Are your social media feeds constantly making you want to jump on the next plane to an exotic destination? Do you catch yourself daydreaming about exciting adventures in faraway lands? If you’re suffering from wanderlust, then a world trip might just be the cure.
Planning a trip around the world is a daunting task, even if you’re a frequent traveler and have incredible organization skills. It often takes months of research to get to the stage where you’re ready to board that plane and take to the skies. So to help you get ready for the adventure of a lifetime, here’s a step-by-step guide to planning your world trip.
- Pick which countries you want to visit
Choosing where you want to go is the first step of the planning process, as it provides you with focus and inspiration to follow through on your dream trip. But more importantly, knowing the countries you want to visit will determine everything else. It will help you decide how long you’re going to spend in each place, the route you take, and how much to budget.
If you’re even considering a trip around the world, then you’ve probably got a long list of destinations you’re desperate to explore. There’s no right or wrong way to do this, it’s just a case of writing down all of the places you want to visit so you can start to plan around them.
- Start planning a route
Now that you have a list of potential destinations, it’s time to start connecting them into a viable route. Unfortunately, at this stage you’re probably going to drop a few spots from your list, as it just won’t be feasible to include them all.
Remember that the fewer places you visit, the less money you’ll need to dedicate to transportation getting to each location, meaning your budget may stretch further. It’ll also mean you’ll get to spend more time in each place.
The best way to plan your route is to pull out a large map and place pins in all of the destinations on your list. You should start to see clusters of destinations that are close to each other and how you might be able to move from one to the next.
When mapping out your route, it’s important to take the weather of each place into account. Check the seasons beforehand as this may alter the direction you travel in and when you go. You should also consider whether there are any specific festivals or events that you’re hoping to attend.
- Create Your Budget
Once you have a rough idea of the route you’ll take, you can start figuring out how big your budget needs to be. Check travel blogs and guidebooks to give you an idea of the costs for each destination you want to visit. You should also look at accommodation sites to see the price of a room during your chosen travel dates.
You can then break it down into a daily budget for each location, multiply it by the number of days you expect to spend in each place, and add them together to get your total. It’s important to create separate budgets for each country rather than just a blanket daily allowance, as costs can vary wildly from place-to-place. Remember to include transportation, accommodations, food and drinks, as well as things like Visas and border fees.
How large your budget is will depend a lot on your personal style of travel. Whether you stay in luxurious hotels or budget hostels, and whether you plan to fly everywhere or are happy to travel by train or bus will have a significant impact on how much you’ll need. Be realistic about the level of comfort you require while traveling and understand that you’ll generally have to pay more for better amenities.
