p You work all year. A full-time job, kids, a relationship, the extended family and life itself.
p When you finally go on vacation, it's so, so, so important that it's a good one.
p I've gathered all the steps I take before a flight, because why enjoy alone?
q “I followed my heart and it let me to the airport”
p Before you get to London, New York, the Seychelles, Greece, the Black Forest or Madrid, there are a few things you do first.
p For some of us it's easy and fun, but for most of us it's stressful and really far from fun.
p I'm serving you the order of things on a silver platter.
p On paper, the order is:
p 1. Flights.
p 2. Flight cancellation insurance (if the flight is expensive)
p 3. Accommodation
p 4. A car
p 5. Booking essential attractions and restaurants
p 6. Finalizing the route
p But in life, as in life, not everything is black or white, so I won't book a flight until I know that what we want to do is even possible.
p I made you a simple flowchart showing how I organize a trip.
p Right. Because why enjoy alone?
p But that's not all. Before you start:
p 1. Make a budget for the trip.
p 2. Research the place. I don't just mean hearing everyone talk about a place and automatically deciding you're going too. I mean going on YouTube and watching videos of the place. Visiting relevant sites and Facebook groups and asking yourselves: does this intrigue me? Does this excite me?
p 2. Make a table of rough costs, to get an overall picture that it really fits your budget.
p 3. Align expectations with each other. Are we even a camper van family? Will we know how to open the sewage tank when we need to? To save on the flight, could we take one suitcase for everyone and not sit next to each other on the plane?
p (It might be nice to let someone else babysit for you on the flight, no doubt, but could you handle it emotionally??)
p Would we consider making the trip cheaper by staying far from the center, which means dragging ourselves for hours on the road, or take the risk of sleeping in an Airbnb?
p All of this is worth settling before you book.
p So come on, there's a lot of work; get started, so you reach this moment, with that... smile, as fast as possible:
