Multi-destination trips are easier to plan and cheaper than ever. And, well, why go to just one place for 10 days when you can see multiple cities and experience multiple cultures?
Here are 5 top tips for planning the perfect multi-destination trip:
Choosing Your Destinations
One of the most important aspects of planning a multiple destination trip is…well, the actual destinations you’re going to visit.
So, how exactly should you choose these places?
The easiest way to start is decide where you want to go the most, whether it’s a specific city or a country, or even an entire continent. It might be that you want to plan a trip to Europe to see as much as possible of the continent, or maybe you really want to see Paris and a few other cities since you’re already there.
Once you’ve established where you want to go the most, you can start researching where else you can go – and there’s no better tool for this than Google Maps:
Make a list of the cities and countries you’d like to visit, as many as possible. You most likely won’t be able to visit all of them in one trip, but you can then research each one to see which ones would best fit, both in terms of budget and in terms of transport.
Researching & Picking Your Trip Destinations
For each destination you’ve chosen, research transport for each one (or your top priorities) to see which is the cheapest to get to initially. Then, start researching each destination in your list to see how expensive they are. You can easily do so by googling “prices in your destination” to see what the expenses are like in that city:
Furthermore, research the costs of potential hotels, hostels, Airbnbs and so on to get an idea of how expensive accommodation is. If a city is really expensive in terms of accommodation but you really want to see it, you can always plan a day trip there and stay in a cheaper location.
Another important budgeting factor is, of course, transport. Take the time to research flight prices to those locations (make sure to also check local airlines as they can be cheaper in some cases), as well as other transport methods such as trains and coaches (for example, with Megabus you can find coaches for a few dollars or euros, depending on when you buy the tickets). Check out our tips on finding cheap flights!
Save Money & Get Rewards w/ Travel Credit Cards
When you travel to multiple destinations you can lose quite a bit of money with exchange rates, credit card rates and so on.
However, if you plan ahead, you can find a payment method that works best for you and saves you the most money.
For example, there are numerous options for reward credit cards that are perfect for travellers that give you rewards like twice the miles for flight, double or triple points for eating out and so on.
Simply Google “travel credit cards” for your country to see what kinds of options you have and choose the best one. If you travel a lot, you can get a lot of benefits for the money you spend on your card; if you don’t travel that much, you can instead use a Revolut card which has a free plan. Not only that, but you can also withdraw money while abroad for free and whenever you use your card in a different country, Revolut will use the best possible exchange rate (the real-time, interbank exchange rate) so you don’t lose money every time you use your card.
Plan Your Itinerary Ahead of Time
When you’re visiting multiple destinations and only have a few days for each one (or even just a day), it can get very overwhelming if you don’t know where to go and what to do. If you want to make the most of your time there and not lose it on trying to find a good restaurant that fits your budget or trying to figure out what attractions there are, then spend some time researching each location before your trip.
1. Which attractions do you most want to see? Simply Google “what to see in your destination”, as well as keywords like “alternative guides to your destination”, “things to do in your destination”, “hipster’s guide to your destination” so you can find not just the top tourist attraction but also hidden gems that are worth a visit
2. Where should you eat? Research food markets, restaurants and so on to find great food at affordable prices, preferably near the attractions you want to see
Then, you can very easily plan your entire itinerary using Google My Maps; simply add pins where you want to go and easily colour code them and add the right icon to make it easier to organise (restaurant, accommodation, parking, etc.):
Once finished, your Map will look something like this:
You can even collaborate with the friends and family that you’re going to travel with so that everyone can add their input and the locations they want to get to.
Leverage Layovers
A lot of the cheaper flights you can find usually have a few layovers. So while they might be cheap, they can also take a very long time.
What you can do though is pick flights with long layovers – or make your own longer layovers. For example, you might want to go to both London and Athens. It’s a long flight – but, you can always look for connecting cities that you can stop in for a few hours or a even a full day or two.
Plus, this can lead to some fun unexpected surprises as you’ll get to visit countries and cities that you might not have thought of.
