Unique digital nomad travel adventures from around the U.S.
Let’s talk about road trips. I know they are not for everyone and some people go stir crazy if they are stuck in a car too long. But I love them. If done right, a road trip is one of the best ways to see …
A mid vacation respite is a time on your trip when you can take a vacation from your vacation. One of the most challenging things about planning a trip is trying to cram in as much as possible. No matter where you go, you will …
![Travel Planning for a Trip [Australia Specifically]](https://i0.wp.com/janeseestheworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Australia4.jpg?fit=1144%2C858&ssl=1)
The dates are set, the plane ticket is bought and the travel fund is steadily growing. It is now time to start travel planning and focusing on the details of your trip. Not long ago, I wrote a post about what I am doing to plan and save money for a month-long trip to Australia. In that post, I mention that planning the nitty-gritty details of a trip is one of the most enjoyable aspects of travel planning and that it deserves its own post. So here we are. R and I are currently in the throes of planning those nitty-gritty details and I thought I would share with you how we prefer to do so.
There are three parts to travel planning: researching, scheduling and booking. Sometimes these parts happen simultaneously and other times they happen separately. For this trip, we are researching and planning our schedule at the same time. Following that, we will do some actual booking.
This phase is one of the most exciting parts of travel planning. However, it can also be a little overwhelming—especially with a country as big and vast as Australia. Never fear. Start with the advice below and you will be well on your way to planning a stellar vacation.
Talk to anyone and everyone who has visited your chosen location. Ask questions. Ask for recommendations. Generally, people are pleased as punch to talk about their adventures. Even if they had a bad experience, there is probably something you can learn from it. Just this week, I discovered that a gal from my volleyball team spent two months working in Australia. Over a celebratory dinner after our game, she gave me a couple of recommendations for places to visit as a couple of books I should read before I go. I gladly accepted any advice or suggestions she had.
I especially love talking to my coworkers about travel. Since we work on projects all over the world, my coworkers are very well traveled and they make an excellence resource for my research. I sat down with two of my coworkers who have spent a considerable amount of time in Australia—one actually lived there for two years. I asked many questions and took notes. Both spoke so highly of Perth that I decided to make it part of the itinerary—a decision I might not have made on my own given how long it takes to get there. Now I cannot wait to visit!
Talking with people who have visited a place (or who live there) can also help confirm something you have researched. R recently mentioned that she had found a place called Fremantle in her guidebook and that it looked really cool. I was able to respond and say that both of my coworkers recommended a visit there. So naturally, we added Fremantle to our list of places to visit.
I love it when people hook me up with a friend or family member from the country I am looking to visit. Locals give the best advice and I always prefer to get their insight. For this trip, I am reaching out to three locals. One I have met personally and the other two are family members of a friend of mine. Not only is it important to contact them and get their advice, but I always feel more comfortable having a contact in-country that may be able to help if anything goes wrong.
You can also connect with locals via the internet on sites like Vayable. Or just keep your ears open. Last week at a conference for work, I ran into a gentleman with an Australian-sounding accent. I asked where he was from and he confirmed my suspicions. I then mentioned I would be visiting his homeland in a couple of months and he did not hesitate to tell me his favorite haunts.
Guidebooks and novels abound and you will rarely lack for reading material about a particularly country, especially Australia. R wrote a post about guidebooks and how they can help with planning a trip. We laughed last night because her guidebook for Australia is 1,100 pages! She said that is the most pages she has ever seen in a guidebook. But it makes sense, Australia is a big country and there are a lot of things to do and see. When it comes to reading up on a country, filtering through it all will be a lot harder than actually finding something to read.
Although the World Wide Web can be overwhelming with its vast amount of information, it is critical to planning a trip. Remember the post I wrote highlighting my preferred websites for planning a trip? I use many of those same sights to plan the nitty-gritty details of a trip. Below are a few of the sites I am currently using to plan this Australia voyage:
The research phase can start at any time. However, generally we wait until a few months before a trip to really start travel planning and researching. We find it is easier to nail down the schedule that way. And to be totally honest, we usually have to make it through our current trip before we feel justified planning the next one. Yep, it’s a rough life.
Warning: this phase of trip planning can be frustrating. I never seem to have enough time to do all of things I want to do. Of course, that is why this phase is so important. If you want to get the most bang for your buck (or get the most out of your time, in this case), you have to do some careful travel planning.
I made a couple of really rough itineraries back when we were looking at dates and plane tickets. Now that those things are settled, we have started to refine our itinerary. We know the general areas we want to visit. We just have to figure out exactly where to spend our time (and money) in each area.
