How To Plan an Adventure

Open road on the West Highland Way, Scotland. 2012.

For the first time traveller, the idea of planning a true adventure is often overwhelming. Perhaps having been on a tour-guided trip or a vacation before, you feel that setting off on your own into uncharted (by you) lands is overrated or just too much work. For some people, it is enough to go to a resort or be ushered through the world according to someone else's timeline. For the rest of us, here are some resources that have helped me navigate the open road and find some true adventures:

Planning and Dreaming

Lonely Planet

Maps and guidebooks: they’re the stuff that dreams are made of. The Lonely Planet website can keep a dreaming traveller occupied for days. Decide where you would like to go then read up on it. It takes a lot of reading before you have any idea what there is to see, and more importantly what YOU would like to see. You don’t want to drive past the turn off to a wonderful (insert whatever you are most interested in) just because you didn’t know it was there.

This stage should also help you to plan your attack strategy – the direction you want to go first, the cities that have the best transport between them and where the local tour guides operate out of. You can waste valuable trip time figuring something out that you could have planned months before on your lunch break.

Travel Blogs

More inspiration for dreaming can be found in travel magazines, but these days travel writers are much more easily found on blogs. There are so many of them out there, I bet there is a travel blogger who has been to the place you are going. Read a few different people’s stories and advice to get the clearest version. Then you will be able to make decisions for yourself.

I like to read Nomadic Matt and  Wand'rly. Here are some other winning blogs from this year.

Finding a Flight

Skyscanner.ca

This website pick up almost all airlines. I find it to be an invaluable resource when looking for flights to and around Europe. Apparently it doesn’t always work so well for flights in other parts of the world, but for planning a EuroTrip it is great.

I use it to search flights, but not to book them. In my experience, once you have found a flight for the best deal on Skyscanner then you should go directly to the airline’s website and buy from them. It has always gotten me a better price. It is worth it to price check between a few airline sites before booking; sometimes the prices shown by flight finders do not include all of the options on the original sites.

I have friends who swear by Cheapoair and  Momondo, but Skyscanner is the one I use. Sites like Expedia and Orbitz are useless for the backpacker or budget traveler. They are owned by airline companies and other understandably biased businesses; they never offer the best deals.

Booking Your Stay

Hostelworld.com

A great website for finding and comparing accommodations. The best part of the website is the reviews sections. The star ratings can give you some idea of what you are looking at, but really it is the comments that show the place most clearly. If all the complaints against a hostel are from a certain age-range or a certain country’s travellers, then you can learn much more than what the other travellers have explicitly said. Cultural differences come out in the comments and maybe you are ok with a quieter place one night, but it has been slammed in the reviews for not having enough “fun” and “character.” If it was a whole bunch of 18 year old American males who left those comments, then chances are they were looking for a drinking party and didn’t find one.

That is based on my observations while travelling. I know not all 18 year old American males are looking for a wild time. But you have to make some generalizations when choosing accommodations from reviews. And there are some that I’ve found to be tried and true. We all travel for different reasons and hostelworld lets you weigh the pros and cons of hostels, inns, guesthouses, bed and breakfasts, and some standard hotels to find the place best suited to your budget and specific trip needs.

Housetrip.com

London, England. 2012.

This is an online service that allows people to list their homes, apartments, or spare rooms for rent as vacation accommodations. You can go through pictures, prices and reviews to find something that suits your budget and style. The service charges your payment when you make a booking, but they withhold payment from the owner until after you have arrived at the rental and have had time to verify that it is what was promised.

I used housetrip to find a place to stay in London, England a couple years ago and I booked the cheapest place available. It was a spare room in a couple’s flat and they had a very dirty kitchen. But I felt that it was worth what I paid for it, so I did not lodge a complaint (it was WAY cheaper than anything else available in London – cheaper than a hostel and for a private room). When I gave them a mediocre review later, Housetrip contacted me immediately and credited me a large discount on my next booking with them in apology for my stay not being brilliant. I booked an apartment in Rome using them later in the year and it all came through without a hitch. I would definitely use them again. Their customer service is excellent.

Couchsurfing.org

With this service your experience will be only as good as you make it. Here you can post your travel plans and send out a blanket plea for someone to host you or meet up with you or whatever you are after. You can also search through profiles to find someone you think is a good match and then send them a personal message with your request. This is a great way to really get into a place and culture. You are instantly in contact with a local on the ground and you get a good look into their life because you have the view from their couch! (Or even spare room sometimes.)

Couchsurfing has helped me out a few times. I have surfed with some wonderful, fun and gracious hosts from the UK to Romania.

A word of warning: couchsurfing is not just a free place to stay, although some hosts are perfectly ok with that. It is generally understood that you are staying with a host because you would like to hang out and have a “real” experience of their city or locale. If that is not what you are after, then please be specific when you are contacting people to avoid misunderstandings, bad feelings and possibly a ruined trip.

