One of the main questions I get asked when people are wondering how to plan a trip is what attractions should they visit considering their tastes, interests and the time they have available.
It seems that in whichever way you start to research a place to visit —especially a big city like Paris or Shanghai for example— be it a guide book, a book at the local library, a person who’s already visited the city or Google, the task is a daunting one.
Trying to plan a trip can be overwhelming
Of course, not only do you need to book tickets, hotels, make a budget, get shots or medical insurance, but you also need to decide and narrow down the places you want to visit.
To expect to be able to thoroughly get to know a city in just one trip is not realistic at all. It’s detrimental, in my opinion, to your experience of the place.
I always suggest that when you travel, go with an abundance mentality and the firm idea that you will go back if you want to.
Why choosing attractions is difficult
The number one reason why people give up when trying to carefully plan a trip is the massive, overwhelming and never-ending amounts of information you can find.
Especially online which is where most of us go to find quick and easy information.
Most of the time this information is not organized in an easy to understand or mentally absorb way, it’s difficult to put it all together.
Another thing is that sometimes you don’t know if you’re actually looking at accurate and current information.
You just don’t know where to begin or how to organize what you have.
Why is this important?
Well, travel should be meaningful and life-changing; it should inspire you and make you want to learn more.
And if you’re like me, you like to travel stress free, knowing what you’re going to do, the places you’re going to visit considering what you’re interested in seeing and not what others think you should see.
You want to enjoy yourself, leaving your mind to not worry, but to be engaged and fascinated by the experience; you want to make sure you fulfill the purpose of your trip.
For instance, when I traveled to Barcelona in 2009, my main goal was to go on a Gaudi pilgrimage of all of his works in the Catalan capital, my interests were art and architecture and I had this clear scope in my mind.
The idea is to make the most of your day, your money and your effort.
5 easy steps for choosing your attractions
I am working on an upcoming e-course to teach you how to plan a trip in the most effective —and nerdy— way.
I’ll let everybody know when I launch it, though my Facebook friends and people subscribed to my newsletter list will get first peek.
In the meantime, here’s how I recommend going about choosing the attractions you want to visit:
Step 1: Create a spreadsheet
Ok, ok, friends and family pick on me because of my use of Excel for every plan I make, I assure you, I am fully aware of just how nerdy this sounds.
Create an empty Excel spreadsheet that we’ll be filling out with the information that we gather on the process. Inside it, create a sheet called Wishlit, one called Interests and one called Attractions.
If you’re not into Excel or like to do it by hand, a notebook or yellow notepad works just as well.
If creating a spreadsheet is a bit too much for you, don’t worry, I’ll do the work for you. Keep reading and at the end of this post I’ll have that spreadsheet for you.
Step 2: Have a travel wishlist
If you could wave a magic wand and get to visit any place you wanted, where would you go?
I always recommend you keep a list of all the places you want to visit in your lifetime, whether you see it as possible or not.
If you want to, you can prioritize and organize the list putting the places you most want to visit (can’t die without seeing them) at the top.
Do this in your spreadsheet, where you’ll have a Place column and a Priority column.
Step 3: Make a list of interests
It may seem obvious, but having a clear perspective of the types of things you like and are interested to can help you in making quick decisions about what you want to see.
There are people who are bored in museums; maybe you’re into ballet or opera. Maybe you’re an art lover and can’t wait to spend a week at the Louvre.
Perhaps you’re more into archaeology or science. Make sure you are clear on the types of things you’ll want to focus on.
Add this on the second sheet of your spreadsheet with an Interest column and a Priority column.
Step 4: Is there an app for this?
There most certainly must be! Nowadays with iPhones and Android phones you can find applications for just about anything, even how to plan a trip.
And in my experience there are fantastic reputable apps for you to research cities and places of interest.
You need to look for apps that have well organized and categorized information about a city or country, so that you can start filtering and choosing.
Once you’ve got your app or your guidebook, start listing the places you want to see in the third sheet of the spreadsheet with columns Attraction, Priority, Related Interest.
This way you’ll start visually identifying and making decisions about which are a must and which will be left for the next trip.
Some apps I love for this are:
Apps by Rick Steves have walking tours covering major attractions in European cities.
Apps by mTrip Travel Guides offer guides to many of the world’s most important cities and allow you to make your own itinerary in the app itself.
Apps by Compart Multimedia for Rome, Vatican Museums and Florence, they’re really good.
Apps by Lonely Planet which are very thorough and packed with up to date information.
Offline Travel guides by Trip Advisor are another great resource for many cities, including nightlife, places to eat, hotels, etc.
Apps by Frommers, are fantastic resources that even include the weather forecast!
And then you can research local guides for specific cities like Chicago2go, a great app just for the amazing city of Chicago!
Spotted by locals is a really fun app and a website to find those off-the-beaten-path obscure places that locals enjoy in over 40 cities in Europe.
Another great resource I use often is Schmap, a great website and software application that covers four continents with very very detailed information.
And finally, if you can afford it and like to do so, purchase a couple of guidebooks from these same sources. They have wonderful information, albeit, many times it’s more than you really need.
With these resources you start building your list in your spreadsheet. Most likely there will be more places on your list than you can manage to visit in one trip.
Step 5: Wikipedia and general Google research
If you still feel like you need more information, you can go to Wikipedia (which I know it’s not 100% accurate but it’s useful) or other websites online.
But when you reach this point, you are not going to be looking at a massive and untamable amount of general information, but you will be going deeper into places or experience that you’ve already decided you want to see.
The promised spreadsheet
Ok, so I’ve done your work for you, here’s the spreadsheet. Of course, learning how to plan a trip has a few more steps like considering the geography of the place and the time you’ll need for each attraction.
But I plan to cover those in upcoming posts and in even more depth in my e-course. Like I said, people on my Facebook page and people subscribed to my newsletter list will get first peek.
Well, there you go, I hope this method is useful for you and I would love to read your comments. If you’d like personal assistance on planning your trip, I’m here to help!
Do you plan in any other way that has worked for you?
What do you think of this way of selecting attractions?
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