hello everyone welcome back to my
channel I have this beautiful fire
crackling away in the background that
hopefully I can keep going and
throughout this video and I have a
sleeping dog behind me you can't see him
but he's snoring so if you hear someone
snoring it's just max the dog not a
person hopefully you guys are excited
about this video because this is one of
my most requested videos ever and it is
how to plan a trip I really hope that
this video can come in handy for you
guys if you are planning a trip in the
future whether you are planning a long
backpacking trip for a few months or
just a short week-long trip these are
all the things that I do when I'm
planning I narrowed it down to five
steps and I'm gonna try to keep this
video pretty short and simple and to the
point because I don't want to over
complicate things but we'll just start
with step number one which is to
determine your budget so first and
foremost before you even think about
where you want to go you have to figure
out how much you are willing and able to
spend on your trip because this will
really determine where you're actually
able to travel to how long you can
afford to go for and all sorts of things
like that so the first thing you want to
do is to try to get a ballpark estimate
of how much money you have to work with
and then the next thing I would do is
one check the cost of transportation
from your home to that place so whether
that's a flight a train a bus whatever
it is look into how much it's gonna cost
to get there because that can really
determine whether you're actually able
to travel there so if you're looking for
a flight two of my favorite sites are
Skyscanner
and Kimmy comm so I usually just hop on
their apps and figure out what a
round-trip flight would look like what
the average cost is and that's a pretty
good indicator of whether you can even
afford to travel there and then the next
thing I do is check the average price of
accommodate
in the place that I'm interested in
going to so the average hotel price I
will hop on booking.com or Airbnb and
just kind of get an idea of whether
there is anything affordable and just
kind of scoped out the scene right now
I'm planning a trip to Morocco so I'm
going to using this as an example
throughout the video but the first thing
I did is look up a round-trip ticket it
was about $300 which fit in my budget
and then I looked into hotels which also
there's a very big price range in
Morocco from really cheap hostels for
less than ten bucks two very very
luxurious but there were definitely some
affordable options in there so I moved
on to the next part of my research I
want to do a road trip in Morocco so the
first big expense
other than the accommodation and the
flight that I wanted to look up was how
much it was going to be to rent a car
for about 10 days so I would recommend
also researching bigger expenses that
you expect to have while you are on your
trip if you have a certain thing that
you definitely want to do like ziplining
or if you want to do the given
experience and Laos for example if you
have no idea what that is I will link it
down below but any kind of major expense
that you may have while you're traveling
just a good idea to research and make
sure that it will fit inside your budget
some countries are super expensive when
I went to Iceland I didn't eat at one
single restaurant I lived off of peanut
butter and jelly sandwiches and
cucumbers from the grocery store because
it was just such an expensive country
and now Max he's coming to say hi so
moving on once you've figured out your
budget you can move on to step number
two which is to figure out what the goal
of this trip is do you want to have an
action-packed adventure do you want to
have a very relaxing revitalizing
vacation
what is the goal of your trip this will
help you with the planning process
because you can really focus on the best
things to plan for what you want to
actually bring them with you at the end
of your trip so for example the my trip
this dog isn't really going crazy for my
trip to Morocco I want it to be a road
trip I want to spend at least 10 to 12
days kind of exploring just me and Tim
on our own I want to kind of avoid the
whole tour guide thing which is a very
popular option in Morocco so my goal is
to have a road trip to see the
countryside to get out of all the
touristy areas but I also want to see
three major cities and I want to see
this the Sahara Desert so that's the
goal of my trip and having that as my
focal point makes the planning process
much easier but for you for example if
you want to travel Europe and your goal
is to have more of a cultural experience
maybe you want to focus on what churches
and what museums you definitely want to
see so it just totally depends on what
you actually want to accomplish on your
trip maybe you just want to sit
margaritas all day on a beach I don't
know but just come up with your goal so
that you can make sure you're planning
accordingly okay so I think max has lost
interest but we are moving on into step
number three which is research and I
think this is probably the most
intimidating part of the whole planning
process because there is just so much
information out there and we're
definitely very lucky to live in a time
where we have so much information at our
fingertips but there is like travel
blogs and Lonely Planet and tripadvisor
and Instagram YouTube and all the things
and it can just be really overwhelming
to even know where to start and how to
figure out what the best things to do
are what you can probably skip what are
like super tourist traps and just
find all the best things to do so my
advice is with your goal in mind
whatever you want to accomplish on this
trip just start searching for that
specifically so for me my goal is to
have a road trip so the first thing that
I'm going to search for online is other
people's road trip itineraries in
Morocco so that I can just kind of get
an idea of what other people's
experience was like and what they would
recommend so I really like to read a
travel blogs not one specific one in
particular but normally when you search
for things like that a lot of travel
blogs will come up and reading about
personal experience can be very very
valuable as opposed to just looking at
like a ten must-see things list like on
TripAdvisor you can see the most popular
destinations in each place but it
doesn't really tell you much about it
after you kind of start with your
initial research one thing leads to
another you find one thing that looks
really interesting in this travel blog
and you look up the city and then things
to do in the city and then maybe you can
go on Instagram and look at the tag of
that location and see what other people
are doing and yeah honestly there's not
one really clear-cut way best way to
research I mean you can get a Lonely
Planet book and that will give you so
much information on certain particular
areas but above all in my opinion the
absolute best way to find information
