Travel Planning - The Long(er) Range Plans

Wednesday 11 September 2013

Since leaving my job as a teacher to live overseas, I've become our personal travel agent.  As you know, we travel pretty frequently, particularly since moving to Europe, and with large amounts of time on my hands, I've become the principal trip planner in our relationship.  I can whittle away hours upon hours researching and I like to think that I've become quite good at planning a trip whether it be a weekend city break or a week long holiday in the sun.

In any case, I thought I'd share a bit of my process with you.

Step One: Long(er) Range Planning

Our long range travel goals generally follow the calendar year to align with the distribution of Joe's holiday days.  (He currently is allotted 20 paid holiday days per calendar year.)  There are quite a few behind-the-scenes things that we're required to take into consideration when planning to use his holidays which I think are pretty common to most people with a salaried/contract position.  (Things like time of year, when colleagues are taking holidays, the spacing of said holidays, etc.)  Aside from those, we remain flexible in our schedules as we're only working around one job and no children.  These plans loosely start to take shape as we enter the latter half of one year, in preparation for the following.

1. The Big Trips

Generally speaking, we tend to do 2 big trips a year.  A big trip usually takes more than 3 holiday days and often, but not always, is further away from where we're calling home.  The first big trip put on the calendar is a trip home, to Canada.  Scheduling that transcontinental destination often revolves around other things going on like a holiday or a wedding or a family event.  We don't physically book anything quite yet but we'll make sure time is reserved for Joe at work and we'll throw the trip into a month on the calendar.  

Later on, when things are more definitive, we'll iron out the details in terms of amount of days off needed and actual travel dates.  As part of our expat contract, we are allotted 1 return flight each to our home location and those are always booked through the company travel agent.

The second big trip often ends up being loosely scheduled in next.  Sometimes, we don't have a definite location chosen, sometimes we do but we try to space out longer trips and if we can, overlap with bank holidays.  This year, we scheduled holiday days for Joe around the May bank holidays in Norway well before finally deciding to spend the time in Greece.

2. The Little Trips

Little trips are rarely scheduled more than 2-3 months ahead of time.  We try to work around our larger trips and plan for long weekends in other countries throughout the entire year.  We keep a running record of holiday days that are still available and try to split them up and schedule things bi-annually.  As the summer is winding down, we currently know that we have 5 unused vacation days and are hoping to schedule 2 more long weekend trips after we return from Istanbul.

3. Locations

This is always the trick - so many places to see, so little time.  Broadly speaking, we're open to traveling just about anywhere so our location lists are usually more about what is most coveted at that particular point in time rather than where we'd actually go.

Travel locations fall into 3 very fluid categories: Weekend Trips, Longer Trips, No Holidays Necessary trips.  Weekend trips are usually cities that are at the top of our must-see-while-living-in-Europe list and they're often cities that we really feel need more than a 2 day weekend.  (Past trips include Berlin, Prague & upcoming, Istanbul.)  Either there's a lot we hope to see and do there or they're a little further to get to and often, more expensive in terms of flight costs.  Longer trips are basically the Big Trips that were described above.  (This year included Canada & Santorini.)  No Holidays Necessary are locations that are quite easy to get to from Stavanger.  It's possible to fly practically direct Friday after work and return Sunday night within reasonable cost.  (Recently, Stockholm, London & Oslo.)

These categories are constantly amended.  Sometimes new locations are added and they often move throughout the three headings depending on how we're feeling or what we're learning as we go.  When we're looking to schedule a trip, we'll ponder the destinations on our list and weigh them against a variety of factors (time of year, flight costs, local events, etc) usually causing something to fall into the frontrunner position.


I see a real benefit into keeping our plans and schedule loose.  You never know what might come up and it's nice to not feel restrained by a rigid plan.  Perhaps there's a concert or event we want to see or a flight deal randomly comes up or a friend comes to visit or Joe has a conference or training in another country - we're free to rearrange as we see fit.

Next, I'll get into the booking details but for now, I'm curious - how do your long range travel plans look?


17 comments:

  1. Such a great post Jay! Loved it. Our travel planning is much the same, however, we start with the places we want to hit and work from there, fitting in the days, etc.

