I have been traveling internationally for 8 years and the “planning” stage is a part that I still love. I don’t get stressed anymore, and I wanted to share with you how to plan a trip from start to finish without getting stressed and touch on all the aspects of planning that will help your trip go off without a hitch.

So, if you want to take a vacation, I hope you can use this checklist to help you plan your trip in 10 easy steps

How to Plan a Trip WITHOUT Stress in 10 Steps

1. Recognize your REAL budget

Don’t try to inflate your budget. It will only cause you a headache later. It’s best to find your budget and then choose a destination so you can go somewhere affordable. It’s best to have a vacation fund set aside, but if you don’t, you’ll want to save money for your trip before you go on to the next step.

If you’re on a lower budget, one the biggest tips I can give is to travel to places off-season. You can save about 50% off your total trip by doing this because not only are flights cheaper but so are hotels and even tours (if you go for a tour, I suggest G Adventures).

If you want to see more tips for saving money while you travel, here are 13 ways that I save money while I tavel.

2. Choose a Destination + Paperwork & Flights

Once you have your budget you’ll want to choose where to go! Sunny? Snowy? Paradise island? Backpacking Europe? Figure out what the dream destination of the moment is. You might feel torn, but that’s because there is so much of this beautiful world to see. You might never feel 100% sure, but you can’t travel without choosing your destination, so pick the one that stands out the most.

Then you’ll have to do the boring things like paperwork and flights

• Book your flights. I am OBSESSED with kiwi.com and use it to book all my flights these days. You can see my review here.
• Get travel insurance. You’ve gotta have it! I use World Nomads. It’s affordable and what Lonely Planet trusts. I wrote out a post about what they cover and what they don’t.
• Get a visa. Check if you need a visa to the place you’re visiting. You can use iVisa to do this easily. They take a fee but it’s so worth it.
• Money. Tell your bank when you’re leaving the country. Here are some tips on how to manage your money while you travel.
• Passport. Make sure your passport has at least 6 months left on it for travel and at least two blank pages or you might not be allowed in.
• Final paperwork. I have a list of 15 documents you should consider taking with you on a trip abroad.

3. Map It Out

I highly suggest that once you have a destination picked out, that you pull up Google Maps and you get an understanding of the place you are going. Check out what the popular areas are and where the tourist attractions are.

You can see an example I did of this in my post for Maui and Istanbul. I try to do this is my big city guide blog post to help out, but you can also do this yourself. You wouldn’t want to pick out lodging or research too much on a destination if you didn’t know where different cities and towns were on the map.

4. Research the Destination (Travel Blogs!)

Now that you have your flights booked, paperwork done, and have looked a map to get an understanding of your destination, you’ll want to RESEARCH the destination very well before you take the next steps.

Of course I’m biased but I think travel blogs are a great way to research. For example of my blog you can go to my “Destinations” page and research by country or you can type in the city to my search box on the homepage.

Other than travel blogs, you can also search food blogs and design blogs to see what other niches are saying about the destination.

You’ll want to really get an idea of what is all of offer before you start your itinerary, that way the itinerary will be a quick thing to do.

5. Make an Itinerary by Area

Now that you really know a lot about the place you are going, you can start to make an itinerary. Note: we still haven’t booked anything!

You’ll want to write out the dates you’ll be there, each day separately like a calendar. Mark the dates you’re flying in and out as you won’t be able to do much those days.

Now, you’ll want to look at the days you can travel and see where you want to be in which areas. For example, in Florida maybe you want to be in Orlando at Universal for 2 days and Disney for two days, then go to Miami for 3 days… etc.

You need to break it down! You could do this too like in Maui where you would decide if you have two weeks there maybe to stay on the West coast for a week then go to Paia for a week where you can be closer to the start of the Road to Hana and going to the mountain view point.

6. Book the lodging & car rental

Itinerary: done!

Next, you’ll book your hotels and set up a car rental if you need one. You can see what rental cars are at the airport you arrive at and compare prices.

If you don’t need a car rental, then you’ll want to figure out what type of transportation you can use (train, metro, buses, taxis) and research the cheapest and easiest way to do that.

I recommend Rome2Rio to search the easiest ways to get from point A to B and using city specific apps such as CityMapper in London to get around the tube. Downloading relevant travel apps like Uber before your trip will be helpful!

Hotels are most fun part! I love researching hotels and I love reviewing them on this blog. You can search on Agoda (my favorite booking site). I’m also big on Airbnb if you are traveling with a group or want to save money by cooking in.

I have a discount code for you: $35 off your stay if you use this airbnb link to sign up to a new account.

Before booking, you can Google “(insert hotel name) review” and see what bloggers are saying about these hotels. Often you’ll find dozens of reviews which are usually more trustworthy than TripAdvisor reviews.

7. Add in activities

You’re really almost to the end now. You’ve done all the hard stuff!

Now, you have those hotels added to that calendar I said you should write out.

Start planning out the biggest activities first. Things like scuba, sightseeing in the city center, theme parks, anything you need to pre-book for, any adventure sports you want to try… etc!

I suggest research “top adventure activities in ____” so that you can see what all your options are. For example, you can see if you went to Langkawi, these are the 11 biggest adventures you can take. You will find blog posts like this all over the internet on nearly every destination!

Once you’ve decided which days you want to do these, go ahead and book them online.

8. Final research: restaurants, epic sunset spots…

Now for the last little fun bit of research: where you want to chill, eat, and party! You can read blogs until you’re blue in the face, check Pinterest, and even a guide book if you are old school like that. You don’t have to schedule this but it’s good to have places in the back of your mind so that you’re not googling good places to eat in the city you’re visiting at 7 pm when you’re hungry!

9. Pack Appropriately

Packing is the best! I love shopping for a new trip and packing for it. I have SO many packing tips on my blog so suggest checking those out.

Here is my packing category with all my posts. I get pretty specific and have these handy graphics on each post!

10. Arrive at the Airport ON time & plan airport transportation

Lastly, make sure you aren’t starting your trip off on the wrong foot by showing up at the airport late. You should get there on time (preferably with snacks lol).

I usually have a hotel send someone to pick me up at the airport, but if not that then you need to have Uber downloaded (assuming there is free WiFi to use it at the airport, unless you have a WiFi device) or a rental car set up so that when you land, you can start your trip without a hitch.

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