Hey everyone and welcome back to the Sunshine Travelers podcast. Today we're talking about a trip planning 101. How to go from dreaming about a trip to actually making it happen. Even after planning some pretty complicated adventures, we're still learning new lessons every time we hit the road. Trip planning isn't about getting everything perfect, it's about setting yourself up to enjoy the journey as much as the destination. So whether you're booking a quick weekend away or piecing together a big bucket list trip, We're breaking it down step by step to make it feel a lot less overwhelming.
We're Scott and Melissa, the Sunshine Travelers. We're all about exploring the world and sharing the journey with you.
all about exploring the world and sharing the journey with you. Whether you're a seasoned traveler, dreaming of your next adventure, or just here for the stories.
No matter where you are on your travel journey, we've got firsthand experiences, tips, and plenty of inspiration from some of the most amazing places on Earth. So buckle up and get ready to travel with us.
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You know, even after all the trips we planned, it's really amazing to see how easy it is to miss just those little details. Even for this upcoming trip, we booked one of our trains for the wrong day.
Yeah. And I don't know that honestly, if we would have even noticed it, if we hadn't have been then sharing some of our travel plans with Max Adventure to finalize those. And I went looking for that particular reservation and couldn't find it anywhere. And then come to find out, it's funny because we had literally just shared somewhere something about making sure that you don't mix up the month and the day, right? Because a lot of times they'll have that. But then I got to thinking, I really think that we picked that off a calendar. And what had happened was, the like what we were using to search for it when it actually went to the booking engine for some reason that didn't auto populate and it went back to like i guess the next available train so so just double check and triple check before you check out i mean normally we do but mistakes happen and things happen and so yeah just double checking and rechecking those details yeah well fortunately this wouldn't have been a disaster because it was it's a local train
well fortunately this wouldn't have been a disaster because it was it's a local train And so we could have booked the tickets while we were at the station, but we were trying to plan for this trip. We're trying to give those details to Max Adventure. And so we were doing a little bit of advanced planning here and it just didn't turn out right.
Yeah. And what's funny about that is oftentimes we hear that. If you, like you said, you don't necessarily have to book trains in advance and we've done it last minute, but you hear that they're cheaper if you do it like far in advance. But what's funny is this one not even really much the case, right? Because I think when I rebooked it and made sure that was the right day, it ended up being the same price. So yeah, so not the end of the world, but it would be a lot worse if it was like a flat or something like that. So just always, it's just your, just double check and triple check those little details.
Well, and that's exactly what today's episode is about. Kind of the steps that we use now to make sure that we're planning smarter, not just faster. And so hopefully we can help you avoid a few of those oops moments as well.
Yeah. And it really just comes off of having planned this multi -country, multi -flight, multi -train, all these different destinations trips because it's a lot more moving pieces, I guess I would say. But these tips do apply even if you're just having to book one flight and looking at hotels. And so that's some of the tips that we're going to talk about and some of the things, I guess, that we've learned over the last couple of years of trips that we probably haven't even talked about before on the podcast.
Are you looking to plan your next unforgettable adventure? At Sunshine Travelers Experiences, we specialize in helping you create tailor -made travel journeys. that turn your vacation dreams into reality. Whether you're craving a relaxing beach escape, an awe -inspiring cultural journey, or a thrilling outdoor adventure, we can help. Why choose Sunshine Traveler's Experiences? Personalized itineraries designed just for you, expert travel advice and insider tips, seamless booking from start to finish, exclusive access to top destinations and hidden gems. We also book cruises, all -inclusives, groups, tours, and so much more. If you're unsure where to even start planning that bucket list trip, start by asking us. Then let Sunshine Travelers Experiences handle the planning so you can focus on making the memories. Explore now, sunxtravel .com. If you have any questions, email us, info at sunshinetravelers .com. Well, in today's episode, we want to walk through the planning process. And just give you a little bit of a guide that you can use when planning your own travel. So with that, why don't you go ahead and get us started?
