3 Tips for Planning a Great Weekend Trip

The ‘Travel’ Part 

One of the main reasons why I was hesitant to travel was the financial aspect. Typically, when flying from the U.S., flights are expensive and are a hassle to book. I was more honed in on taking trains around Italy because it seemed more affordable and efficient. My first trip was to Orvieto, a small medieval town in Umbria, Italy. I took this trip following the IES Abroad Tuscany trip and it was great! Luckily enough, Orvieto was a short train ride from the Siena train station. Booking train tickets is actually really easy, especially if it’s regional. The most common train service you’ll use when traveling throughout Italy is TrenItalia. They have a user-friendly website that allows you to look at one-way and round-trip tickets at fairly affordable prices! I never used TrenItalia’s website much, but I did end up on a TrenItalia train during most of my regional trips. The app/site I used the most was Omio. Omio was the most used app amongst my friends when booking trains for our weekend trips.  In addition to showing you the most affordable train options, the site also gave bus, ferry, and flight options. I also liked using Omio because if you download the app you could easily add your tickets to your Apple Wallet and it helped keep track of my schedule and tickets! In terms of flights, my favorite website was Skyscanner. It is a user-friendly website that helped me book various affordable flights around Europe. Using Skyscanner was super easy, and it saved me money while traveling. At times, we were unsure of where to go for the weekend, and Skyscanner has an option to search “Anywhere.” This option will provide you with a list of various countries and the prices for flights to the various cities in that country.

Housing 

Selecting housing for my travels was also an intimidating part of travel planning. I had never stayed at a hostel or booked my accommodation when traveling. I anticipated housing being another expensive aspect of planning my trips. Initially, I was searching for housing on Airbnb, but it was significantly more costly. I decided to look for an alternative, and my friends recommended Booking and Hostelworld. I never used Hostelworld to book anything, but when I clicked around, it was user-friendly. Hostelworld lists a ton of hostels at affordable prices. I used Booking most of the time; it was reliable in terms of inexpensive accommodations. Booking provided in depth details on each accommodation and dependable reviews. 

Building an Itinerary  

The itinerary is the final of my three tips for planning a successful trip! I never thought of myself as much of an itinerary person until I was planning my Spring Break. Spring Break would be my first time visiting Spain and Switzerland; I wanted to make the best of it. I first started looking for things to do online. I was mainly looking at Tripadvisor and GetYourGuide–each site provides similar results and, at times, expensive tickets! I decided to take it to TikTok and Instagram for my planning. I started by looking up the city I’d be visiting for Instagram. It provided me with various photos and reels of people’s trips. I clicked on posts that looked appealing and made note of the location. For Tiktok, I did some of the same things, but I found Tiktok to be more helpful. I would search “Things to do in …”, “Places to eat in …” or “Best … in …”. My favorite way of planning was using social media to find great places for my trips.