When the holiday season comes, it is time to schedule the trip, whether with family, friends or even alone. In this way, something very important is to organize your finances, after all, good planning is always welcome. Regardless of your destination, one thing is certain, money is needed for your expenses during the trip, with the tours, food, lodging, among others.
How important is financial planning before traveling?
First of all, when we talk about organizing finances to travel on vacation, we are not necessarily talking about saving to be able to travel. To avoid doubts, let’s explain the difference.
Saving to be able to travel requires that during the months leading up to the trip, you give up a few things in your day to day to have the money left over from the trip. We have already organized the finances and talked about putting on paper a plan of what will be spent on the trip. This planning helps you to have a minimum notion of your needs during this trip.
You need to know this difference, first of all, because it will define the whole itinerary of your trip, starting with the accommodation that will be chosen.
First step of the financial organization: Itinerary
The route, for any destination, is the basic and first step of vacation planning. From the itinerary you will do the search for accommodation, tours, restaurants, paid and free places to visit and much more.
To do this, make a closed itinerary, starting with the day of departure, and the time of arrival at the destination, until the time of check-in back from your trip. Traveling without an itinerary can generate several unforeseen events, besides making the trip more expensive than it could be.
Define the attractions you want to do
If the trip is to a historical city, with many museums, for example, it is necessary to categorize into: which ones you want to visit a lot, and those you feel like, but if you don’t have the time, everything is fine. So, you have extra options in case of some unforeseen event. At the time of planning write down the entry fee of each attraction, to be added at the end of the tour.
It is very important to define what you want to do on the trip in advance. This ends up being a great advantage, because when you arrive on the trip, this part is already solved and paid.
When making your travel planning, check if the attractions of the place are easy to be acquired on time. It is necessary to find a receptive agency to close your package and guarantee the attractions you want on your vacation.
Travel Season
Knowing about the time of your trip helps to organize the finances. This is because if the trip happens in high season, such as school holidays, Christmas, Carnival and holidays. You already know that it’s busy times and prices are higher.
While in the low season, depending on the destination, the values are lower and can even be negotiated. If you plan to travel during the low season, but have unforeseen events and need to reschedule, you may have to pay more than expected. With this, your finances end up being disorganized.
Type of accommodation
Throughout the text we briefly talk about the importance of accommodation in planning your holiday trip. There are “backpacking” types, where you can stay in hostels, local people’s houses, boarding houses, etc. And there is the comfort type of accommodation, which includes hotels, even simple but private, luxury hotels, resorts, and so on.
This item will have a great weight in your financial planning. Therefore, it should be one of the first to be hired. The sooner you make the reservations, the more chances you have of getting good prices at great hotels, for example.
Travel Spreadsheet
We left that last item last, but that doesn’t make it any less important. On the contrary, it is one of the most important to organize the finances to travel on holidays. But let’s talk about it last, exactly because it encompasses all the previous items.
The spreadsheet is extremely important for your organization, you need to put the whole trip itinerary, what has already been booked, what is paid for, what will be paid afterwards, etc. To have a 100% control it is necessary to write down exactly everything.
But the great advantage is that on the eve of your trip you will be at ease and can only enjoy the well deserved rest. Because everything you need is listed in the spreadsheet for consultation.
Organizing the finances to travel on vacation is a way for you to make a trip with everything you want, within the budget stipulated. After all, everyone has one. When this organization is done in advance, the chances of unforeseen events decrease.