So number one is usually like going by your destination, right? And so this can be something that is on your bucket list or just a quick weekend getaway. I think it's really what drove our very first episode is how to create your travel bucket list so that when opportunities do come up. right? You kind of know, yeah, that's interesting. Or like recently, we had the opportunity to have a long weekend with the Iceland stopover and just having those things. So if you don't have a destination necessarily mind having that bucket list and looking at great travel deals as you see them come across whatever channels that you use. to kind of look at those can drive that and then can help you save money on that. And then if you already have that destination, you can go straight into the planning process. So whether that's for a work trip and then you're adding some days on or you've got some other kind of trip, just going into that planning process from there. So I think we want to kind of start with the idea that you already have somewhere in mind and you now need to start straight into the planning.
I think we want to kind of start with the idea that you already have somewhere in mind and you now need to start straight into the planning. Yeah.
And so I guess just to talk a little bit about, because over the next few weeks, we're going to be sharing even more about this upcoming trip. We've talked a little bit about it, but having it be lots of different destinations and I guess really putting these things that we're going to talk about into play. So we've got to get from Florida to Germany. And then thinking about, as you guys know, we like to try to add time if there's like a weekend. It just helps with getting to add another destination, a new place. And then also it helps with just getting acclimated with jet lag and stuff like that. So this time adding Berlin on to the Germany trip, but then needing to get from there to Italy and thinking about some of these things we're going to talk about, about winter flights available. How do you organize that thing? And then we've mentioned this, but I'm going to do that habitat trip in South America. And so figuring out, okay, so then how do you get from Europe to South America in a, I don't know, in a reasonable way, right? So without having to do a bunch of flights back to back, can we then add another destination that we would like to revisit anyway? And so then looking at those logistics.
Yeah. So the first step that we want to think about, after we've picked our destination is a budget. And so how much do we want to spend on this trip? And I would say, as you're looking at budget, you may want to think about it in terms of who I want to take this trip on miles and points, or do I want to use cash? And not everybody is going to budget down to the last detail. Some people are going to want to figure out how much are they going to spend on food? How much are they going to spend on entertainment and excursions? Other people are really just thinking about, you know, the big things like the travel cost and the lodging.
Yeah, for sure. And so this is where I think we're kind of like... middle ground. And I think it kind of helps to have a little bit of a vacation or a travel budget, right? Some people are in completely one camp. Like I wouldn't be able to travel at all without miles and points and hotel points. And that's great, right? Because we would rather people figure out that and be able to travel than not being able to travel at all. And then some people are like, I don't even have time for that. I'm not gonna worry about that, right? I'm just gonna have all that. And so I think we're kind of in the middle. Using those avenues allow us, I think, to be able to travel more. And so we kind of take that. into account, right? Trying to use those wisely, spending money as well, you know, and then looking for deals and stuff like that. So, but I would say for us, like if there is something in a city that we, you know, we really want to do, or we think about, okay, we would have to eat anyway, right? And kind of using that as, okay, well, that would be something that we would be spending money on at home anyway. So having said that, these types of your budget restrictions are then going to help you decide like, how are you going to book those flights, where you're going to stay, how you're going to get to these different places, right? So because I mean, it might be in some cases, well, let me give you an example. So for example, in Germany, we looked at, okay, we can drive, we've talked about driving in Germany before, or you can take a train. And it was about the same amount of time, but it was, interestingly enough, when we were checking, it was like, seems really expensive. And it was going to have to be several trains in Germany, right? We were going to have to get somewhere and then get back and then get back to the airport. But it was like, ended up being way, way more, like hundreds of dollars more than to rent a car, I guess I should say. But in Italy, like we wouldn't even consider it because of, you know, we didn't need a car and then having to try to drop it off. So just taking some of those things into consideration and doing that research. as you start to think about your budget, right?
This would also be a really good time for you to check your credit card benefits to see if you have, you know, any hotel credits, any airline credits, those type of things that are benefits, even companion certificates that are benefits of your card. And if you haven't used them yet for our upcoming trip, we had several hotel credits on cards that we had had it used. So we made sure that we use those to help with some of the costs of the trip.