One area we want to visit is Alice Springs and Uluru. However, something to keep in mind is that it will be summer while we are there and very hot. I talked to my coworker who lived there for two years and she had very few additional recommendations on what to do in the Alice Springs area—mostly because of the heat that time of year. Given all of this, we have opted to make our time there short and just focus on our must-do, Uluru. We will also be flying since driving or taking a bus or the train takes more time than we want to spend.
That research phase discussed above is very important when it comes to setting up your itinerary.
Deciding on your must-do list is one of the most important things you will do when planning a trip. These should go on the itinerary first. Then you can work around them and add or subtract activities and places as you see fit. I mentioned in my previous post that my love of the movie, The Man from Snowy River, runs deep. In fact, this dream trip to Australia can be traced back to that love. Did you know you can visit Jim Craig’s house!?! It is called Craig’s Hut and it is located in Victoria. Be still my heart. Needless to say, this went on my list of must-dos and is an important part of our itinerary.
A couple of other must-dos include renting a campervan, visiting Uluru and taking a picture of the Sydney Opera House. After talking with my coworkers (as mentioned above), places like Rottnest also went on the list and further research resulted in adding Tasmania. Once those must-dos are settled, then we start looking at filling in the gaps and figuring out exactly how we experience something.
We want to visit Uluru. It is on the must-do list. But the details of how we do so are up for debate. We could book a typical day-tour to walk around the rock and get some photos. Or we could book something unique and sleep under the stars in something called a swag. A choice like this is kind of a no-brainer for us. If you have the choice to make an experience unique or special, do it!
UPDATE: camping under the stars in the Australian Outback in the middle of summer is an awful idea. We were so miserable that I cannot, in good conscience, recommend it. Go see Uluru, but do not see it the way we did.
When we first started looking at visiting Tasmania, the obvious choice appeared to be taking our campervan on the ferry. However, after evaluating the associated costs and schedule, R stated that Tasmania was off the table. However, instead of dismissing the idea completely, we looked into flying there. Those costs are feasible. We will have to rejigger our itinerary a bit, but we feel it is worth it to visit the island. There is usually more than one way to get something done. When it comes to travel, make sure you evaluate all your options before you make a decision.
Unfortunately, due to time, money or both, you will not be able to do everything you want. That is why the must-do list is so important. While doing some initial research, I stumbled upon a picture of Kimberley. It blew me away. Further research proved this place is well worth a visit. But that research also proved that logistically and monetarily, Kimberley is not a feasible option on this trip. If I wanted to scrap almost everything else we are doing, we could see Kimberley. But I do not want to do that. So for now, Kimberley will have to wait for another time. This makes my heart ache a little bit because I want to see it all! But even on epic vacations, there has to be compromise.
Your schedule does not have to be set in stone. But it is easier to make and execute a plan if you have some sort of schedule. It is also easier to book accommodations and activities if you know which dates to book.
In this age of technology, it is rare not to be able to book something ahead of time. For some people, booking before they leave stifles their ability to be spontaneous and go with the flow. I appreciate people who can travel that way. I am not one of them and I prefer to have most everything booked (and paid for) before I arrive.
One reason I prefer to book ahead of time is that there is no worry that something will be sold out or full once you get there. Another reason is that you can often save some bucks by booking early. For example, internal flights booked from outside Australia are free from the 10% GST (Australia’s VAT).
R and I have not quite started booking yet. But we will do that soon. We plan to book our accommodation, internal flights, campervan rental and some tours. We also need to take care of our Australia travel visa, travel insurance and cell phone plans. This trip will be upon us before we know it, and we like to be prepared.
Travel planning can be divided into three phases: researching, scheduling and booking. If you are a planner like me, you are going to thoroughly explore and map out each phase. But even if you do not, try to enjoy each step of your planning process. Planning sets the stage for your entire trip and you want it to be a good one.
UPDATE: read what we experienced on our trip to Australia and how we did travel planning.
As a proud Boisean, I am pleased to share my list of top ten things to do in Boise, Idaho. One of the first things I do when researching a place I’m going to visit is to try and find some must sees for that …
In the Part 1 of this discussion on Alaska, we recommended some places to visit if you are fortunate enough to visit this beautiful state. This post will talk about some fun Alaska experiences and adventures to have. In no particular order, here are a …
During the summers before and after I went to grad school, I spent the four months working at a helicopter company located next to Denali National Park in Alaska. It was glorious. I love Alaska; next to Idaho it is probably my favorite state. In addition to being an excellent way to escape real world responsibilities for a while, the job provided me a perfect opportunity to get out and explore the wonders this wonderful place has to offer.
