You may not be an absolute novice, but might be a beginner looking for a more efficient way to plan a trip. ‘Travel Planning for Beginners’ is the second part of a 5 part series that explores travel planning for novice, beginner, intermediate, advanced, and expert travelers. If you missed the first ‘novice traveler’ post, check it out. In this guide, I will take the same approach of going through the steps as in the ‘novice’ guide, but add more options since I assume you have at least some experience booking and planning your own trips by now.
Again, this guide is with the assumption that you want totravel longer, more often, and with less money. Here are additional assumptions I am under:
Assumption 1) You have traveled a few times at most.
Assumption 2) You are not rich, and budget is important when planning a trip.
Assumption 3) You have 1-2 weeks of free time for this trip.
Step 1: Consider and Know Your Time Frame
Credit: mirror.co.uk
Many people, like me, know when their vacation time is far in advance. This is both good and bad. The good part is that Read more →
Who doesn’t like food? One of the things I look forward to the most while traveling, besides visiting UNESCO World Heritage Sites, is the wonderful array of things I can eat in other countries. Korean food does not disappoint with a wide variety of dishes at very affordable prices [mostly]. If you missed my list of top 5 favorite Korean foods, main dishes and snacks/street foods, go here and here (respectively). Here are another 5 dishes to fill up your stomachs.
If you are like me 10 years ago, the idea of traveling is very appealing to you, but you don’t know where to start. Maybe you surf the net looking at cool UNESCO World Heritage Sites, watch National Geographic and say, “some day,” or even talk to your friends and shoot around “dream vacation ideas.” When you get older, you realize that traveling, while easy in theory, takes some skill unless you are willing to fork over a bunch of money and have someone do it for you. You know, those “spend 7 days and 6 nights in the luxurious….for the low low price…” advertisements you see everywhere which are never really a ‘low low price.’ Most people kind of give up, and never really travel anywhere in their lives.
It is my hope that you are reading this because you want to know how to travel longer, more often, and with less money. Unfortunately, this is one of those things that they don’t teach in school (and they should), which is a shame for people who have a true, innate passion for traveling. This is a very basic guide on how to plan for a travel trip without breaking the bank, and with a few assumptions.
Assumption #1) You haven’t traveled ever, or maybe just once or twice.
Assumption #2) You are not rich, so you want so do this as cheaply as possible.
Assumption #3) You only have 1-2 weeks of travel vacation available due to your job or other responsibilities.
[This is part 1 of a 5 part series of travel planning skills for novices, beginners, intermediates, advanced, and experts]
While you’re on vacation, I understand that you are excited and aren’t exactly yourself. You might do things that you wouldn’t normally do, eat things that you wouldn’t normally eat, or even flare up a romance you wouldn’t normally go for. An expected part of traveling is taking risks and stepping out of your comfort zone in the attempt to understand another culture better, or of course, it could simply be to have fun. However, there are a few things that, as much as I think about it, I can’t seem to understand why anyone thought it was a good idea. Here are three stupid things people do in other countries:
1) Wear hideous clothes
Credit: www.thedailygreen.com
You are preparing for a trip, and while packing your bags, you come across some clothes that you received as a gift but Read more →
Postcards, we’ve all seen them before. They can make even the most boring place look exciting. While this IS a negative post, it is not a rant. It is important to be realistic and even-headed with our travel experiences. I like to be as positive as possible, and while I have found something good about everywhere I’ve been, let’s face it, not all places live up to expectations. In the past, I went anywhere that was recommended without double checking. These days, I am far more careful about where I spend my money, as I take drastic measures to save it, and am not as easily fooled by touched up ‘postcard pictures’ anymore. Here is a short list of three places that I thought were over-hyped. I am not saying the whole place is not worth visiting, but there are established ‘truths’ of each city that deserve a second opinion.
1) The Beaches of Los Angeles:
This is what a great beach looks like.
This is easy for me to say, since I was raised most of my life in LA. You become desensitized to a place if you spend way too much time in it. When I was little, I often went to the beaches with my family and of course, always had a great time. While in high school and college, I had the good fortune of being able to go whenever I wanted, living no more than 15 minutes from the shore. But, I didn’t. In fact, I sometimes made excuses not to go to the beach. “I’m just not a beach person,” I told myself. But, since I knew that the response to uttering those blasphemous words out loud would be, “Who the hell is not a beach person?” I kept my true feelings a secret.
I was wrong; I AM a beach person, just not an ‘LA beach’ person, and I think I know why. There is no nice way to say this: The beaches in LA really suck. LA has this aura of being a beach capital of the world. Now that I live abroad, I am often told that the main reasons people want to go to LA are the weather and the beaches. I agree with the first one. The weather is awesome, with over 300 days of sunshine. However, the idea that you can spend more time at the beach than at home needs a reality check.
People go to the beach in LA for the sand, not the water. The beaches in LA are cold, year round. I didn’t really realize this until I went to Mexico’s beaches where the water is so warm, it feels like a sauna. In LA’s beaches, you are told that “you will get used to the temperature soon enough.” Why should anyone have to “get used to it.” That is like eating liver and convincing yourself that it tastes great because ‘you are used to it’ now. In addition, while some of the beaches do an overall good job at keeping the sand and water litter-free, it is hardly transparent, and not that deep-blue you see in great beaches. LA has a nice beach culture, but if the water is too cold to swim and you can’t see your feet, it defeats the main purposes of a good beach. Almost every other beach I have ever been to has been warmer, far more beautiful, and far less over-hyped. Read more →