Yeah. And that's a good point because a lot of people think points and miles, it's just those or travel credit cards. It's just those things that you're accumulating. But a lot of these do have those hotel credits, right? And there are certain stipulations, right? You have to book it through their portal or whatever those stipulations are, but they can be really good benefits because not only sometimes you get those credits, but it bumps you up into... some of their perks, like you might get free breakfast or room upgrades, coming up with some kind of way to track those. And so that was one thing that we did as we were planning this trip. We kind of listed out since it's several different destinations. So we have several different hotels to book. And so listing out, okay, this card, this is a benefit we haven't used. And just making sure that you don't let those go to waste. Because a lot of times using those, like basically... wipes out or more than wipes out if there's any annual fees or anything like that on those cards. So if you want to use points and miles, then start planning out what you would need. And then if you have time, right? So if you're looking at a trip that's far in advance, come up with a strategy about how to achieve that. So that might be looking at those different spend categories and shifting all your daily spending to that card, making sure that if you have a card where the you get three times the points for dining out that you always use that for dining out. Or if you have a card where you can choose different categories like groceries, right? And you spend a lot of money on groceries or gas or something like that, then making sure that you funnel those so that you can then cash that in. And if you're spending that money anyway.
Yeah. And this is the use this the same way that you might use, say, a debit card. So don't spend more than you have and make sure you pay that off. But this is a great way to get some. good benefits and there are several cards out there that if you don't have one that have really good benefits and they have like these very enticing welcome benefits for joining up and you have to spend like a certain amount over a certain period of time And then they're going to give you this big, large chunk of points that you can use.
Yeah. And we talk a lot about that. So we're not going to get into all the details of that. But just to kind of remind you, we have a whole episode on that where we talked with Abby from Wayfair & Co. And she went through all the details of that. So I will link that if you missed that episode. But the other thing is that if you travel, you really do need to have at least one travel credit card when you travel. A lot of times, just using a debit card everywhere is not going to be a good strategy, especially if it has foreign transaction fees and having to have PIN numbers and stuff like that. And then just the protection and stuff that it gives you because your hotels will take holds, right? And then you have to have that cash in a debit card. So if you're going to travel, you need some kind of travel credit card that gives you no foreign transaction fees for sure, bottom line. And if you're only going to have one... we would recommend it be a Visa card because a lot of places in the world do not take American Express. So if you usually use an American Express, also take a Visa card. So just that would be like our biggest tip if you're like, oh, I don't want to do credit cards at all. If you're going to travel, you need to at least have one. And we're going to talk a little bit about at the end, some of the benefits, the additional benefits of booking travel on a credit card.
Well, once you have a destination in mind, I would recommend that you start looking at accommodations first. And this may, like if you are going to buy your travel based on a great travel deal, this doesn't necessarily apply. But if you're just picking a destination and then you're going to go and purchase the travel, I would say look at accommodations just to make sure that... whatever accommodations you want, you can actually get before you purchase that ticket.
Yeah. And I would also add that kind of do those in tandem. So a lot of people may not know this, but once you book a flight, you actually have 24 hours to cancel that completely refundable, right? That's just a rule that they have. People say, okay, well... I can't get my money back on airlines. And that is not true. It's the 24 hour rule. So if you see a great deal and you want to grab it, but Scott's right, I would go immediately and check two things. Like, is it available? Because if you have nowhere to stay, it doesn't matter how cheap it is to get there. And then number two, though, is it like super expensive? You might, for example, find a great flight deal to St. Kitts. And then you start looking at... well, I can't find something less than a thousand dollars a night, just for example, right? Depending on the season, then it really doesn't matter because those things, those two things don't match. Totally agree with that.
Yeah. I've got a work trip coming up soon and it's in Tampa and I'll be driving there. It's like flights weren't an issue, but when I went out and started looking for hotels, like there was no availability there. And like the cheapest room around was around $1 ,000. It was crazy.
And so when you have a work trip, there's just nothing that you can do about it. There's some huge conference or whatever, but if you're doing it for vacation. So just keep that in mind. Those two things, like the same day, you need to book those. And also keep in mind though, that you could book a hotel. And then if you find, if you book one that has a flexible rate or something like that, you could do some more looking, but I would definitely like. from the get -go, go ahead and book. There are two types of rooms that you can book.
