The Travel Route

Establishing the most efficient travel route for implementing your itinerary saves you both time an money.

Using the method outlined below, you will:

1) Determine the best route for your vacation

2) Identify the most strategic location to spend each night

3) Refine your travel itinerary


The Rough Schematic Map

The rough schematic map is your tool for determining the best travel route. Follow the steps below for producing your map:

1) Find a map of the country or region that you will visit. Use the following website to print out maps of countries or regions.

2) Review your travel itinerary and circle the name of each city/town on the map.

3) Write the name of each city/town on a blank sheet of paper. The position of each name should approximate its position on the original map. Don't be concerned that some cities/towns are so close that they overlap. The scale is not important.

The rough schematic map is now ready for use.

Determine the Best Route

Follow these steps to determine the best travel route for your travel itinerary:

1) Study your rough schematic map for groups of cities/towns near to each other (clusters). Don't worry if some cities/towns do not fit into a cluster. Leave them out. You will deal with these later.

Note that it is possible to have only a single cluster (on an island for example).

2) Lightly circle each cluster with a pencil.

3) For each cluster, identify the most centrally located city/town. Lightly circle the name of this city/town. This town is your sightseeing base within each cluster.

4) For those cities/towns that do not fit into one of the clusters above, consider each as a one-city/town cluster. Lightly circle the names of each of these cities/towns.

5) Join the circled cities/towns in each cluster together in succession by a line to form a ring (convenient for flying home at the end of your vacation). Keep in mind that it is possible to have several one-city/town clusters in succession.

The best travel route has now been identified.



Determine Where Lodging is Required

1) Lodging is required for clusters containing more than one city/town. The base for sightseeing within each cluster has already been identified above. Circle the names of each of these towns more darkly than before.

2) Deal with each of the one city/town clusters:

a) Review your travel itinerary for each one city/town cluster.

b) If one of these clusters has enough sightseeing activities to keep you occupied for a day then lodging is required. Circle the name more darkly than before.

c) If one of these clusters does not have enough sightseeing activies to keep you occupied, visit and move on to the next city/town. Repeat until the day is complete. Determine where you are most likely to end the day and stay there.


Determine How Many Nights of Lodging Are Required

For each cluster with more than one city/town:

1) Review your travel itinerary.

2) Identify those individual cities/towns within each cluster that require a full day of sightseeing.

3) Identify those cities/towns within each cluster that do not require a full day of sightseeing. Try to combine two or more into a single day of sightseeing.

For one-city/town clusters, two possibilities exist:

1) If a one city/town cluster has many sights (large cities), more than one night of lodging is required. Determine the number of nights.

2) As outlined above, several one-city/town clusters may be visited in one day. Therefore only one night of lodging is required.

3) Determine the number of nights of lodging required to visit each cluster.



Finally, for all of the clusters above, add up the total number of nights for which lodging is required.

Revise Your Travel Itinerary

At this point, you must determine if the number of vacation days you actually have available is sufficient to cover your travel itinerary as planned.

Remember to include the time required to travel to your destination from home and back.

If you have enough time available, keep your travel itinerary as planned.

If you do not have enough time available, cut back on your travel itinerary. Start by deleting the sites or activities that are of least importance to you.

Continue in this manner until your travel itinerary matches the travel time you have available. In some instances, you may be forced to delete towns, cities or even whole clusters.

Revise your rough map to reflect any changes made. Use it to redetermine where you will spend each night as outlined above.

Your travel itinerary and travel route may require further refining but that will be done in the budget section.

Chapter 3 of Turn Your Dream Vacation Into Reality: A Game Plan for Seeing the World the Way You Want to See It outlines in far greater detail how to design your sightseeing route.

Return from Travel Route to Travel Planning Infrastructure