Solo travel planning with the V.I.E.W.S. method
I’ve heard from many people that they want to travel solo, but they don’t know how to begin - they stall out before they even get started. Often I see people on social media travel groups ask strangers where they should go on vacation and what they should do. That’s a lot of power to give to a complete stranger, for some extremely valuable assets - your time and money. Travel is about experiences and memories that are yours, not someone else's.
So how do you plan a trip that provides you with the experiences you want to have and with the memories you want to revisit over and over? I am going to share a simple, easy-to-use framework for planning a trip. I call it the V.I.E.W.S system. Let’s dig in:
V is for Vision - what do you visualize yourself doing on this trip? Is there an event that you want to build the trip around? Do you see yourself laying on a secluded beach, sipping a cold beverage? Or is the beach full of activity and music? Are you climbing a mountain and absorbing the breathtaking wilderness landscape or are you strolling along the streets of a world-class city, arms loaded with shopping bags? Maybe it’s a mix of all of the above. The visioning step is critical to getting clarity about what you want to experience.
Think about this step as a brainstorming exercise. Go for it! Use social platforms for Inspiration, read blogs like this one, or go ole skool and grab some travel guides from the library. This step can start more than a year before the actual trip depending on the experiences and places you want to go. It can also happen in less than a week before you set off. If you are new to planning, and I’m going to guess that you are since you’re reading this, I would say aim for three to six months before the trip.
I is for Itinerary - after you’ve narrowed down the experiences you want to have, and the place(s) you want to have them, then this next step is more tactical - what will you actually do during this trip, where will you do it and for how long? Let’s say you want to do a combo of being a beach bum and also spending time in a city doing some serious shopping. What destination allows you to accomplish both? OR do you need (or want) to travel to different locales? Here's a post on 5 travel planning apps that I use.
Will this be a domestic trip or are you going international? How many days for each aspect of the trip and in total? Is every day full of excursions and activities or, if you are an introvert like me, do you need some days with nothing on the agenda? Don’t forget to account for travel time to and from your destination. I know of people who finish their last excursion just in time to head to the airport and others who get off the plane and go straight into the office. There’s no right or wrong, it’s all about knowing who you are and how you like to operate. Those last- minute scenarios wouldn’t work for me, but may for you.
E is for Expenses - what is it going to cost? More than likely, your first itinerary is not your last itinerary. After putting together your initial plan it’s time to put dollars against it. In addition to transportation and accommodations include excursion costs, local transportation, entertainment, incidentals and of course food. My guess is that your first draft is over budget - things usually cost more than expected. Not to worry, now is the time to pare back the vision. There are a couple of ways to tackle this - 1. maintain everything as planned but reduce the number of trip days. 2. Keep the number of days and reduce each day’s cost: include only the highest priority activities; choose less expensive accommodations; check if flying on different days is cheaper, etc. If necessary to reduce costs further, consider moving the trip to another time when costs are cheaper. The travel industry uses a three season system to set prices: low season, high season and shoulder season with high season garnering the highest prices. Low season is the cheapest, usually because the weather conditions are less than ideal. Shoulder season falls between high and low season and tends to offer better pricing than high while avoiding the downsides of the low season. SInce weather can greatly affect a holiday, it gets its own point.
W is for Weather - what’s the weather like at your destination at the time of the year you plan to travel? What season will it be at your destination? In some places winter and summer are not defined by temperature but by rainy or dry season. In the southern hemisphere, Be sure to check the season and the general weather for your destination before finalizing your travel plans. You wouldn’t want to arrive at that idyllic beach setting when it’s cold and wet. I was pleasantly surprised when I realized that Kenya and Tanzania have cool and dry weather in July, when its steamy hot in my Southern town at that time of year. Obviously you can’t predict the daily weather, but seasonal trends are more reliable.
S is for Safety - this is the No. 1 concern I hear from women wanting to travel solo. Usually the reference is related to crime, which is a legitimate concern. Check The Global Peace Index to get a general sense of a country's overall safety. If you are staying domestic, there are safety indices for cities, but the most important thing to do is take the same safety precautions you would at home, evene take it up a notch. Another aspect to safety is health - does your destination require certain vaccines? When I went on safari in Tanzania, I was required to get a yellow fever vaccine - check those health requirements as well. IF safety is a high concern in your destination country, consider an all-inclusive setting or book a group tour that has several “independent” days where you can explore on your own. The latter option allows you to get comfortable in your location with the structure and safety that a group can provide.
Now you have the five steps to plan a trip. Remember, the process is not linear. You may have to go back to a previous step and make some adjustments. You can certainly add more steps to the process, but the VIEWS is a good place to start. Let’s get to planning a trip!
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