There are two types of rooms that you can book. One is a non -refundable. And so if you book that one, you're not going to be able to... to change it without having some type of fee. But then the fully refundable rooms usually have up to a certain date in which you could make changes. But don't necessarily think that you have to go ahead and book that travel right that second. Are those rooms? Because I think it does play back into now the travel to get there and making sure that both of those things align. Because once again, it's no good to have a room if you can't get the travel that you're looking for. 100%. So the other thing about booking accommodations that I would think about is when you're doing your research, keep a few factors in mind. One, check the reviews. I think that's kind of common sense and most people do that these days, but you'd be surprised. And then also check the location on a map based on other activities that you want to do. We had a trip a couple of years ago or a few years ago where we... booked a hotel in Rome because we wanted to use points staying at a Marriott property. And so we booked that room, but it was way outside of Rome and way outside of everything that we wanted to do.
Yeah. And what's funny about that one is I had actually kind of looked and it was sort of close to the Vatican, but like as the crow flies, but not like how you need to get there on the train. So it didn't make it super convenient. So definitely not only put it in, but then put in, okay. walking to different places or if you had to take a cab or something like that. And we've run into a lot of people where this has been the case. So it might kind of seem it didn't work out for us that time. So just don't forget to do that.
And also think about the day before you leave. Do you have an early flight? And maybe you need to stay closer to the airport so that you don't have to get up at 2 a .m. in the morning. to go and catch that flight. And those are other things that you want to look at. And then also, if you have status with a hotel, make sure that the way that you book the hotel, the status is going to get honored in those loyalty benefits. Because often, if you book through a third -party site like hotels .com or booking .com, you may not get... points for your stay and they may not honor your loyalty benefits as well.
Yeah, I think this is interesting because this is not something that I think is very well known. This actually happened to you when booking. You've had like no trouble booking things for work and using a loyalty status. And then one time it got booked through.
Yeah, it was the first time that I've got to use a work travel agent when I. when I travel. And it was the first time they booked a hotel through booking .com. And then so I got there and I needed to make a change to my reservation. Normally, that wouldn't be a problem because we're Titanium Elite with Marriott. And they were like, sorry, your loyalty benefits don't apply to this reservation because it was done outside of our system. You got to go call booking .com. Which is so interesting because we have told you guys,
the first time
is so interesting because we have told you guys, use booking, use booking. But I guess on the flip side, use it when you are staying at places that you don't have loyalty. And that's interesting because like if we book through Marriott, a lot of times we're using points or different things. And so we'll use the app. But that was something that we didn't know before that. And also, I don't think it's just widely advertised. So that's a great thing to point out.
out. If it's like $10, $15 a night difference, I'm going to book. directly with the hotel just to make sure that my loyalty benefits apply. But having just said that about booking, I would say if you're traveling with a large family, you may want to look at whole houses or apartments either through VRBO or booking .com because when we were in Crete, we had some amazing apartments that we booked through booking .com and it really wasn't more or we even maybe even saved some money. of what it would have cost us to go to a hotel and then have multiple rooms in the hotel.
Yeah. And that was interesting because on that trip, we learned quite a few things about like using booking to like help find things. So in London, for example, and I don't know, honestly, if we've mentioned this on the podcast, in a lot of places in Europe. And a lot of you need to know this is that you can't have it's not like you have two double beds. Right. A lot of hotel rooms in Europe, even when we took our kids when they were teenagers, we had to have two rooms. And so what we found for this particular trip, like he's talking about to Crete, that was the one where we started in London. And so we actually were able to find a really great flat in London when we kind of hadn't been thinking about that, right? We like looking on booking and seeing, okay, where can we get these two hotel rooms? And we're like, oh, we can get this really great flat. But we did have a couple of intermediate travels on that trip to where booking .com showed us, okay, like we had an overnight in Athens, Greece, for example, before we took an early flight. Okay, get... these two rooms. So it gave us a way to look at several different hotel type of accommodations on that one platform. So it does have its time and place, but like Scott mentioned, and I think that's a really great tip to point out that you may not get your status benefits from that.
Well, once you confirm those accommodations are available, now go back and check your travel. Or like I said, do those... two things simultaneously. But if you have some time ahead of when you actually need to book the travel, one of the things you might want to do is go out on Google Flights or Daily Drop Pro and set up a notification for travel deals to specific destinations.
Yeah. And just keep an eye on those, right?
And if you're using points or miles, this can get a little bit tricky. Because you need to cross -reference a few different details. Number one, purchasing directly through the airline may be the best way. Or purchasing through a credit card travel portal. You'll have to look at those rates. Or even purchasing through a partner airline. So the example that I had there is when we flew to Africa, we took flights on... Egypt Air.
