How We Plan Visits for our World Tour
When our friends find out about the final itinerary and our purchase of the round-the-world ticket, they think that we have planned everything in advance. What nay! We only planned for the 1st month and the popular destinations or with very few hotels (Easter Island, Tahiti), the rest is in free style mode. We try to live from day to day
However, in order not to sleep on the sidewalk and to make the most of our trip, we plan our itinerary between a few hours and a month in advance, using more or less sophisticated tools
1. We buy a local SIM card with 3G for each country
While Wifi is available in almost all hotels, experience shows that connection via 3G is always more reliable and useful. Useful for not taking a cab for 100m. Useful to shop online, book hotels, check your bank accounts without fear of our data being hacked
2. We locate places of interest on the Internet
– Google: just type the name of the city and all the places of interest are displayed
– Pinterest: If we don’t have any cities in mind yet, we type the name of the country on Pinterest and select the cities based on the photos that speak to us the most. The interest of Pinterest is the potential discovery of places that aren’t very touristy but nice (it can be a nice door, a nice hotel or a nice café). It also gives new ideas of angles for taking pictures of tourist places but already too much photographed like the Taj Mahal
– Blog : We often come across other people’s blogs while doing our research
3. We buy the Lonely Planet guides by chapter and not the whole guide
When we already know where we’re going, we buy one or two chapters from tourist guides via Amazon’s Kindle. No need to have the Kindle, the Android/iPhone application does the job very well. When we buy a chapter (about 3€), we still get the “introduction” chapter of the country with info on currencies, scams to avoid etc. without paying the price for the whole guide (30€)
Sometimes the free Kindle extract is enough (for example for Kruger Park or South Africa), and it’s free
More travel guide tips here
4. We mark the places of interest on Google Maps to organize our trip
The idea is to find the shortest route and also determine the number of days to stay in each city. I use My Maps from Google to create a very visual map with if possible a picture for each place (possibly with a small description e.g. we have to eat here, or it’s better to go in the morning…), otherwise we’ll forget everything. It also allows to see clearly the tourist area of the corner and to find a hotel a little bit off-center
By using Google Maps on the phone, we can access these pre-registered addresses and find the way quickly
5. We take advantage of the luxury hotels but only for a Coke or for the swimming pool
That way we enjoy the beautiful surroundings, the 5 star service and pay a minimum fee. We like hotels with a lot of character, with a nice garden, a nice view or a nice swimming pool. In India, many hotels give access to their swimming pool for a small fee, during off-peak hours (below the James Bond pool in Octopussy for 4€). The bars of luxury hotels are often open to everyone, all over the world (see the list of our favorite hotel bars in Paris)
6. We meet with locals via Couchsurfing
The meet-ups take a little more time because not everyone is connected every day. They aren’t all available when we are visiting… Usually, I send the request 2 or 3 days in advance. At the end of each meeting, we usually have a checklist of dishes to test and/or local addresses that we can’t miss. See our article on Couchsurfing
7. We go to the movies
Whether it’s watching a local movie or an American blockbuster, it’s always interesting to go to the movies and see how the experience differs from country to country. In the US, people express much more emotion I find, while in Vietnam, the cinema is like a soccer match – with live commentary like “is he dead?” – or a place of total spoiler, since they downloaded the movie before “no, Gandalf isn’t dead”
8. We are inspired by the itinerary of our friends
By harassing them 🙂 They always end up sending us a list of the hotels they recommend and the cities they have visited
9. We take our inspiration from the itinerary of the agencies
By typing COUNTRY + TOUR, the itinerary is already served on a tray
10. We wander the streets at random
and eat the same thing as the locals 🙂
