How to Decide On Where to Travel?
As one who makes traveling a priority, people often ask me how I decide where my next trip will be. Well, that is a loaded question! Answering it includes many factors. Among them: how much time do I have? What’s my budget? Are there currently good deals on a place I’m interested in? These and many more questions invade my mind when choosing where I’ll go next.
With the advent of social media, the world seems to have shrunk dramatically, but I assure you, it still has quite a bit of surface area to cover! If you have limited time to see the world, it pays to make your choices wisely. Destination fads come and go.
The current hot destination seems to be Iceland, and everyone is flocking there. But are YOU really interested in going to Iceland? If not, don’t bother just because your cool friend at the office went.
What I Look for in a Destination
What are your interests? Hobbies? Are you a history buff? Go to Washington D.C., Rome, or Petra to name a few. Are you a shopaholic? New York, Paris, and London are perfect for that. For the outdoor lover, the options are pretty much endless. Chances are you’ll find a place to go pretty easily if you do any daily news reading and have a healthy curiosity about the world.
As for myself, I love the outdoors – activities such as hiking, camping, spending time in the mountains and along the water. Where I live in the Pacific Northwest is great for that. So when I have limited time, I’ll steal away for the weekend to somewhere within 300 miles, which makes it easy to plan a quick trip. But when I want to branch out, I like to research my next destination based on the activity I’m interested in.
Pinterest is a great starting point for my travel planning. In recent months, travel bloggers and the industry, in general, have exploded on Pinterest, with tons of great ideas to get the adventure juices flowing. From there I can access a wide range of resources that will further help me in planning my next trip. I’ve found that simply Googling an interest or destination casts too wide of a net and I have to sift through a lot of unnecessary web hits.