Air.
Egypt Air, thank you. But we bought them through...
Air Canada. Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of these, a lot of people may not know this, but the partner airlines a lot of times will sell some of those flights and you'll be able to book points. for way less than on the other airline. So using some of those services like you talked about can also benefit you to just kind of like look through those that can be drastically different. And you end up booking the same flight. This happens a lot of times like on Delta and Air France, they're partners. And a lot of times people will go internationally. They'll have booked it through Air France or Virgin. This has happened to us on Virgin too. They're also partners. You can book it for way less points, but you just kind of have to cross -reference that. and definitely look. And one tip I would have about that is you do have to sign up. A lot of times to look at those points, you do have to sign up for their loyalty program. Not a big deal. Like it doesn't cost you anything, but just having those to be able to check. So yeah, definitely cross -referencing those because they can be drastically different.
And that's if you're trying to stay within this hurting. partner ecosystem or whatever. If you don't care about which airline you fly and you just want the best deal, use a tool like Flight Connections to find out where you can fly directly and then which airlines fly in and out of that particular airport. And that would then allow you to then pinpoint and say, all right, I'm going to go to these four airlines and see which ones have the best deal.
Yeah, I love Flight Connections. And Scott mentioned that trip to Egypt, that's actually why we even went to Egypt in the first place. We were trying to figure out a way to use some points, you know, going back to that like balance and the budget, I guess, is paying for the safari, but trying to use points and miles to get there and using flight connections to say, okay, what are some of the direct ways to get to Nairobi? Because going from Atlanta to Nairobi direct or like there's one stop or something like that can be very, very expensive. And so then saying, OK, well, we can go from New York to Cairo. And then here's a very inexpensive, low number of points, ways to do it from New York City. And it's really not a long flight, which is a bonus in business class. Yeah.
And then another thing you might want to do is if you don't have to be somewhere on a specific date. So like if you're going on a cruise, there's a certain date you have to be there because the boat's going to leave. But otherwise, if you have some flexibility there, check that box that says my dates are flexible. And so what it does is it brings up a little grid and it'll show you the cheapest time to fly. And sometimes it can be significant savings.
Or time of the day too. Right. So for example, we had kind of like dates that we needed to fly. We just booked a flight with some points today, dates that we needed to fly, but the times were a little bit flexible. So if it's a significant number on a return flight, spending one more hour at the airport for a significant number, well, I would say a significant number because it was like double the number of points almost, or I guess it was like a third of the number of points I was going to use for another hour. Right. So you just have to weigh like, what is your, I don't want to spend eight hours in the airport. for that, but for another hour trying to do that. And then you were saying, okay, then, you know, then you can maybe see if you can stand by for the earlier flight or something like that. So just balancing those, not only the, like you said, the date, but then also looking at the time of day. Yeah, there's multiple flights.
And I don't want to go into a lot of detail on this, but you also want to know what's a good redemption of points. So if I'm trying to choose between whether I'm going to use points on a flight or if I'm going to pay cash for it. There is a good calculator that you can use out on the points guy. And, you know, you go in, you put in where you're going, and it'll help you determine if the usage of points is a redemption value, right? Because it might be better for you just to buy a ticket. And sometimes, you know, when airlines put fares on sale, the airfare is so cheap that it's just not a good redemption of your points. You could save those points and use them for something else that has a much higher value.
Yeah. And so what I love about this and literally just type in the Point Sky points calculator or yeah, I guess just Point Sky points calculator and it'll pop right up because so many people use it. But we also, we talked about this for hotels too. We did this in South Africa using Marriott points would have been a complete waste of points that we can save for something else because the cash price of those hotels just didn't justify that. And a lot of times that you may see that in certain locations as well.
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Well, the next thing you're going to want to do is start to build out your itinerary. And so this is the fun part for a lot of people because now you got... you get a chance to start thinking about the different activities you want to do, places you want to go, things you want to see. But other people, this can be really overwhelming.
Yeah, definitely for sure. So Scott, what tips would you have for helping people build their itinerary?
Well, the first thing I'm going to say is that you need to understand who you're traveling with. And this was something that we had a lot of conversation on. Because I think sometimes Melissa would just have us go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, you know, 24 hours a day. You can rest when you're dead. And I'm a little bit more on the side of, yes, I want to go and do things. I like to have activities, but I also want to make sure that we're factoring in a little bit of downtime along the way as well.