If you are planning on heading up to the Final Frontier, here are some suggestions of cute Alaskan towns to visit. (Note: Part 2 of this post will discuss experiences and adventures to have.) One caveat to this list is that Alaska is huge. Like if you divided the entire continental U.S. in fifths, Alaska would be one of the fifths. So of course this list isn’t all inclusive; instead it gives a few suggestions for places to go in the area (roughly) around Denali National Park (DNP).
Okay, this isn’t actually a town. But just north of the DNP entrance is a strange conglomeration of hotels, restaurants and businesses that cater to the visitors that flood this place each summer. The makeshift town doesn’t have anything particular to recommend it, except that it is the basecamp for exploring the area. And towns are few and far between in this neck of the woods. The nearest town to Denali is Healy, population of about 1,000. Definitely not big enough to support the 550,000 visitors that came to Denali in 2015. When you visit the park, you can either camp or stay in one of the hotels in town. The important thing is that you get there somehow, because this park is truly spectacular. This “town” is where I spent most of my days and I recommend the Salmon Bake, the restaurant/bar where us quasi-locals would go hang out.
Denali is about a four-hour drive north of Anchorage and two hours south of Fairbanks.
Fairbanks is the closest big town to Denali. That’s about the only reason to visit this place…it is the fastest way to get to the Park. That sounds harsh; it’s not a bad little town and is home to the University of Alaska: Fairbanks so there is a pretty good population of students milling around. But when you compare Fairbanks to other areas, there’s really not a lot of reason to stay put once you land at the airport. I know two people from Idaho who now call Fairbanks home. The reason is they are both in the medical profession and you can get paid a wicked lot of money if you agree to live in Fairbanks. That right there tells me it can’t be the most desirable town around…
Fairbanks is in the center of the state. It is about a six hour drive north of Anchorage.
If this town was a person, it would be the uber-cool-without-even-trying kid in high school who girls want to date and boys want to be. Talkeetna is the stepping-off stone for hikers loco enough to want to summit Denali–that is to say it is chock-full of badasses most of the summer. It is also in a beautiful area (not tough to do in AK) and is small enough to be charming and friendly. I spent a rainy weekend there by myself in a tent and the town was cute enough to make it a delightful experience (if rain+tent+solo don’t seem super appealing). There is an interesting mix of outdoor activity and cool art and handcrafts around Talkeetna.
Talkeetna is about two hours north of Anchorage and two hours south of Denali.
Yep, there is a North Pole in Alaska. This town is kitschy, but kind of fun. The streetlights are permanently wrapped in red and white material so they look like candy canes and Santa is EVERYWHERE. Each year the town receives hundreds of thousands of letters from little tykes who want to tell Santa their heart’s desire. North Pole is definitely not a destination you should work to get to, but if you happen to be in the area you should swing through and get a picture next to Santa Claus Lane street sign or the North Pole post office.
North Pole is a suburb of Fairbanks, about 15 miles southeast.
The population of Wiseman is 14. And let me tell you friend, those 14 are hearty folk. Wiseman is a collection of houses along the Dalton highway (the one that is sometimes in that ice trucker TV show) and one of the last stops before you hit the top of Alaska. My friend and I visited Wiseman via a small plane from Fairbanks and were shown around by one of the 14 residents. Fascinating facts about this guy and life in Wiseman: 1) he was a subsistence hunter, meaning he hunted so that he could survive; 2) it was so cold in Wiseman that he didn’t need a refrigerator. He had a door in his floor where he kept his food. He had to insulate this area so it didn’t get too cold; and 3) online dating was alive and well, even in Wiseman. He had the internet (go figure) and had convinced a nice lady to come live with him (she was due to arrive a few weeks after we were there).
Wiseman is a seven hour drive north of Fairbanks. Alternatively, we flew a 1.5 hour flight to Coldfoot and drove the rest of the way.
Juneau might be the capital, but Anchorage is the largest city in Alaska. It has almost 300,000 people (about half of the state’s population). It is not particularly cosmopolitan, but you wouldn’t really expect it to be since it is Alaska. Anchorage is the place where the thousands of cruise shippers dock after their float up from Seattle. There are two military bases around Anchorage–Uncle Sam uses these to give the side eye to North Korea and Russia. Anchorage stays fairly light in the winter (compared to Fairbanks) but winters would still be pretty rough. I had a friend who was a pilot at the helicopter company who grew up and lived in Anchorage during the off season. She had a nice path behind her house that people could run on during the summer that stayed covered with snow during the winter that she would cross country ski on during the winter months.
Anchorage is a 3.5 hour flight from Seattle.
