Hasta La Ideas

I’m a little strange in that I almost get as much enjoyment out of planning a vacation as taking one. I start researching the place usually six months before the trip. I’ll read travel guides, review sites created by locals, and novels based in the city I’ll be visiting. I take notes, a lot of notes, and learn as much as I can.

My research always begins with a search of the area on Google maps. Then, I delve into the reading. For a place like Paris, France, I’ll organize all the data I collect by arrondissements. Once I have the items grouped by neighborhood, I’ll subdivide the notes into categories like museums, restaurants, and cheese shops. This way, if we choose to go shopping in St. Germain or buy armagnac at Ryst-Dupeyron, I know we also can pop into the amazing taxidermy shop Deyrolle while we’re in the 7th arrondissement.

If the destination is in the U.S., I’ll save all relevant vacation documents to Evernote — maps, Google street images, webpages, hotel reservation numbers, PDFs I’ve made of notes, etc. I can access Evernote on my laptop and smart phone, so everything I need is with me (and I password protect my phone for safety, in case a pickpocket takes off with my phone).

If I’m traveling overseas, my smart phone service can be less reliable. On a trip to Iceland, I might decide to pay a few extra bucks for international cell and data service. On a trip to Shanghai, China, I would still save all the documents to Evernote, but I would print all the documents before traveling and carry them with me in a folder. (Web access can be tricky in China.)

Services like Tripit are great alternatives, if Evernote isn’t your cup of tea. However, you still can have issues using the service when traveling internationally.

How do you plan a vacation? What method and services do you use? Those of you who do a lot of traveling in parts of the world with interesting data and cell coverage, how do you store your travel plans? I’m interested in reading everyone’s advice in the comments.

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