Fun and pain in preparing free and easy itinerary

Itinerary (Pic source: Google.com)

These days I have been busy preparing the free and easy itinerary for the upcoming trip with my family. Usually they take the easy way by engaging the travel agent services; started with signing the tour package up, preparing visa with all documents prepared by the travel agent, going for the briefing held by the tour guide, and Voila! we are ready to travel. This year, however, my parents want to have a different style, which is a free and easy. Of course, they engage someone to do the job, which is me.

I love traveling. I am not sure when it started but yes, the adventure and traveling spirit have always been inside me. Personally I prefer to travel free and easy style as I have more freedom to select the places I want to go, eat the food I want to eat, choose what type of hotel I want to stay, and so on.

Most importantly, by doing this way, I can control the budget - how much I will spend on the trip - as I have only a limited amount of money to spend; and the time spent in each places. As you know, when you travel with travel agent, they will allow you only sufficient time for them to explain about the place and for you to take photos. Most of the time it is too rush as there are many places to cover within a day.

And usually it is better to arrange the free and easy travel in small group (2-3 pax). with similar age group, and similar interest. Why so? This is very important because when you travel with different age group, the strength and health conditions of each individual are different, plus travel interests are also very different. E.g. I prefer browsing significant places from each city than shopping and relaxing; I prefer staying in small budget hotel with good location over bigger room, etc.

After all, we are all just a human being with different nature and characteristics. Therefore, the more the participants, the longer the traveling days, the more the age gaps, the more headache I am in planning this. Hahahaha..... And the best thing is that... I am given this task to plan and be the guide for the trip where I am not familiar with most of the places (out of the 4 different countries and 9 different cities, I have only been one of them, that too I visited almost two decades ago). Hahahaha... (don't know if I should laugh or cry....)

Headache!!! (Pic source: Google.com)

This is why I feel like getting crazy and want to vent and share my frustration here because some people think this is an easy job. They never understand how difficult it is, why it takes time, and so on. Despite not working, I live my everyday life within pressure from my own self in preparing this. Another pressure is from the time given to get ready with all documentations required for preparing their Visa, which I found ridiculous too early to apply. Lol! I had to convince them not to apply too early to avoid rejection.

It is fun and pain at the same time in preparing the itinerary for the whole trip. And it really takes a lot of time as every place is new to me. It needs to do a lot of research, read a lot of reviews, pins places into the maps, plans what will be the best way to cover the place with the limited time available, to consider taking tour or walking on our own, and so on.

To make it easy usually I start it with drawing the calendar in Excel file, put in day and date. Slowly I fill the main things inside the empty box while filling up the details in another tab, e.g. flight, hotel, places to go, website links, etc.

First thing first - find out how many days required for the trip that fit the requirements by parents. That is why calendar style will come in handy when planning it. Once I know what and where, next is to purchase flight ticket which can fit the timing for everyone to arrive at the same time with minimum cost (by looking out for airline promotion). Some adjustment will be made if the flight schedule and promotion price are only applicable for certain dates.

My parents want to join the cruise. So I have to contact the cruise company regarding the cruise, register, fill up the data into the website that connect us with them, and arrange few other things required. Later on, I need to choose which tour to join for the shore excursion (the boat will stop for certain period of time to let people experience the country's life).

This gives me headache as there are so many choices and many I have never heard of so I have no idea if I should go or not. Few months ago I saw Korean TV show where group of people boarded to the same cruise and apart from the games they played, some of them were given chance to go for shore excursion too. I have watched the whole show just to have an idea what the places look like and whether all of us should also go to the same places or not. Even after I decided, now I think I have to go back and review my decision again as the tours that I have chosen were all full day for a consecutive 3 days and I worry that everyone will get too tired from it! Lol!!!

After cruise trip arrangement is done, I need to fill in the rest. I have to think of whether I should join the local tour or walk on our own. For famous places, it is expected to be very crowded. Therefore to avoid long queue, many tour offer skip-the-line service so that tourist can enter right away (no need to queue at ticket counter and to enter the building). This, of course, with additional charge that does not come cheap!!! But sometimes, with the limited time that we have, I have no choice but to choose that.

For each country, I need to find out: must visit places, which location to book the hotel (preferably with good location - near metro or main district, good reviews from other travelers, and acceptable fees), what places required tour services (look at various choices available, prices and reviews), the sequence of places to visit (if 2 days are available, which places to visit on which day because certain places are closed on certain day/s), must-try local food and beverage, which restaurants to go (from customers' review and photos plus location), how to travel from one city to another (by train - which train, which timing, or by flight - same thing), and so on.

Travel planning (Pic source: Google.com)

I can spend few days just to arrange one day itinerary. Sometimes I feel helpless as I have no one to ask. I did ask around some people who have visited the countries before, but majority they joined the tour group so usually they cannot suggest much for the hotel, and places to visit can be found from the website. But as many tour arrange the travel by bus, they visited only some significant places before moving out to another place.

'Til date, I have not finished my itinerary yet. Like I said, I have reached some frustration in creating it and just need a place to share this feeling. It is not all the pain in planning it though. There are excitement too imagining the places that I will be visiting and various food to try. Sometimes I spend more time because I have interest on how they make the food. Some familiar food recall good memories in my head from the past. Hahaha... 

Well, I just want to make it good. Just good, not perfect. That is why all the pressure is coming - from within myself. Even after planning it, not necessary it will all come to fruition. Changes are expected depending on the situation. And still the best thing is to let nature takes its course. Well, wish me all the best in creating it. Most importantly to enjoy the travel in reality. Not just for me, but for everyone! Let's hope and pray that everything will go well. Thank you :)