This town is named after William Seward. You know, the guy who pulled a fast one on the Russians and ended up with a kick-butt state. Seward is on the Kenai peninsula, a finger that is attached to mainland AK. The town only has about 3,000 residents, but this number swells during the summer. My favorite thing about Seward is that it is the home to the Kenai Fjords National Park. We took a little boat out to see the gorgeous greens fjords contrasting with the gorgeous blue of the glaciers bobbing around. Also in this area is the enormous Harding icefield (300 miles of glacier). You can go hike through it and be awed by its vastness. Just don’t make a wrong turn and get lost.
Seward is a 2.5 hours drive south of Anchorage.
Homer is on the other side of the Kenai Peninsula from Seward and is a booming metropolis of 5,000 residents and millions of fish. During the summer months, lots of locals and tourists pull up huge halibut from the ocean. In fact, little ol’ Homer is known as the Halibut Fishing Capital of the World. When you walk down the boardwalk along the water you’ll see lots of fishing operations with their huge halibut hanging on hooks. I’m not a fish lover, but these guys are pretty tasty. I was introduced to a delicacy called ‘halibut chunks’ during my time in AK. I typically avoid food that has the word ‘chunks’ in the title, but in this case I did well to forget my rule and enjoy.
Homer is four-hour drive from Anchorage.
The town of Whittier is perched on the edge of the Prince William Sound, about 60 miles south of Anchorage. It has not always been easy to get there; in 2000, a giant tunnel opened up that connected it. Previous to that, you couldn’t drive there, just go on a boat or train. (When I say giant tunnel, I mean it. it is the longest tunnel in North America at 2.5 miles and if you get claustrophobic, prepare yourself for a rough ride.) Once you emerge from the mountain, Smaug-style, you get to see the sound. It is pretty. Pretty enough that lots of cruise ships make Whittier a port of call. We took a nice little boat tour and watched some glaciers calve and seals swim. But….I think Whittier is creepy. There are two big tower buildings in Whittier that were constructed in the 50s; one of which has now been abandoned and the other one looks like it should be abandoned and houses the majority of Whittier’s residents. It just seems weird to me that a whole town lives in one apartment complex. I imagine all kinds of shady things happening there.
Whittier is about 1.5 hour drive southeast of Anchorage.
There are lots more towns I wish I would have been able to explore, like Kodiak or Bettles (near Gates of the Arctic National Park) and I fully plan on taking a cruise through the inside passage to check out Juneau. Hopefully that will be Part 3 of this post. (Fingers crossed.)
Taking the train across Canada was a dream come true for me. I do not remember when I first learned that it is possible to ride a train across Canada, but I was young and it remained a dream of mine for many years. After …
Last weekend I was feeling a bit nostalgic so I watched Roman Holiday on Netflix. In this movie, Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck spend a whirlwind day doing all the things Audrey wanted to do in the Eternal City. It made me think about my …
Panama has more than just hats, people. For one blissful month after finishing grad school and before the student-loan repayment plan kicked in, I was able to join my family in this cool Central American country. Here are ten interesting Panama facts.
Panama was put on the map when the powers that be decided it took way too long to ship stuff all the way around South America and a shortcut through Panama would be just the ticket for cutting that trip in half. In 1914, after a long and fraught filled venture, the canal opened for business. When we visited the Miraflores lock, I had to take a good hard look at a map to figure out what this canal business really meant.
Essentially, the canal is a 48 mile waterway across Panama. To build it, engineers had to dig a big ditch and create a big lake (probably because building a big ditch is really hard) and put some locks along the way. A lock is a section of water that gets separated from the rest of the water by giant walls. They can then fill this section up with more water and decrease it, allowing a ship to slowly makes its way across the canal.
To see the locks in person and be able to get a sense of the scale because the container ships have stacks and stacks of what I know to be the thing a semi truck pulls around–well it is pretty impressive.
We stayed in a high-rise apartment in downtown Panama City that just happened to be located right next to a mall that had a movie theater. The theaters in Panama had two options for watching movies: regular, which cost about $2, or V.I.P. which cost about $4. I can’t usually afford the V.I.P. section of anything. But let me tell you friend, it was worth it down here. The $2 shows were pretty entertaining–they were filled with mainly Panamians who didn’t subscribe to the ‘thou shalt not talk in movies’ commandment. Heck no! Everybody talked (to the movie, to their friends, to the person on the other end of the phone). In the V.I.P. section, you got yourself a leather recliner chair that was as comfy as a lazy boy.
Bonus: you could order a brownie sundae and get it delivered right to you. I know some American theaters have started doing these things in the last few years. But in 2008, this was a definite novelty for me. I watched just about every movie I could that month.