Yeah. And I think this has just helped us to like both be able to enjoy. And then also we're just not like rushing from. from one thing to another. So I think that's a really great point. One of the tips, if you go back and listen to the episode, and this is especially great if you're traveling with kids. We had an episode traveling with kids to Europe that our daughter and son -in -law, we talked about that trip. And one of the things that she wanted to make sure is to like every day, like let somebody pick something that they were interested in or part of the, part of the, when we were in a location, right? So she talked about in London. For Palmer, it was the Peppa Pig T -Bus, right? And then for her husband, Brady, we did the soccer game. And of course, then for both the kids, the London Eye, but we made sure to plan in some time for playgrounds and then just walking through the park. And then on our last trip to London, right? Just having time to go to Richmond. Yes, we wanted to see the Ted Lasso stuff, but then having time where we went like even rush doing that, right? We could go to the market and then we could just like hang out. And so I think that's really important to like, Because I think at the end of the trip, if you've just, okay, I went to the British Museum and then I did this and I went to all these places, but then you just don't feel like you really just got to maybe soak that in. You don't maybe enjoy it quite as much because then you're just like overload and worn out.
Well, let's give a few tips. Number one is make sure you're factoring in your travel. So when you're getting there on that first day, know what time you're getting there and how much time you're going to have it. And are you rushing to get to something? We were in Iceland. We were on the food tour with this group and they literally had just landed. And this was the first thing they were doing. Now, they had reasons for doing it that way. But boy, that would be stressful for me. That would be stressful for me,
would be stressful for me, too, because especially like what if you what if you get delayed? Right. If you don't have that time. But, you know, what if you get delayed? Now, I will say we really don't like to try and plan and schedule something on that first day unless we have to. I will. Say like this past trip to London, we did do the evening at the Shard just so that we could have those things. But knowing at the end of the day, if we didn't get to do that, right, it wouldn't be the end of the world. But I wouldn't do like really expensive show tickets or, well, I wouldn't go see a show probably on the first night. Something you're going to be awake. Something like that, just in case to factor that in. That's a good point.
kind of like what Melissa was saying, and start with your list of must -dos. And then if you're traveling with a group, collect it from everybody so that you can make sure that you're doing something that everybody wants to do and share that around. And then tools like Viator are really helpful when you're looking for excursions or some kind of activity to do while you're at a particular destination.
Yeah, I saw something the other day and people were saying, oh, you really should go to these operators like directly and book them. But what I what I love about Viator is it has given away, I think, for these people to get out there in the marketplace. Otherwise, like, how would you know about a lot of these things?
Yeah. And they don't mind you using Viator.
Yeah.
Right. Because they know that it's getting. their name out in front of a much broader group of people than if everybody just had to come find them directly. I don't know that I agree with that. Yeah,
I wouldn't point that out because we don't have any qualms about that because we have found great things that otherwise these people would have a hard time having enough resources to be able to market their product on their own.
I wouldn't point
otherwise these people would have a hard time having enough resources to be able to market their product on their own.
And then I think finally is just make sure you're leaving time for some spontaneity. And one of the things that we really like to do, in this area of spontaneity is ask locals for recommendations. So when you're at the restaurant, ask your server, what do they like to do in their free time around the city? Or maybe you're in a cab or an Uber. Like these guys know everything. And so you can ask them for recommendations or even the concierge at your hotel. Just realize that they have often like certain things that they will. kind of promote and push because they work with different tour operators or restaurants and stuff like that. But quite honestly, at the Lanesboro, we asked for a local Indian restaurant and they gave us a fantastic recommendation for just a little neighborhood restaurant that I guarantee you we were probably some of the only tourists in there.
Yeah, they even said you wouldn't find this place if you did. Well, as a matter of fact, he tried to give us direction and tell us and we still almost couldn't find it even saying going with his turn by turn. So we definitely would not have found this place on our own. And Scott, I had one other one that is really memorable to me. When we were in the Bahamas and we stayed at Atlantis, we had lunch. We had just gotten there. We had lunch at the hotel and we asked our server, where would you go? And he recommended a couple of places. One of them was the... The poop deck. But then also I think the fish, like the fish fry place. Right. So we ended up going to both of those. We saw him another day when we were just like walking through. And I think it was about the frisk fry. And so we just said, hey, we took your recommendation and went. And he loved that. He just thought that was he was like, oh, you went over there. So just having that memory and that interaction was just really memorable, I think, for both him and for us. So definitely, definitely do that and take those recommendations and not have everything planned out. Yeah, for sure. Before you go.
