Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Proper Prior Planning

    This blog is going to be about travel and planning because this week I've gained some knowledge that I think would be helpful to share. This weekend I was supposed to go to Madrid with some friends, but the plans were very loose until this weekend. What made things worse is that we all had a presentation today in one of our classes so it was hard to plan when putting together getting ready to present to the class. In the end we decided we would try to go to Madrid later in the semester, so we have more time to figure this out. So, a couple of things I've learned from this misadventure...
     1) Figure out a plan as early as possible. I know that this might seem really obvious and cliche, but it really helps. Since we were all really flexible about the plans we didn't end up having anything to go off of when we needed to figure out when we would be leaving, where we would be staying, what we wanted to do, etc. No one took the initiative to step up and give a definitive plan for what we would be doing either. This lack of planning was the ultimate reason why we decided to cancel our trip to Madrid (besides all of the homework and reading we need to do).
     2) Get the mode of travel figured out ASAP. Something else that we learned the hard way from this experience is that the price of travel skyrockets when you buy the train tickets, plane tickets, whatever way you want to get where you're going, close to the date you're leaving. With train tickets (or something similar), I would recommend getting them at least two weeks in advance so that you aren't spending 100€ for a round-trip ticket. That is not including paying for a hotel or hostel, food, fees for museums or other tourist attractions, souvenirs etc. Just something to keep in mind. If you're planning on flying, book as soon as you know what you want to do, especially if you're leaving the country. For international travel try and book your flight and hotel and things two months early so you don't end up paying an arm and a leg.
      3) Hotels vs. hostels. Hotels are usually more expensive than hostels, so it kind of comes down to personal preference. Hostels are not necessarily trashy or creepy or scary and hotels are not automatically a luxury experience. Make sure to do your research. A good website to look at hostels is hostelworld.com (one of my friends recommended it when we were looking at places for Madrid) that allows you to look at reviews of the hostels with things like how the rooms are set up and what the hostels have to offer, like tours or classes in dance or cooking (depending on the area). The same sort of rule applies to hotels/hostels as with mode of transportation- book beforehand so it's not super expensive.
       I hope this helps, at least a little bit. I'm not the best at planning things and too prone to procrastination so this experience will help me get my things in order for the next trip that I take.