Like any good malls worth their salt, the Panama malls had food courts. In these food courts were a few restaurants that hawked tasty little delicacies called ‘brochettas.’ Brochettas are basically shish kabobs. Only, they were not just any shish kabob. They were super tasty with tender marinated chicken and steak between fresh peppers and onions. Throw some fried plantains and rice next to these and you have a delicious, inexpensive meal–all for just a few dollars. Confession: we ate a mall food court just about every day.
Like all tropical countries, Panama is blessed with fresh, delicious fruits. Fruit can go with everything and I can eat it or drink it with every meal. My absolute favorite combination is a smoothie made only of sandia (watermelon) and pina (pineapple) and some ice. I don’t know why these two make magic when combined. But if you find yourself somewhere tropical, I highly recommend it. Just make sure they used bottled water. Interesting Panama fact: you can buy fruit from vendors while stopped at traffic lights in Panama City.
I’ve had a few monkey encounters in countries around the world, but none were as impressive as what we experienced in Panama. One day, my family and I were on a nice little hike just outside the city. The trail was well defined and covered by a tree canopy so it wasn’t terribly hot. As we strolled along, all of a sudden we were stopped in our tracks by a cacophony of screaming, howling monkeys. We hadn’t seen any of these monkeys previously, but after all of the noise we looked up and saw at least 20 spider monkeys flying through the trees, Tarzan style, making very good time. We stood there with our jaws open until–BOOM–a crazy loud thunderclap sounded overhead. Ten seconds after that, the sky opened up and we were caught in a torrential downpour. The monkeys knew, man.
Interesting Panama fact: due to a very favorable tax system, businessmen and women from around the world call Panama home. Panama City is a fascinating contradiction of Latin culture and fancy cars and suits. You can hear all sorts of languages walking down the streets of the city.
Domesticas in Panama do a little of everything; they cook meals, clean houses and watch your kids. My sister had a domestica and she was just great. I know this sounds elitest and all colonialist, but it was seriously handy to have this lady around. I imagine this is how the rich and famous live. But in Panama, it was ridiculously inexpensive to have a domestica. And on the other side, domesticas make very good livings, comparatively.
One of the coolest things in Panama is the diverse indigenous groups. There are almost 300,000 indigenous people in Panama in a handful of different groups. But the three that I had the most contact with were the Embera, Guaymi or Ngabe, and the Kuna.
While in Panama City, we took an excursion to an Embera village; it was pretty touristy but still a cool thing to do. We piled into a dugout canoe and plowed up a river to an Embera village where the women wore shirts made of quarters and metal coils. They made us meals of fish that had been wrapped in plantain leaves and a little boy climbed up a tree like Mowgli. It was nuts.
One of the most identifiable artifacts from Panama is created by the Kuna tribe. They make really beautiful clothes and artwork called molas by sewing pieces of fabric together in all different colors. Layers of color are exposed to create pictures and designs.
In the Chiriqui province, we were exposed to some of the political issues in Panama when we saw a few protests by the Ngabe people; one afternoon the highway was completely shut down as because protesters had set up a blockade. It was non-violent and a good reminder that as a (comparatively) wealthy tourist, I have it very, very good.
My sister lived in the Chiriqui province in an adorable town called Boquete. Boquete is up in the highlands where you can see mountains and get to experience the lush vegetation without the debilitating heat of Panama City. Don’t get me wrong, it was still plenty hot. Just not quite as knock-your-socks off hot. Boquete is a haven for international retirees–I guess once all the business people make their money in the city they move here to retire.
Port city of Colon has an international free-trade zone where visitors like us could go and buy stuff at rock-bottom prices. These goods and wares are cheaper here because a lot of them are made in other countries and are shipped to their final destination via the Panama Canal. If the products stop their journey in Panama, they are significantly less expensive. Such is the case with fireworks coming out of Asia.
At home, people buy illegal fireworks and shoot off one or two to much acclaim. In Panama, you can get fireworks cheap and so many events (birthdays, weddings, etc.) have very impressive firework shows to celebrate. Interesting Panama fact: it is not uncommon to see roaring firework displays a few times a week.
Panama is a diverse country that pretty much has it all: history, culture, city life and good food. It is hands down my favorite Central American country. Whether you are there for only a few days or are hiding from the real world like I was, I would highly recommend a stop in this country.
Last year, R, C and I did a little traveling through Poland. Below are a few do’s and don’ts from our experience there. The first “do” is, of course, go to Poland! After that, you can worry about the specifics below. Do’s and don’ts of …