Good balance between activity and getting some rest on a trip.
And one thing I want to add about that, especially if you have chosen somewhere. Really a nice place to stay, right? We've talked a lot about the Lanesboro. Fantastic. We built in some time that we could just enjoy that property. When we were in Greece and had that fantastic, we tried to build in a little bit of time to where we did like rush, rush, rush, right? Now you got to use it because you worked a little bit, but having time for kids to swim in the little pool and stuff like that. So just making sure that you, and that just helps you with your immune system and all kinds of things too.
Well, finally, let's start talking a little bit about planning for your packing list, because I think that's an important part of travel as well.
Yeah. So looking at the weather and starting to think about what do I have? What do I need to get? What do I need to replace as well? So I think that's important in doing that in plenty of time.
Yeah. And I think we talked about this just a couple of weeks ago. I think we're finding that having a good merino wool set of base clothing is really good. And it helps you in no matter what kind of travel you're doing. So if you're going somewhere warm or somewhere cold, it's just a good base layer because it helps to wick that moisture away from your body. It doesn't contain and keep odors. And so it makes it really the perfect travel garments.
Like what we're looking at, what we're picking. And I'm sure we're going to talk a little bit more about how those hold up because this isn't something that we've really focused on in the past. But just kind of the length of this trip and then thinking about other activities like this that we want to do and longer trips that we want to do is kind of having those because you can pack so much lighter and they last for a long time as well.
So as you're doing that, think about what kind of activities you're going to be doing as well. And so that will change the type of things that you put on your packing list. You know, if you're going to a beach location, you definitely want to have a bathing suit. Are you going to Antarctica? You may or may not want to take a bathing suit with you. Go listen to that episode and you'll figure out whether you want to take one or not.
Yeah, definitely much easier. When you go somewhere and it's warm weather, right? To pack light. But then just also thinking about your must -haves versus your nice -to -have. For example, we did really well, I think, for the safari. Did you have anything particular that you didn't wear? No. Okay. So I didn't need shorts. I really thought I was going to need shorts. And so I could have done, I think I took like three pair. Could have taken one, but really could have taken none. So just... Things like that. Am I really going to wear these on this upcoming trip? I think that a shorts would probably be a waste of space probably for me for this upcoming trip. So nice to have versus must have and just really helping you to pack light and not have a bunch of extra stuff.
No. Okay.
Yeah. Looking at the weather for the places that we're going, I don't think I'm going to take shorts. I will take a bathing suit because we are going to Barcelona and the beaches there are phenomenal. So we can check it out, see if the water is cold or if it's swimmable. But we'll take a bathing suit, but I'm not going to take shorts to wear throughout the trip.
Yeah. And I think there's pools. Like a lot of times, anytime there's a pool, we take one just in case, right? In case there might be a hot tub or a spa, but there are pools in Italy too.
One of the other things you might want to think about is, are you crossing time zones? And we've shared with you guys about FlyKit. This is how we have been avoiding jet lag on our trips. Me especially, you know, I did that trip to India and back. They were on very short timelines and I didn't have any jet lag either way coming or going on that trip.
Yeah, absolutely love FlyKit. We already have our kits ready. And that's the other thing I want to say about packing is I sort of... thinking through, you know, even though I've had these printed packing lists and, and things like that, jotting down some things just so that I don't forget, but definitely fly kit. So we won't have that jet lag. And the one thing I want to mention is as you're planning and you're packing, do you need any types of vaccines? And also thinking about if you travel a lot or depending on where you're going, you may not need it for, have to have it for that destination. But then when are you, where are you going next? Or where have you also been? So I reference this a lot, but travel .state .gov and then go click on destination. It really is a great resource to tell you. What we found out from that was that because we were going to South Africa after we had been in Kenya, it was recommended for Kenya. Yellow fever, I guess I should say. Yellow fever. Recommended for Kenya, not required. But if you wanted to go to South Africa, if you'd been to Kenya, was required. They did ask for our yellow card. I had somebody on Instagram actually ask me about that. The yellow card is apparently something universal that they use, whether you go to your health department, your doctor, you go to one of these travel health places or whatever.
