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Things to Consider:
Although we are intrigued by the idea of renting an RV while traveling abroad, we have yet to try that. So when we plan an international trip, we have to consider our mode of transporation and places to stay in different ways than with RV travel. Otherwise, much of the process is similar to planning an RV trip.
Our preference when traveling without the RV is to use airbnb or VRBO and to rent a car. Staying at an airbnb/VRBO instead of a hotel allows us to cook for ourselves, saving money by reducing how much we eat at restaurants. And sometimes finding vegan food is not always easy, so having our own kitchen is very helpful. We like to rent cars to give us the most freedom and flexibility while traveling. We also don't like being on group tours, so we generally plan our own trips with as much autonomy as possilbe.
Similar to plannning an RV trip, we think carefully about the weather of our desired destinations, how busy the tourist season might be, and how long we want to be traveling. Despite staying in places with air conditioning and heating, we don't love to travel during really hot or cold seasons.
Pre-Trip Planning:
As with RV travel, we use a combination of apps, books, online resources, and spreadsheets to plan our trips. While we put them in some sort of order here, we often go back and forth among them all.
Our strategy is to build the trip by first adding all the places we hope to see on the trip. As we move through the process, we start eliminating some of the places based on the weather, time, and avoiding high tourist seasons. Because international travel can be expensive, we try to have a general idea of how much time we want to be away, but we often don't have a definite end date until the end of the planning process. Some of the end date depends on the cost of airplane ticket prices, the rental car, and accommodations.
After deciding where we will be traveling to, we start our mapping of what we want to see and where we want to stay, drawing on several sources, including online web searches (e.g., Google), ebooks, apps, and printed books.
Ebooks: For ebooks, we have found that using our public library's Hoopla or Libby system offers many travel book options. These apps are free but require a public library card to connect to your account. Once you have an account, you can borrow ebooks and audio books for free, which is great while on the road, not just for downloading travel books, but also other reading materials and audiobooks.
APPs and Websites: There are so many apps and websites to use in trip planning. Some of our favorites are:
airbnb: We tend to use airbnb as we find the selection to be good, the prices to be reasonable, and the fees to be lower as we look for places to stay.
VRBO: Similar to airbnb, VRBO is a reliable option for finding places to stay.
Enterprise Rent-a-Car: There are a lot of rental car companies. We have found Enterprise to be affordable and available at many locations/airports. But we always compare prices from different companies. And we try to find discounts such as ones offered through AARP, T-Mobile, and other entities.
Blogs: We have found blogs written by locals to be really helpful in planning international travel. For example, when we traveled to Costa Rica, we found the blog, MyTanFeet was great in helping us figure out where we might want to go within the country.
Once we have figured out what stops we want to make and where we want to stay, we consider how much time we want to spend at each stop and start making reservations, often starting with purchasing our plane tickets. After that, we secure airbnb/VRBO stays. In doing so, we consider cost, location, cancellation policy/dates, amenities, and reviews. We also make reservations for activities as needed.
Our last step of pre-trip planning is to create a spreadsheet in Google Docs that includes the dates, destination name, travel distance and time from the previous stop, where we will be staying, the date we made the reservation, notes, cost of airbnb or VRBO, and how much we have paid and still owe. We also write some of this information into a printed calendar as well as onto our phone's calendar so that we know exactly where we are going while on the road. Having all this information is very helpful and makes sharing our itinary with family and friends much easier.
Planning While on the Road:
While we plan out the skeleton of our trip so that we know where we will be going, sleeping, and loosely what we'll be seeing, we tend not to plan out the details of our days until we are close to our next destination.
As with our RV travel, one strategy is to seek out visitor centers when we arrive at our destination. This can be challenging given language barriers, but visitor centers are helpful when you can find them. We also rely on online resources or ebooks to determine what we might want to see in any given place.
While we sometimes purchase event or activity tickets in advance to ensure entry, we have found that if we can wait until we arrive rather than making those purchases in advance, then we might have a better experience. For example, when in Costa Rica, we purchased our tickets to ziplining in Monteverde in advance. The result was a cold and rainy experience with very limited visibility. But when we traveled to Sámara, we waited to purchased tickets for whale watching until we were there and had a sense of the weather. That way, we were able to pick a day with clear skies and calm seas. We were also able to select a company by walking around town and asking questions, allowing us to get a feel for what each boat company might offer.
Our experiences with international travel planning have been very positive thus far. But we have stayed at airbnbs/VRBOs that have not been as nice or clean as we have expected. And driving in foreign countries can be challenging. Knowing your own comfort level is important!
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