about a place is to talk to other
travelers because the personal
experience aspect is just so invaluable
and if you have the opportunity if you
know someone who has been to a place
that you you really want to go to just
ask them ask them what their favorite
parts were what things they think you
can miss that weren't worth it there's
also a lot of great Facebook
groups which can be really helpful
people tend to be really active on this
group so you can ask a bunch of
questions and yeah basically step number
three is just to do your research but I
did want to mention a few things that
are very important to research before
you leave at your home country for one
you should definitely look at the
whether there are any visa requirements
because a lot of countries you wouldn't
think you need a visa for especially if
you're American or if you have a
passport that tends to be very free
traveling but you need a visa for
Vietnam for example you can't get one on
arrival you need one for Australia you
need one for tons of countries and you
have to apply a few days before you
leave for that country so tons of places
you can get a visa on arrival usually
they're valid for 30 to 90 days
depending but definitely look into visa
requirements before you just booked your
ticket another thing is you are going to
a new place and if you're going to a
country far away from home you should
probably make sure that one the place is
safe especially if you're traveling
alone
another really important thing is to
look into the cultural standards in the
country that you're traveling to for
example I'm going to Morocco it's a very
conservative country so I know that I'm
not gonna like have my shoulders and my
chest exposed I want to be a respectful
of your culture remember when you're
traveling to someone else's country you
are a visitor in their country and it is
your job to respect their culture and
one more thing that you should
definitely look into especially if you
are traveling throughout a country is
research what the common tourist scams
are because there are certain countries
where if they know you're a tourist they
might try to get a little bit more money
out of you because if you're traveling
it usually means that you have a little
bit of money
sometimes unfortunately people can take
advantage of that so just look into the
comment or scams
you should always also check the average
price of a taxi or Airport transfer
because a really common thing is getting
scammed when you arrive at the airport
in a new country the taxis will try to
charge you way more and then they should
so you should always look into how much
the taxation cost from the airport to
your accommodation and you have just
tourist scams in general oh yeah
research research research and moving on
into step number four which is to create
a loose itinerary so it totally depends
on what kind of trip you are taking
again if you just want to go chill on a
beach for a week then you shouldn't
really have to do a ton of planning as
far as creating a itinerary goes but if
you are planning on kind of traveling
more and moving from place to place it
probably is a good idea to plan at least
a little bit day by day but my rule of
thumb is if the trip is 10 days or less
then I try to plan about one thing that
I definitely want to do per day for each
day just to make sure that I'm on
schedule that I have enough time to see
and do everything that I want to do but
if the trip is longer than 10 days I
wouldn't recommend planning day by day
you can kind of just have it in your
head that you want to do these certain
things at this time but you don't have
to get too crazy with scheduling and
that is my one big tip is to not over
schedule if you're traveling for your
first time and it makes you feel really
secure and it makes you just feel very
great to know like that you have
something you at every hour of the day
then would I poach your boat but for me
I want to feel good I want to feel free
I don't feel relaxed when I'm traveling
and I don't want to feel pressured to
get in
as many things as I can in a day and
when you plan too much back to back it
can feel very rushed and then you don't
enjoy the actual place and you want to
be present in the moment
so I recommend planning one major thing
that you want to do per day but you can
make sure you get that done and then
anything else that you can fit in
between after before that then that's
great but definitely don't over schedule
because you don't want to stress out
travelling is about fun and about
experiences and most importantly you
want to leave a ton of room to be
spontaneous because the best thing to do
is get to the place and then talk to
other travelers and figure out what the
best things are to do and step number
five is to book your flight or if you're
not flying your transportation and book
your accommodation so I would definitely
recommend booking your flight if you're
flying far in advance not too far but
you can definitely save some money if
you look at least like three weeks in
advance I think three weeks is actually
the cheapest statistically I'm not
totally sure it definitely varies by
airline and then as far as accommodation
goes I recommend booking at least your
first second and third night just so
that you know that you have some place
to stay when you get there and it
totally depends on whether it's high
season or low season where you're
traveling for example in Morocco will
probably only booked our first three
nights because it's turning into low
season there and based on everything
that's available it seems like it will
be okay to kind of book as we go and
figure out where we want to stay when
we're there but sometimes if you're
traveling at high season you have to
book all of your accommodations
beforehand or else you're gonna be stuck
with nothing so it totally depends but
again I'm not someone who likes to
totally totally plan everything
so I think that's just a preference and
that's it you are ready to go on your
trip those are all the things that I do
it to plan there's definitely way more
things that you can also do but if you
guys have any other tips to share
definitely leave them down below yeah
thank you guys so much for watching I'm
so excited to show you guys all of my
videos that I make in Morocco if you
have any suggestions and let me know
unfortunately Morocco has a strict no
drone law so I can't bring my drone
which I feel like is such a game-changer
for travel videos and now I'm so used to
having it that I just don't even know
what I want to film there so what should
I do vlogs should I do a more like artsy
music video not music video but like
video with just music both let me know
and now this one just came up and my
buyer totally died while I was talking
no Max is sleeping at the door so he
probably wants to go out so I'm gonna
end this video off here thank you guys
so much for watching I love you all so
much and I will see you in my next video
bye guys
[Music]
you