should say. Yellow fever.
places or whatever. That's just where they use. You had gotten one years ago when you went to India and had to have some vaccinations, had yours. And basically, they want you to keep up with that. And then they just add to those. So we took that with us and they added that to it. So that's basically what that is. But when we boarded the flight to go to South Africa, They checked it. Didn't check it again, but they were not going to let us on that flight. So just FYI about that.
check it again,
And I would say go out, listen to, because you've got a destination in mind, go out, listen to some podcasts. We have lots of them. We're on like episode 108 now, but go back and listen to and look and see, do we have a podcast on the particular destination where you're going? If not, someone most likely does. And that's a really good source of information to help you plan for packing. because they'll often have stuff like that on those podcasts or blogs that are out there.
And I would definitely add YouTube as well. We don't always do that. But there's so many great creators out there on YouTube. We actually watched a bunch of them when we went to Iceland. It just happened that there was a lot of a lot of things. I think there's so many visual things in Iceland. And so that's kind of what popped up. And we looked at those for choosing a food tour and kind of deciding on what our short itinerary was going to be. So lots of great resources out there.
I think our biggest recommendation on packing is don't overpack.
So one final tip that I would have is to, we talked a little bit about credit cards. And so coming back to that is know the benefits that you have on the credit card that you book. that trip with, right? So if your flight gets delayed or canceled, your luggage gets lost. And that's the other benefit of some of these travel cards is that it's going to cover those things if you booked. And even if you booked it with points, if you paid the taxes of that flight on there, it still covers that. And then also know your rights as a traveler if the flights are delayed or canceled. So this has been something in the EU for a while. And I know that they have shortened those hours and regulations for delays and stuff like that in the US. And I know you can't keep all that new stuff in your brain, but just knowing where to... You can quickly search for that. Okay, this has happened. What is the regulation? And then knowing to advocate for yourself and ask for that, right? Do they have to provide a hotel and how much do... And meal vouchers and how much do they have to provide? And then also just highly recommend travel insurance. And a lot of people don't know this, but a lot of times if you are going to travel... two or three times in the year, looking at a yearly plan and even for a couple or for a family can be the same price as or just a little bit more than one trip. for example. And we actually started doing this a couple of years ago when we went to the Galapagos, looking at those because on that trip, it was actually required. So a lot of these operators, depending on what you're doing, they require it. And so that was one where they required it and you had to have a certain amount of medical evacuation insurance and stuff like that that was included in that and looking at, okay, let's price this one trip versus, okay, well, obviously, Scott and I travel a lot within a year. And so knowing that... hopefully, right? And there are maximum limits, right? But if something happens for one trip, it's not going to happen for every trip, right? And so that's kind of the basis of how they figure out the insurance rates. But that can be just a good thing. And then secondly, well, so I was going to say, we actually have yearly coverage with Allianz. That's who we've used for a couple of years now. And then emergency evacuation insurance, if that's a concern for you, we have that through Global Rescue. And so we'll put those links in the show notes. We've kind of partnered with them to share that information as well. So that's more medical evacuation or if there's political or a war or just like different things like that that they provide.
Well, great. And so we'll just wrap this up by saying that if planning isn't your thing, that's OK. Reach out to us and let Sunshine Travelers Experiences do the planning for you.
Yeah, so you can go to sunxtravel .com and click on plan. Yeah, that's sun,
that's sun, the letter X, and then travel .com. So sunxtravel .com. Yeah,
and there's a way there for you to get in touch with us.
Well, at the end of the day, no matter how perfectly you plan, travel is all about embracing adventure and making memories along the way. We hope today's episode helps you feel a little more confident and excited about planning your next trip. And remember, you don't have to figure it all out on your own. We've got plenty of resources, guides, and inspiration. waiting for you over at sunshinetravelers .com to help you take the next step. Thanks for listening. And as always, the world is full of sunshine and surprises. Make 2025 the year you explore beyond the familiar. That's a wrap on this episode. We hope it gave you some inspiration for your next adventure.
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