choose to adjust the time and accomodate other places to see in the schedule thereby generating a customized itinerary.

In case you want to cover multiple places, and want a feedback on the places of your interest you can simply checkout Tripadvisor. Tripadvisor will provide you the details of what to do and what to see in a specific location. You can also check out the different itineraries published by different websites. Gathering information about the itinerary and places of stay from different websites and putting them in inspirock will help you generate a customised itinerary explicitly for you. Once you finalize your itinerary you are halfway through. 

The next thing is to do is book your tickets. If you are going to travel to a distant location you may choose flight over train but that again depends totally on your duration and budget. Personally, I being a working woman who has a tight schedule, time is more important. I cannot afford to waste more than a day to reach my destination. To book your flight tickets you can check out the flights for your destination from Makemytrip or Cleartrip or other websites. However, checkout the flights in the concerned airlines' website too. Sometimes you may not get information about all flights in the third party websites and sometimes seats may not be available with them too. Hence, its always good to checkout the website of the airlines before booking. While going for a weekend trip to a neighbouring destination, I prefer trains over car as the journey is more comfortable and safe.

Finally, choose your hotels. There are numerous websites to choose from. You have Booking.com (my personal favourite), trivago, agoda, yatra, etc. Check out the hotels according to your budget. Also open google maps on another tab while shortlisting the hotels. Try to choose a hotel located near the "places to see". This will help you save money on travelling. However, before booking the hotels, contact the property directly to get the tariff information. Many times, the hotels offer a much lower price compared to the third party websites if you book directly. Also, the third party websites may show you that rooms are not available for your date of interest whereas Some people may choose to stay in hostels or dorms but I prefer a private room with private bathroom. Again, as I am a "security freak", I always choose hotels and avoid homestays and dorms. As for choosing hotels, please read the reviews of the hotels before booking it. After booking you hotels now you are good to go. 

The only things left to plan are local transport for sightseeing and food. Always try to go for the BnB option, i.e., Bed and Breakfast. Stuff your tummy with food well so that you can spend the rest of the day without food but obviously do not overfeed to such an extent that you feel unfit. And for the transport, if local transport is available go for public transport as they are more safe.

If you are travelling abroad please be careful with your passport. That the most important thing that you have in your posession on a foreign land. Ask your hotel about the area you are looking forward to visit and please pay heed to any warning or suggestions that they give... 

With all these you are good to go on a safe trip... So Happy Journey..