How to plan for travelling overseas for dummies with a low budget? (Part 1)

I was talking to some friends and found that some people actually find independent travelling a little daunting... I'm not talking about going to Antarctica. I'm talking about places like plain Europe.

You may have some expectations here when you read this, be warned that I'm not a person with unlimited time, so here I'm going for a real plan, very detailed one. I don't walk around in the streets for hours looking for a place to stay. I tried that the first time I went to Europe and MY SHOULDERS HURT with the backpack on!!!!

Let's get on with it...

First, of course you must already know that since you're reading my blog. Use the internet!! Everything you need to know and everything you don't need to know is on the web, you just need time to read them all. If you don't have the time, but have plenty of money, of course, it'll not be a problem coz you can hire someone to plan the itinerary for you.

For me, the first step starts with research on the web AND borrowing travel guides (usually Lonely Planet, and any other that are available) from public library. (Yeah, I said the low budget way!!)

Then you need to decide where exactly you want to go. Of course, you have already decided where you want to go, let me take my trip last year as an example. I have decided to go to Spain before the first step, and then I looked at various places in Spain and decided I want to go to Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Granada, Cordoba, Avila, Toledo... (See I am really treating you like a dummy here. I'm not joking.)

Unless you have quit your job AND have unlimited budget (that means unless you're in your dreams!!), you have a time limit for your trip.

You decide if you can fit all those places in.

Say you have ten days.

2 days- Barcelona
1 day- Madrid
2 days- Seville
...

you get the idea...

Then you decide where you fly in and out of that country and join the dots together. And order the tickets and hotels/hostels online.

Sounds real easy?? It's not...

hmm... well, I'm going to share more of my experience in planning a trip later... that's it for today.

Continue to read here...
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4a
Part 4b
Part 5