Thinking and dreaming about all of my European travels was super fun. As soon as I found out our
move to Europe was official, I made a LONG list of everywhere I wanted to see and if I’m being
completely honest, I thought about all of the beautiful places I wanted to take pictures in. But, I didn’t
bring myself to book anything while I was dreaming because I wasn’t quite sure of work schedules
so I waited until I arrived to Germany in October. (Keep an eye out for future posts with my FULL
European bucket list. I will be linking and tagging all of my stops along the way!)
Five full days living in Germany and I felt completely overwhelmed with the prospect of booking
travel. There are so many blogs and best places to stay lists but guess what, most hotels are
ASTRONOMICALLY priced, especially around the holidays. I found that most of the hotels that were
recommended by said bloggers and lists were booked for my first few trips so I was left wondering,
how far in advance do I need to book?! So, I want to write you an honest review through my blog
about where we choose to stay (and why) and how to travel while not losing your life savings, BUT
also having the trip you’ve dreamed about and getting all the good pics. Do you think it’s possible?
I’m skeptical...
We have four trips scheduled before the end of the year so I will start there in walking you through
our planning. I want to add this post as a preview and background to my process in booking a trip,
even if it’s just a weekend excursion.
First things first, I’ve been on a couple of really cool trips in the past few years that have been
planned by a travel agent. While I think a travel agent is the most CONVENIENT way to travel, I
don’t always think you get the best of the best of all categories (lodging, food, price, excursions, and
price) because they just don’t know you as well as you know you. I think travel agents allow for
amazing trips to be planned when you don’t have the time or energy to do the research yourself. I
would love to be a resource for you about where to eat and what to see while you travel, but if I fully
plan a trip for you, it will certainly be from my point of view. With that being said, I am all for you
using travel agents to book your travels (you do you boo), but if you DO decide to plan your own
trips, I hope to make your planning a little bit easier.
So tell us your process ALREADY!!! Ok, ok, here are the basic steps I follow when planning a trip.
1. Decide the time frame for when I plan to take a trip (I estimate the days in case travel ends up being much cheaper on some days over others).
2. Decide where I want to go. I usually keep a list of places that are close that I want to take a long weekend trip to and then another list with a destination I want to see for a week or longer.
3. Do extensive research on the best places to stay. I use a mix of resources of where to stay. I check Airbnb and booking.com to get a good idea of price ranges for my time frame for traveling and for the place I plan to visit. I also search “best hotels” on google and scroll through a few lists. I will occasionally check with influencers and bloggers about where they have stayed, but I am VERY cautious with their suggestions because typically if they are big enough, they are getting paid to stay at super fancy places that I just can’t afford on a military budget so it isn’t helpful for me to see the amazing hotel they stayed in before I book my average hotel/rental.
4. Once I’ve decided on where I want to stay, I check flights if I need to or a plan my drive.
5. Decide on the MUST EAT restaurants on the journey. Especially in Europe and big cities, I make
reservations if it’s a restaurant I really want to try. Food is super duper important to me so I plan all of
my activities around the food. I typically do quite a bit of research and will even go down a few
Instagram rabbit holes in order to find the best restaurants in specific cities.
6. Plan what I want to see and do. Once I know where I’m eating, I can plan the rest of my days.
Some days, I choose not to plan anything or a really loose schedule but I keep a list of all the things I
want to see and make sure if they are MUST sees then I check if reservations are needed.
7. Once the major things are planned, I make sure I look into the local public transportation- do they
have google? Can I walk to most things? Where will I park the car? Etc. etc.
If this list of travel planning to-dos overwhelms you, then I hope that my future posts will be your
solution. I will tell you what I really think about where I stay, what I eat, and the MUST see things in
each city. I promise to tell you where I’ve sacrificed my personal preferences for the price and even
what I would have done with a bigger budget. I hope you will join me on this wild ride!
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