Trimming plans to fit

So, having worked out where you want to go you’ve gone off researching all that there is to see and do there.  This has of course resulted in a list as long as your arm of things that might be just a little bit interesting (if it hasn’t you should really try choosing somewhere else).  What to do?  You can’t see it all in that two or three week period you have there.  You have to trim.

Working from your enormous list there are a couple of useful steps to try and do this as painlessly as possible.

1. Try marking the central points for everything on a map.  Each major town or city, each base location if you will could perhaps be marked with a cross or pin.  Marking things in such a way helps to get a good feel for the spread of the locations and helps to put into perspective what you are trying to see.  It also helps a lot with trying to plan times needed in different areas.
2. Grade entries on your list.  Prioritize things by how excited they make you, making the one thing that really wowed you the first thing to have bought a safe position in your final itinerary.  It’s worth also considering the practicality of entries you’re keeping.  If an entry requires too much time and begins to make it far harder to fit in the other things you want to do then a little bit of ruthlessness is required.
3. If entries are close together this will often count in their favour.  A group of things that you want to see is going to be easier to move between than if you’re trying to jump all over the place.

Of course these rules work best when they’re just generally treated with a distinct sense of general awareness that rules like this should receive.  In other words these rules will need to be broken sometimes.  There are always times when you just have to charge off in a completely nonsensical direction just to get to that one beautiful spot.  And it’s through the occasional breaking of these rules that sometimes you end up finding the smallest most interesting places no one knows about.  Which brings me nicely to the final point that I think needs to be made here.

Remember to leave some free time.

It’s always worth remembering that if you knacker yourself completely then your just not going to enjoy places or fully appreciate their beauty.  As a result it’s always worth remembering that a bit of empty time is necessary.  It helps you to stay in control, to stay relaxed and it gives you leeway for any changes that may or may not need to be made.

Just remember you can’t do everything at once.  Some things just need to be left for next time.

Sources of information

Having decided you’re going away the first thing that you generally do is to research it.  Find out what you’re heading for, where you might want to go and what you might want to see.

How do you start this process?  Well personally I dive straight into the internet as a first place to look.  I may have grown up with the internet and it may be my first port of call whenever I’m looking for any information, however the resources available online are not to be sniffed at.  Wikitravel is a brilliant place to begin, sometimes even just for getting an overview of your destination.  Small places off the beaten track are often poorly covered though and in these instances you’ll probably have to resort to resource number two, guidebooks.

Sticking with the internet the plethora of internet mapping sources are an enormous help.  The workings of Google are invariably the best known source of maps for all over, however sometimes the maps are lacking a little in the slightly more unusual places.  Sometimes in these situations it’s worth also seeing the maps on openstreetmaps.org, an awesome open source colabiration that produces both street and topographical data maps.

If Wikipedia is anything to go by then the idea of guidebooks dates back to the 9th century in the Middle East.  Now there’s a lot of money to be made for publishers good at producing the guides people want and if you walk into almost any bookshop there will likely be more travel books than you know what to do with.  Personally I tend to start with either Footprint or Lonely Planet, depending on how well they cover an area.  Footprint has a tendency to get a little further away from the heaving centers of backpackers to some places that just require a bit more work to get to.  Lonely planets though are exceptionally reliable though.

It’s worth also bearing in mind the likes of Insight Guides as well.  Although these can be lacking as a source of information to plan from, they tend to give excellent background information on a nation and make great glossy guides to look back on in the future.

It’s worth bearing in mind though that it doesn’t always pay to plan every detail.  Leave some mystery and strike out to some completely unknown locations sometimes.  Surprises often make the best memories and stories later.

New Journey, New Plans

A new journey means new planning, and as a result I get to bury my head in travel books and the internet scouring the pages for recommendations and sites I should see.  It’s always a good time going throughall the pages as it’s then that I really start to get excited about the possibilities a place can offer.  Sometime’s that excitment can border on the obsessive really but that just helps me get into the work.

So highlighter at the ready I’ve started my planning for Indonesia, picking out each of the places of interest to me as and when I see things that draw me in.  Later I’ll have to weed through what I want to see, along with other people’s wish lists for the trip and try and fit it all in to a feasable plan but for now it’s about getting the giddy thrill of the potential wonders.  If only time weren’t an issue in these things and then I could just traipse round things as I felt like it.  (I am still tied to the world of work though so alas for now time is my enemy)

At the moment the big things that are catching my attention are the temples and the volcanoes on Java.  Borobodur and Prambanan both look absolutely awesome and comparing them to some of the other big temples I’ve seen elsewhere should be interesting.  As for volcanoes, the prospect of seeing lava is something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time and to finally be in a volcanic area with active eruptions occurring is something I’ve wanted for a very long time.