How to plan a trip to a large city like Tokyo? Well here are my tips. Also check out my post on Surviving Long Flights/Tips from a Nurse.
- Read blog posts from other travelers to get a feel for the city, and what it has to offer.
- Map it out. I love to use Google maps to look up things to do, restaurants, shoppings and hikes. You can use the pin feature to mark each spot you are interested in on the map.
- Plan each day by location and travel time to each thing you want to do and see. For Tokyo it is best to divide your days by areas of the city. That way you aren’t crossing the city mutiple times per day on public transport. For smaller destinations this is less important.
- Book your hotel near the things you want to do or see, or in large cities, look for a hotel within a 5-10 minute walk of public transportation.
- Speaking of public transportation, if you will be using it to travel around on your trip consider packing light. I am a huge fan of carry on only luggage. I have a large travel backpack that goes with me on most trips. It is easy to throw on my back and navigate public transportation.
- Research the local customs and ettiquete. Part of being a good traveler is being respectful of local customs, and not to mention a fun way to immerse yourself in how other cultures live.
- Learn some language basics. Please, thank you, excuse me, etc. This can be a really nice way to show respect while you are traveling.
- Learn about the local foods in the area you are going. I love to reseach the local foods that are must tries while visiting new locations. For example Iberico ham in Spain, Sushi and Ramen in Japan, Street tacos in Mexico, beans and rice in Costa Rica, and on.
- Decide on a hotel vs an Air B&B type experience. I personally like each option for different types of trips. Hotels can be a great options for couples, while VRBO or Air B&B coud be better for families. I also like to use VRBO for locations where I’m planning on doing some cooking during the trip. For locations where you plan to eat at restaurants mostly, a hotel could work just fine.
- Reseach other accomodation options for your destination. For example in Japan there are traditional bed and breakfast accomodations called Ryokan’s. They are a very traditional Japanese experience that typicallly serve a dinner and breakfast and you will sleep on futons called tatami mats. How fun is that? In other areas’ you may be able to find hostels or glamping accomodation options.
- Know your budget. Airline and accomodation tends to be the two things you will spend the most on. Start by taking the total amount you have to spend on your trip and looking up flights to this destination. Play around with different dates, to see how the pricing changes based on time of travel.
- Research the best time to visit your destination. This may not be the most “popular” time to visit but should take into consideration the weather, holidays (both foreign and domestic holidays) these can all change the cost of travel. Consider your budget here.
- One of my favorite things to do is to use google to pull up a map of flights that originate in your hometown. Google will show you with the map feature where you can go and how much the flight costs. I love to see where I fly for a good price. Sometimes this is how we decide on where to travel. For example my husband found cheap tickets to Spain in March. Since it was going to be a city sightseeing trip the weather was less important than say a beach destination.
- Check out sites like Get your Guide, Klook, and Viator. These sites offer tours and activites that you can book. Even if I don’t book a tour, they offer a good idea of what things are popular to do at your destination. They also offer good tours and I have used them with success on past trips.
- Document your trip. I love the website Wanderlog to create a trip itinerary. It is free and shareable. You can load all your flight and hotel information in and plan out each day. For a paid membership you can have their AI “create” an itinerary for you and use the map feature to optimize your sightseeing route.
- FindPenguins is a company that will help you document your trip as you travel. When you are done, you load all your photos in, create captions. You can then purchase a trip photo book, that they will print and send to you. How great is that to document your memories.
- Watch youtube videos on local guides to your destination. One of my favorites is to watch local street food tours to my destination, you can get some insider info this way and also get a feel for the culture. It also makes food a bit less scary if you are going somewhere where the food is pretty different from your home.
Don’t get overwhelmed at first by your destination. I take a couple of weeks to just research, absorb info, and watch videos on the area before I start to decide what I would like to see and do at that location. I have started planning too soon before, in my excitement, and wound up revising my travel plans multiple times before settling on what I actually wanted to do and see.
Also don’t be afraid to revise your itinerary multiple times until you get something that will work for you and your family. For example traveling to Asia is quite a long flight and time change. I had to revise my plans to accomodate for jet lag the first few days of our Japan trip. I kept the first couple of days light so that we can take a nap if needed. I also revised my plans so that we had light days interspersed with busier, more walking heavy days. This will hopefully help us avoid uncomfortable blisters on our feet.
I will be updating this blog once a week, with more travel, lifestyle and health tips.
If you love this let me know.
Beck
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