Lesson 1: Travel Planning
Have you ever had one of those vacations where everything seemed to go wrong? Did it rain the entire time on your beach vacation? Did you reserve a seat on an airplane that didn’t exist? Did you spend your entire business trip to Las Vegas in meetings and watching reruns on satellite television?
Have you ever found out too late that there were no motel vacancies due to a baseball tournament? Have you ever found out Sunday afternoon that the only restaurant in the town isn’t open on Sundays? Have you ever forgotten the can opener on your wilderness hiking trip? Have you ever found out about an interesting museum exhibit in Paris three months after your once in a lifetime European trip?
Me too. I can’t even count how many times I’ve had a perfectly good trip ruined by a travel calamity or a later regret. Through trial and error, I have learned that a little planning can make a huge difference between a vacation filled with tragic chaos or a trip full of utter enjoyment. Though you may not be able to completely rid yourself of every travel oops, with a bit of planning you will definitely reduce your overall travel chaos.
Okay, thinking back at your own travel calamities, you probably realize that a little forethought might have made you realize that taking your two year old to your bookkeeping convention or your aged Grandpa on that white water rafting trip wasn’t such a good idea. Still, the thought of spending hours pouring over endless maps and travel brochures doesn’t thrill you. You don’t want to camp out on your travel agent’s front lawn, constantly asking questions like whether you should bring your rain jacket on your trip to India during the monsoons or not. I don’t blame you, me either. I don’t think that travel planning has to be time consuming or complicated. In fact, I believe that travel planning should be almost as enjoyable as the trip itself.
Pertinent Questions
Successful travel planning doesn’t require years of university study, mountains of maps, or even psychic powers. The key to travel planning is finding out what you really need, want, and desire in a vacation. Of course, it only makes logical sense that if your trip fits your needs, wants, and desires that you will feel like that the holiday was successful. Even if a few oops do occur, they won’t overshadow the magic of the rest of the vacation.
You don’t know what you really want? Your desires are beyond what you can actually afford? You don’t have a clue of where to even start?
The first step in successful travel planning is to organize your thoughts. No, I don’t want you to find a blackboard and start creating endless flowcharts or organizing hundreds of idea cue cards. That’s overwhelming and rather boring. No, the best way to organize your thoughts is by asking directed pertinent questions. In this course, you will learn the pertinent questions to ask yourself to create and modify a vacation that will fit your needs, wants, and desires.
Don’t worry I won’t give you a sea of endless questions that will end up giving you a headache. I have grouped the most pertinent questions into three main categories: Restriction Questions, Imagination Questions, and Editing Questions. Within each of these categories are a few key queries and checklists. The answers to these questions gently guide you towards a travel plan that suits your needs, wants, and desires.
Still overwhelmed? Don’t worry. These pertinent questions and the overall travel planning processes are not time consuming or complicated. Furthermore, there are no correct answers for any of these questions, the answers are all about what you need, want, and desire.
