Learn how to optimize your travel itinerary and make the most out of your vacation time.

Optimize your travel itinerary and enjoy the best vacation possible. A well-designed vacation is unfolds like clockwork. There are no surprises and no mistakes in planning. While no vacation is perfect, you can still take steps to insure that you make the most out of your precious time and money.

You do this by preventing scheduling problems with your sightseeing visits. Thus you avoid having to return to a site because it was closed when you arrived the first time; or you avoid having to miss it altogether because you have no time left.

Reasons Why Sites May Be Inaccessible

• Your visit is outside the normal hours of operation.

• You have run out of time.

• Your visit coincides with a holiday, holy day or festival.

• Public transportation to a sitge may not be available.

• Other

Why You Should Optimize Your Travel Itinerary

• Avoid sites that are closed.

• Deal with activities that are only available at certain times.

• Minimize travel time and expenses

Advantages of Optimizing Your Travel Itinerary

• Make the best use of your time

• Less likely to be surprised at finding sites closed

• Less likely to have down days

• Most efficient means of handling a full itinerary

Disadvantages of Optimizing Your Travel Itinerary

• The method is not foolproof.

• You still may not accomplish everything that you wish.

• You may need to limit your visiting time at some sites.

How to Optimize Your Travel Itinerary

• List the sites you wish to visit or the activities that you wish to participate in.

• Cluster the sites by commonality i.e. close proximity to each other, the days on which a particular tour departs, the best days to visit a site etc.

• Put this information in tabular form by day, date etc. as needed.

• Know the restrictions under which you will be traveling.

Here are two examples demonstrating how you can optimize your travel itinerary.


Example 1

Taken from the Disney World Vacation.


Restrictions under which I was traveling:

• I arrived in Orlando on a Friday and would depart the following Friday.

• A thorough visit to Disneyworld requires you to spend 2 days in the Magic Kingdom, 2 days at Epcot, 1 day at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and 1 day at the Animal Kingdom.

The best days to visit each site are outlined in the table below.

Using the above information I determined the best days for me to visit each site.

• Friday – arrival

• Saturday – Animal Kingdom

• Sunday – Magic Kingdom

• Monday – Epcot

• Tuesday – Magic Kingdom

• Wednesday – Epcot

• Thursday – Disney’s Hollywood Studios

• Friday – return home

Example 2

Determining the best days to visit sites in and near Jerusalem. See Days 1 to 6 of the tour to Israel and the Palestinian Territories.


Restrictions under which I was traveling:

• I arrived in Jerusalem on a Wednesday and planned to depart the following Wednesday.

• The Jewish Sabbath is Friday. This means that many Jewish sites, including museums, are closed from approximately 2 pm on Friday to sundown on Saturday. Furthermore most public transportation (except for Arab buses) is also very limited during this time. As such it was best to stay within walking distance of the Old City.

• Friday is the Muslim Holy Day which means that non-Muslims cannot visit the Temple Mount.

• Sunday is the Christian Holy Day which means that many churches are closed to tourists because of church services.

Note that itineraries for Days 1 to 6 are listed for each possible day below.

Using the above table, I determined the best days of the week for each day trip as listed below:

• Thursday – Day 4

• Friday – Day 2

• Saturday – Day 5

• Sunday – Day 6

• Monday – Day 1

• Tuesday – Day 3


Finally, you can also optimize your travel itinerary for each sightseeing hour of the day if opening/closing times are restricted. Instead of using days of the week, substitute opening times and proceed as above.

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