How to choose Where to go For your vacation and where to look for ideas
Choosing the right vacation destination can be overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. With a few simple steps and some planning, you can figure out where you want to go. Read on to find out the best way to do that based on my experience.
I’ll share with you my train of thoughts when I plan my own next trip destination. You can just replicate it for your own trip.
This is the step number 3 of my vacation planning guide. I can help you the most if you read in sequence. Start with how to plan a trip chapter.
how to decide on the next vacation destination
You might want start by asking yourself what you consider the best destination for yourself in general. Read my other post on the best way to do that. But sometimes, you are actually looking for something else.
So, ask yourself some questions about what you are craving for your next trip. Sometimes you want to relax, or get away from civilization to enjoy a hike, immersing yourself in nature. Other times you want a stimulating bustling city experience.
What attracts you the most at the moment? If you’re not quite sure, take these steps to, what I call it, “try on” some ideas to see what fits the most. I unapologetically operate on feelings, and mentally trying EVERYTHING on before gaining clarity on what I want. I highly recommend this approach to you as well.
where to get your vacation destination ideas
There are a few places to get your next destination ideas. Let me review their advantages and disadvantages.
Travel blog posts
I LOVE reading travel blogs from people I trust. Nowadays, when everyone and their mother “write” blogs using ai and heaving no firsthand extensive knowledge, finding people who actually share their own experience is both rare and very useful.
Watch out though for those who write their articles and posts with LLM (large language models). Because of the way these models work, they often ‘hallucinate” and produce non factual statements. that might send to to strange places. BTW, the same goes for you using them for your travel planning. Because the models don’t have understanding of the distance or the ambience, you might book something you won’t enjoy at all.
So, if you find travel bloggers you trust, their posts are fantastic way to learn ideas about your next vacation destination.
Family and friends advice
A lot of people go on vacation following their friends’ and family’ recommendations. This could be a great advice, but ONLY if you share likes and dislikes with these people. I personally was very surprised to find out on my own experience that it’s not always the case, even between great friends. Keep this in mind.
Check YouTube and Pinterest for ideas on where to go on vacation.
If you are still not sure about where to go on vacation, you should check out YouTube or Pinterest.
Peoples’ recommendations, while useful, are subjective. You’ll get your own impression of different destinations in the world on YouTube. Watch videos; it is much better to see the visual images from the destinations, instead of just reading about it.
For example, here is my video of one of my past destinations – Split, Croatia. I highly recommend going there!
And if you don’t have time or patience to watch regular videos?
Watch YouTube shorts
How to find a place you’re looking for in shorts section. Let’s say you are interested in some particular place, for example, you want to know how Sintra National Palace looks. You can check out my blog post about it or you can type this name in YouTube search field to see a short video of it for a visual impression.
Pinterest planning
I love making my vacation planning a game. You can create a new Pinterest board, name it My Next Vacation and pin some ideas you find on Pinterest on it. Check out my account there.
Get travel guidebooks from a library.
You should buy the right guidebook eventually, but first, why don’t you get 5 ( or maybe 10? My local library got rich on my overdue fees, ha!;) ) guidebooks from your local library to try them out? Then, if you have really narrowed down on the desired country/city you can just buy one for adding your own highlights.
DK Eyewitness guides
I used to LOVE DK Eyewitness travel guides. I had so many of them! They had so many pretty pictures that were keeping me warm during the cold winter months in my hometown. They had tons of useful information, though, with all honesty I never really used that information for anything other than getting a general idea of where I would love to go next.
However, new editions DK books are very shallow, and it’s not only my opinion. You can still buy used old DK Eyewitness series from the Internet, do that! In fact, I bought so many of them and loved them all, and parting with them was the hardest part for me out off all other possessions I had and had to get rid of before becoming nomadic.
Rick Steve’s guidebooks
Some people built their entire trip preparation around travel guidebooks. They go through every word in the guidebook religiously, make lists, write all the names. Especially it seems to be true for the Rick Steve’s guidebooks fans. I’m not one of them, but they seem to an enthusiastic crowd.
I completely understand where they are coming from. Just planning a trip can be a very exciting part of the trip! I just could never bring myself to write all the places I HAVE TO visit, especially the restaurants. I get bored fast if I do. But I had more than enough patience to pin all the precise locations of amazing old buildings I saw on the map for a future visit!:)
People just operate differently and there is no right or wrong way, just whatever works for you and makes you happy! And if you don’t know what it is, why not try it all and chose for yourself?;)
Make a list of potential destinations
By now you understand your needs and wants better and you have some rough ideas. Make a list of a few tentative destinations for your next vacation. Now, let’s get the feel of these places.