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  2. Great tips! I love the planning process before a vacation. It gets me so excited and inspired.
    http://liveitinerantly.com

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  3. i have a feeling i'm going to like this series! seems you sure have a lot to think about and great you have a lot of time in which to research. the boyfriend and i work similar schedules very dependent on public holidays, which is helpful because all i need to know are the dates of them. (a three day weekend in october! christmas break-- have to go somewhere when my mother visits!) then the destination is based on the amount of time available using the same system as yours-- the three categories of locations :)

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    1. Using public holidays are nice because you know the dates well in advance. I do however try to avoid school holidays (if we can) as the airports can be nuts during those times!

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  4. I definitely agree with keeping plans loose... it makes things so much simpler and avoids stress when things go wrong (which is all the time). I've never really had a long-term full-time job so I kind of plan my life around my travels more than vice-versa... but I'm sure one day I'll be doing the same as you.

    http://lasaloperie.blogspot.com

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    1. Exactly - it definitely avoids stress when things go awry!

      I also love that you get to plan work around your travels - that's a combination the traveller dreams of ;)

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  5. So interesting and insightful gaining some insight into your travel planning process. Slowly, but surely we're getting better and booking things further in advance, but in the past we've been terrible... I only booked my ticket to Greece a month beforehand. Terribe, right? That being said, I'm already booking our December holiday. Baby steps ;) xxx

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  6. These are all great trips! While we don't live in Europe (I live in Arizona) this is just about the same system that my boyfriend and I like to abide by-- although, we're both college students so we tend to do only one "big trip" a year!

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    1. One 'big' trip a year is pretty standard and when we were living in Canada we were similar. It turns into 2 as an expat because at some point, we have to go home ;)

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  7. Loved seeing your process of planning! I have to admit I envy you... I'm kind of a fly as I go kind of girl, only really planning my move abroads. Like this year I've planned my move to Dublin & from there I only have somewhat of an idea of what my year will look like. Christmas in Finland & Norway, Easter in Scotland & England, the Summer in Iceland & scattered weekend trips thoughout the year to Paris, Berlin & Amsterdam. The year after, move to Asia. No dates yet though & I quite like it that way, although maybe irresponsible of me! Maybe one day I'll start planning... I'm sure I'd benefit from it. x
    http://mustforwanderlust.blogspot.ca

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  8. You're in such a great location for those weekend trips Jay!! Being on a little island in the middle of nowhere is pretty limiting for trips for me. It's really expensive to get in and out. Oh and also the fact that I only make $25 a day haha. Mostly that. No real plans on the horizon for me, the trip home to Canada I just did emptied out my bank account. We'll see what happens next year. Maybe I'll get on a yacht again!

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  9. i love hearing about how other people plan their trips! it can take so much work and diligence to get every detail hammered out before you go! i'm so excited to hear about your upcoming trips. I'm living my european dreams vicariously through you : )

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  10. Where, when and how often I travel has firstly a lot to do with time: Back in Germany, I don't usually have a lot of time to go on bigger trips during the semester and even in between I usually have to work on university assignments, do internships etc. so that sometimes I don't really have more than two weeks to do anything anyway. My schedule in Norway is more loose and I have fewer classes than in Germany, however, some of them are mandatory, so I try to schedule trips both within and outside from London in a way to not miss them too often. I'm heading to London later this month and possibly to Cornwall in October and I'm excited for that already! :)

    xx

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  11. All great advice. I am so lucky to work a super flexible job and all my friends are the same or students so we can do this ridiculous last minute deal hunting and go for it. However it still creates stress from how much it will cost one we get there, etc. Planning is such a fun part of traveling for me. I feel like I get to know the destination before I even get there, which also adds comfort and security.

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  12. Brilliant advice! Because I'm a dork, part of me loves the planning part of travel almost as much as the actual travel.

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  13. I think this - The first big trip put on the calendar is a trip home, to Canada. Scheduling that transcontinental destination often revolves around other things going on like a holiday or a wedding or a family event. - is often the hardest thing for expats! At least it was for me and I bet it will be for Jon :) You want to travel to all these exciting places, but you have to reserve a lot f your travel days and travel money to just going home. Not that it's JUST, but... you know!

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