The guide is not necessary: ​​how to plan your trip

When you really waiting for something good, your body produces the hormone of happiness - dopamine. Take advantage of this. Start planning the journey itself to get more enjoyment out of the trip, and at the same time to save money and nerves.

Plan ahead

Start preparing for the six months prior to travel. Immediately after selecting the country buy return tickets - it will mark the boundaries within which you you plan your trip, and even save money because advance purchase tickets are always cheaper.

After that, find out Do I need a visa in the departure country. If necessary, apply for its receipt on the Embassy's website. Come within the specified time to the embassy or visa application center with all the documents mentioned on the site. Usually they do visa from two weeks to a month. When you finish all tedious bureaucratic procedures, will begin the most interesting part of the training.

Explore the country through social networks

Begin training with image search in a search engine or Pinterest. Enter the name of the social network of the country where the plan to go to the search box. It will give you a photo of the most beautiful places taken by other travelers. So you can immediately understand what you want to see with their own eyes, and without which it can do, determine what Attractions are very popular, and find unusual places that will tell every guide.

For example, as I have found in Sri Lanka, Mount Adam's Peak, which is located at an altitude of 2234 meters above sea level. Buddhists believe that there has left its mark Buddha and the monks every year to make the ascent. The guides do not offer tours to the mountain, so get to it can only be yourself. And it's worth it!

Watch videos on YouTube. When we were in Peru and came down from the mountains after a four-day trek to Machu Picchu, my husband really wanted to enjoy a delicious and cheap coffee. All this way ends the same - in the village of Aguas Calientes. There insanely high prices in cafes for travelers. After hours of searching, I remembered a movie traveler: she told me that on the second floor of a building there is a flea market with low prices. There we drank excellent coffee and bought water and biscuits in the way to Cuzco.

Read what they write about you favorite locations

In the photos you may like beautiful lake with rose water or ekootel in a tree house. Read how to get there and what kind of reviews about the place other travelers. Routes can be found on the forum Vinsky, reviews - on TripAdvisor. You may find that the hotel you have to walk half a day on a wild tropical forests, and the lake can be someone's fantasy. Calculate the forces and check the facts.

Find friends in the country, which are planning to go

You can use the Instagram or Facebook. Or to see who is looking for a place to spend the night in your town on CouchSurfing. This is a service for travelers around the world, allowing to find free housing and meet the locals.

Before going to Peru because we stayed Peruvian Anna. Thanks to Anna, we learned that in Lima safest in the areas of Miraflores and Barranco. In this case, the coolest parties are held in dangerous areas and to get to them can be local, which is easy to find on the same CouchSurfing.

Make a route

Redraw the country's path to the notebook, check the scheduled site visit. So we will understand how to build the route.

I usually build the route in the form of a closed circle in a clockwise direction: from the lowest point on the map to climb up and then went down. A similar method is used by many travelers. I do not know how else to explain that from city to city, we always meet friends from the beginning of the path. Communicating and sharing routes, always find out that we have the same plans. The main purpose of such contrivances - build a route most efficiently, spending less time and money on the road.

Record the coordinates of places you want to visit, according to the scheme: name, city, address or location, phone number (if available).

Write in English or in the language of the country where you are going to be able to show passers-by and ask where to go.

Take care of your comfort: food, accommodation, luggage

Following the route, you'll stop all the time in different hotels and cities. For each city select two or three days, depending on the sites to be visited.

Since you do not have to stop there for a long time, you can experiment with formats housing. For example, in one city to stay in a noisy tusovka hostelIn the other - to stay in a luxurious villa, in the third - to spend the night at someone local. This will help you Booking, Airbnb and the familiar CouchSurfing.

Think in advance where you will have. Explore tab "Entertainment", "Home" and "Restaurants" on TripAdvisor. Write down the names and addresses in a notebook. Most likely, they will not be necessary, but it's so nice to meet familiar names in the city, which is far away from your home. You feel like a local.

Try not to take a lot of things. You will be more mobile, if you will be only the most necessary.

Take care of internally displaced

Learn transport, which will move between points on the map. Usually it is sufficient to drive the country into a search engine name and your chosen method of transportation: train, bus, airplane, car hire and more.

Buy tickets in advance. If you do not want to buy in advance - ask and record how and where to do it, when you arrive in country.

Only specify to which period of time you can buy a ticket. It was a shame that we did not buy tickets in advance at the Scenic Railway from Kandy to Nuwara Eliya in Sri Lanka, and the place it was found that they sold out in a month. Do not repeat our mistakes.

Make your guide

Gather all the knowledge about the country and your route in the guidebook. You can paint it, glue the vivid illustrations and cut, burn all the necessary information and even basic phrases in the local language.

I always do during the preparations for the journey. In my guide always has all of the key places to visit, addresses, phone numbers and important information.

instead of a conclusion

Once a year, my husband and I travel through this scheme. We do not like to sit in one place, so the standard for two weeks of vacation time to visit 4-5 cities and explore all the interesting sights of us. This mode requires a high degree of discipline and a clear plan, but it gives us the freedom, because all these plans our and we can change them as it pleases.

For six months we have time to tune in to the country and come back as a family. And I guide pasted all tickets, checks and other paper memorabilia from a trip. Then I put it on the shelf, and it becomes a part of our family history.