How to get the feel of the places on your vacation planning list
So by now you already have a list of places that call you and you already got some idea of how they look. But do you know that you can “see and feel” the places before you visited? This is a neat trick I use for all my trip planning.
“Walk” on Google maps
Google Maps are not only great for getting the directions. You can “walk” on Google Maps virtually and get almost the same impression from the surroundings as if you were walking in real life!
Let me show you how.
How to walk on Google Maps
Go to Goggle Maps
Check out every city and every attraction from your new destinations list on Google Maps.
Type the destination city in. Grub the yellow dude called Packman in the lower right corner by left clicking on him and drop him on the city or a street you want to check out. You can only drop him on a street or place marked blue. Once you’re on the street, start “walking” by clicking on the arrows.
Don’t forget to look around!
Don’t forget to look around and up. You will feel as if you are walking on the street for real! 🙂 You can zoom in on different details.
BTW, If you landed in a blue circle, it’s a 360 degree picture. You can’t walk there, but turn around to get a better look at the area.
Walking on Google map is the best for choosing a vacations destination.
This step of walking on Goggle maps is the most informative for me. I can ALWAYS predict if I will like the place or the city, by “strolling on its streets” on google maps. How did we live before Google maps?! 😉
Save every spot from your travel destinations list on Google map.
BTW, while you are finding all those great places to visit on Google map, why don’t you bookmark every spot or attraction you like? Use the “save” button!
This way, you will have all the cool places already on the map for you! And once you are on the location, you can find the direction to it; it’s already on your map!
And the more you “walk” the map, the more you look around and admire, the more bookmarks you have. This is how I keep track of places to visit. You can create differently colored bookmarks for places, favorites, food, whatever else, you can add to any list you want!
Create a custom walking route
You can even create a custom route, connecting all your bookmarked locations! This is the easiest way for you to plan your entire itinerary for the city! Check out my custom interactive map for Tram 28 route in Lisbon, Portugal.
But let’s go to the next step. Once you’ve narrowed down on the city, there is something else to think about.
Now it’s time to start using some practical steps in your planning.
Set a budget for your Next vacation
Before you consider your destination, it helps to figure out your budget (If you don’t have to do that – congrats!:)
Think about what kind of vacation experience you’re looking for, what time of year you want to travel, and how much money you can realistically spend.
There is a great spot for a vacation for everyone with any budget. You just need to find it. It’s not very enjoyable to stress out about overspending while on vacation if you can’t or shouldn’t afford it.
Analyze Benefits and Costs for Each Destination Option.
Once you’ve narrowed down your options to a few destinations, it’s important to assess the cost factor. Consider things like airline tickets, hotel stays, train or bus tickets, food cost and other fees that may be associated with the vacation.
Do a quick estimate of the costs and choose the one that gives you maximum benefits while meeting your budget criteria.
So, it’s important to be realistic at this stage. Because maybe you can’t afford to visit that city in summer, as it’s a popular beach destination and it gets very expensive then. But, you can still visit it during shoulder season, when everything is 3 times cheaper.
I use this different seasons rule all the time as a budget traveler. However, sometimes you luck out and find wonderful accommodation during the prime season, like I did in both Venice in 2024, and Budva, Montenegro a year before. But you have to be flexible for that, and it’s usually not easy with vacation times.
Safety considerations of your vacation destination.
Additionally, look at safety considerations and other nuances of the destination before making a final decision. This step becomes even more important if you are a solo female traveler. Check with your country’s embassy website for recommendations.
Consider Weather for the Time of your Traveling.
Weather can drastically affect how enjoyable and comfortable your stay is, so take this factor into account.
For example, it might be not the best time to visit Rome in August, when it’s 106 F (or 41 C) every day. Also, it might matter to you that there are monsoons or hurricane seasons at your destination.
Do some research about the weather you expect and plan accordingly.
When is the best time to visit
The best time to visit depends on the purpose of your trip; leisure, skiing, swimming, etc.
Obviously, you better go skiing in winter, and swimming in summer. Don’t be like people on my picture, who didn’t check the climate for their destination and went swimming to some snowy place!:)
If you are most interested in architecture—you can go year-round. Here is another hidden advantage of being interested in architecture!:)
Use weather planning tools
Use weather planning tools to help you with figuring out where to go on vacation. This web site is not technically a trip planning tool, but you can get monthly reports of the average weather: daily highs and lows, amount of sunshine and rainfall at weatherspark.
If you realize that the travel dates you can go are not great for the destination you’re considering, save it for another time and go somewhere else.
Do your research and read up on the destination before you make your final choice. Once you’re sure, buy an air ticket as soon as possible, so that you know you dates of your trip.
I hope you are all energized to plan a trip now! 🙂 For more information, read other sections of my blog, subscribe to my periodic emails and let’s connect on social media; the links are in the footer below
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