Travel Thursday | Planning Ahead

If you know anything about me I'm sure that you know that I am a HUGE planner. I'd be lost without my Erin Condren planner, sometimes I plan things months (if not a year) in advance, and I'm always ALWAYS making lists.

So it should come at no surprise then that I have been planning our delayed honeymoon for over a year now ;) We always knew that we wouldn't be able to take a vacation right after the wedding, because T was still in the Army. So the next step was to figure out when we could and wanted to go. Since we're both in school now we had two options: either go during spring break or wait until the semester was over. We decided against going during spring break, because we felt that we'd feel too rushed and we didn't want to worry about our honeymoon being tainted with a bunch of drunken college kids. We also knew that we wanted to go ASAP seeing as we were already delaying this trip by months. All of these facts combined lead to our decision of leaving Michigan on April 28th (the day after my graduation!) for a 5 day Western Caribbean cruise! Now that you know the whole back story of this trip I'm going to start this travel series with tips on planning and preparing for a vacation :)

• Set a budget- This should come as a no brainer, but you'd be surprised by how many people go on a vacation with no budget in mind and then come back home more stressed than they were when they left! Include travel costs (cab rides ect.), food, tip, spending, and items needed to go on the trip!
• Book Early- Not only does this save you money, but it also gives you time to explore your options on activities, hotels, restaurants, ect.
• Have a designated folder- to put all travel documents and lists in. Take this folder with you in your carry on when it's time to go!

• Make a packing list- I've had ours made for weeks now and we don't leave for over a month! I like making it early, because then I can add to it and if I forgot something the first time I could catch it before we go.

•  Shop ahead of time- over the past few weeks I've been slowly purchasing items we need to take on the trip. By doing this we have time to shop around and look for sales!

I hope these few tips were helpful and that you'll come back next Thursday to see the first part of the packing portion! Do you have any tips when it comes to traveling?