A travel plan...

Often when we plan for travel, we approach Travel Agent to plan our holiday, not sure, why we do it when can plan it better because we know ourselves better than anyone else.If you feel, scheduling activities, stay, travel routes etc is difficult, then read on my experience.

In-fact preparing travel plan is very interesting although time consuming but then we can come up with a dream plan which is not only cost effective but also time efficient.

World is quite important to ensure we do not miss any part of excitement or experience of holidays. Internet is our buddy in this exercise, it makes our job easy by giving access to all information needed for travel plan. Whether it is about accommodation, timing, or the culture. Everything around us is to be noted down in a sequential pattern and once we place all time information, we can convert it into a date & time sheet and finally follow it....

Very important point to be considered while preparing 'travel plan' is that it needs to be location specific.

Location specific can be explained as..... let's say the plan is to visit Japan and cover 5 to 6 locations beginning with Tokyo to southern point of part Fukuoka city. The best option would be to get into Shinkansen or bullet train known for its speed, timing and services. There is a facility to secure one-time tickets or passes, which are available for 7 days and 15 days. Thus, by using these services, a traveller can maximise his reach to different location in a limited time in a cost effective way.

But a similar pattern of plan is not viable for a traveler planning to visit many locations in Europe. Although Europe has a good network of trains with various options but when we consider time accuracy, then certainly not. We all are aware that Japan is a country which moves with needles of clock, the train leaving or reaching time can be matched in seconds. Whereas the Europe train system is a combination of inter-city express services, where trains travel from one country to another and even few minutes delay means 'connecting trains' can be missed by traveller and this means that traveler need to prepare travel plan with enough extra hours in hand, ready to hang around train station in case of missing a connecting train.

We have experienced this a few times during our various travel to Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Belgium. It's frustrating and time consuming, better to avoid.

Japan travel taught us the importance of timing & accuracy which cannot be matched precisely by any other country.

A sincere effort is needed to review date and time of movement by train or plane reason that they all are time bound. A simple planner like an A4 sheet can be used to prepare using different colours and highlighters to make it more attractive.

A suggested planner, that would be helpful can be divided into two parts

A) specify Day, specific activity (touring, entertaining),

B) detail with time-line

If followed regularly, this is sure to make your travel a wonderful memorable vacation. A break between busy travel schedule specially for a photographer who need to spend a lot of time for up-keep of cameras/lenses/equipments, charging batteries, downloading pictures, posting on social media... is lot of work.

Guys, Good luck...for your next travel plan....