Buying Your Gear

Tilley

Tilley Endurables makes some great stuff. Underwear that dries overnight after you’ve hand washed it in the hotel sink. Hats that keep African sun from your whole face and never fly away in a Siberian wind storm. If you are doing any sort of adventuring and you have space in your budget for some Tilley gear, then I would recommend trying it out.

MEC

Mountain Equipment Co-op is a great store for travel needs. They don’t have sales and promotions, but they do have a clearance section. You can watch online for things to get marked down into clearance and then you can score some great deals. I bought a rain coat that I needed for my last trip from them for a fantastic discount.

MEC is not just great for their price drops. Their factories are well regulated and inspected that manufacture their MEC brand name products. They sell other brands in their store and not all of them are as ethical, but MEC brand is a sure bet.

Amazon.ca

The ever expanding giant of online shopping, Amazon now has a travel-related database called Travel Central that can be useful when you are price shopping for clothing gear, portable electronics and travel books.

Packing Your Bag

Pack you bag a week before you leave. Get it all in. Strap everything up. Stand back and admire it. Now unpack it.

You only need half of what is in there. Believe me.

Keep repeating this until the day before you leave. Every day. By the time you leave, you will be more or less free of unnecessary stuff you thought you needed. Or so you will think until you have hauled that sucker through a couple airports. On every trip I have ever taken I have over-packed. I have dumped stuff into garbage cans in airports, left things with hosts, dropped things off at second hand places, and still felt weighed down by what I have to carry.

Unless you are travelling into a cold climate and you are going to be camping, you have too much stuff in that bag.

Check out this packing list to get you started.

Before You Fly the Coop

Call your credit card and bank 

With the fraud squads being so active on accounts these days, I have had my cards frozen while they’ve just been sitting innocently in my wallet at home. If you fly away without telling the companies and banks that you are leaving and where you are going, then you are going to have frozen cards before your plane touches down. Call the numbers on the backs of all your cards and tell them exactly where you’re going and what day you’ll be back.

Don’t take a lot of cash with you. I made this mistake on my first backpacking trip as a teenager. Unless you are heading into an active war zone (and why would you be?) or remote wilderness you will be able to find a bank machine on the ground when you arrive. I have found that there is no reason to ever be carrying more than 800 dollars in cash in expensive places (Western Europe) and usually this is way too much. In the typical backpacking areas (Eastern Europe, Central America, South-East Asia), 800 dollars cash will last me three weeks. I generally only carry one and a half week's worth of local currency on me.

Buy or verify your health insurance

Make sure that you have coverage overseas and for all the days that you will be gone. Many health plans cover 30, 60 or 90 days so make sure to check yours. It is not hard to buy top-up days or a new plan, but you will be in serious trouble if you find yourself airlifted to a German hospital and suddenly facing a couple hundred thousand Euros in hospital bills.

Not only do you need to have the coverage, but make sure you have the papers with you on your trip. With most plans you need to call a phone number to activate your use when something happens and you may have to give your account number. Keep the papers somewhere safe in your wallet and make a photocopy to tuck somewhere secure in your bag as a backup.

Photocopy your ID, Bank Card, and Credit Cards

Speaking of backups: photocopy everything you carry in your wallet and hide it in your bag somewhere secure where you won’t lose it. This includes your passport. You will have a much easier time cancelling your credit card when your wallet gets stolen if you have a photocopy with the phone number to call on it. So photocopy everything, front and back, and keep it out of sight. You will also have a much easier time at the embassy when you’ve lost your passport if you have the photocopy with you.

I actually make a set of photocopies to leave behind at home as well. All of my ID and financial information, my travel plans and the bookings I have made so far. If you have someone at home to leave these things with, then I would highly recommend it. Not only will it give your family or friend peace of mind knowing where you’re planning to be, it will help you if you can call home in an emergency and they have all the information to do something for you.

Collect some mailing addresses

If you have grandparents or parents or young kids you are close to then I suggest making sure you have mailing addresses with you before you leave. There is nothing greater than a surprise post card for any of those people, and it is hard to send it as a surprise if you need to email them from your destination to ask for the address!

Pack some snacks for the plane.

Especially if you scored a budget flight, don’t expect food on the plane. If it is a long flight and you are a person with a human sized appetite, then never expect enough food on the plane. Pack snacks or even a full picnic. Just make sure you don’t have items in there that won’t be allowed past your own border. Some fruits, vegetables and dairy, to name a few, are not allowed into or out of different countries. Research the rules for where you’re going. When in doubt, granola bars have never gotten me into trouble.

"Most importantly, don't assume that the adventure of your dreams is out of your reach. Adventures are much more attainable than most people realize - you just have to be willing to take the slow, smelly train & cook cheap food in your hostel. And maybe work a second job for a few months pre-adventure. This is all part of the fun." 

Heather Morrison

 
Ready, Set, Go!