Hi everyone!
Welcome back to Lavendaire.
Today is the second video
in our travel planning series.
So if you missed the first video, it's right here.
The first video was about booking flights, accommodations, budgeting, language tips,
and more.
And today I'm going to show you how I plan my itinerary, how to plan transportation,
and how to deal with phone and internet, stuff like that.
So let me show you
on the computer screen here, my Google Doc for my Japan trip.
I make a Google Doc
for every trip that I take.
This one's for my Tokyo trip that I took recently.
As you can see,
the first page I put important information like my flight information, Airbnb information.
I just removed some important stuff just for privacy reasons.
By the way, I always save this
as an offline file on my phone so that I have access to this document at all times.
On the second page, I have the weather for the time that I'm there
and also a tentative schedule on what I'm going to do each day.
This is not exact,
but it's just a good way to look at it at one glance, what my week in Tokyo will look
like.
By the way, this is my friend's Google Doc because we were meeting up in Tokyo,
so that's just a quick link to go see her schedule and stuff.
After that is the itinerary,
but let me take you back to the beginning on the research process.
So first things first: How do you research where to go and what to do on your trip?
You gotta know that, in the beginning of planning, this Google Doc does not look organized.
It's just a bunch of links copy and pasted, paragraphs of things that I've researched.
Just to briefly take you through the research process: What I would start doing
is just simply Googling "things to do in Tokyo" or wherever you're going.
And then I'll start with the very generic websites, go through Trip Advisor,
Japan Travel, all the main websites that come up first.
I'll basically get
most of my sightseeing information there.
Then, as I continue to research deeper,
I'm most likely going to find some blogs, whether it's travel blogs, food blogs,
just regular people talking about what they did in their travels, and what's cool to do.
After you've done your general research on these generic "Top Things Everyone Must See
or Do" in this place, then it's time to go deeper with your personal interests.
So if you are a foodie and you care about the foods that you eat when you travel,
then I would scour food blogs and type in specific things like "best foods to eat in
Tokyo"
or "best place to get curry", "best place to get sushi", "best place to get [blank]".
You could also type in "top foods to try in [blank]", and that doesn't have to be the
country,
or even the city.
You could get really specific, like "top foods to try in Shibuya".
And when I went to DisneySea, I heard that the food was one of the main things
that you should check out, so I looked up "top foods to eat at DisneySea".
And then I found a blogger who listed out all the cool foods that you should try at
DisneySea,
and the specific area where you should get them, because it was that detailed.
You couldn't get everything everywhere.
You really had to search for it
like a treasure hunt, so that was really fun for me.
So ask yourself,
what are you personally interested in, and then just do research for that
in the city you're traveling in.
So maybe you're interested in art,
or maybe you're interested in plants and trees and you want to see certain things
while you travel.
So cater your research towards things that you're interested in.
For example: I really, really love that Japanese reality show, Terrace House.
And so,
when I was planning my Tokyo trip, I did a little research on Terrace House-related things
I could see when I was there.
So I actually found the location of the house
where these people stayed for this TV show, and I went there when I was in Tokyo.
And I also stopped by the coffee shop where one of the members used to work.
I think she actually currently works there, but I didn't get to catch her when she was
there.
But things like that, if you have a very specific passion or interest,
look up things you can do related to that, wherever you're traveling.
Another fun place to do your research is actually Instagram, and this is especially useful
for people who want to take gorgeous IG photos because I know you, I get you.
On Instagram, you might be following some travel bloggers who have gone to the place
that you want to go to.
If so, then I would go and save their photos that you like
and save the locations, the places they've gone to, in case you want to go
to those places as well.
I really love the Collections feature in Instagram
where you can just save photos.
So, for example, you can have a collection for Japan
and save all your favorite types of photos and places taken in Japan.
So, for example, I saw this gorgeous photo on Instagram.
It was taken in Harajuku,
and so I saved it to my Collections.
I actually saved it to my Pretty Photos collection
and also my Japan collection.
And basically I just looked up the location tag
and when I went to Harajuku, I kept an eye out for this mirror structure thing.
I didn't know exactly where to find it but I already saw this photo beforehand
so that I knew there was something where I could take a similar photo.
So if you go to my Instagram, you'll notice that I went to that place in Harajuku
and I took a photo of my own because I got inspired by somebody else that I found on
IG.
Lastly, if you know of anyone who has traveled to that place that you're going to
or lives in that place, then ask them for suggestions because there's no better suggestions
than people who have experienced it firsthand.
And what's so awesome is
we have a Lavendaire Lifestyle Facebook group where we are basically global.
We have people from all over the world, and I've seen people ask for travel suggestions
on going to different countries and stuff.
So that's definitely a resource that's out there for you.
Alright, now that you've done your research and everything is dumped into your Google
Doc,
it's time to organize by location.
So this is the part where Google Maps is your best friend.
What you're gonna do is: You're gonna look up every single place that you've researched.
Look it up on Google Maps and start pinning everything, seeing where things are.
And what I would do now is kind of group these places by a general location
of this city or place that you're going to.
So what I did with Tokyo is
I organized it into general areas: northwest, east, south, and I specified
what neighborhood this place was in.
so you can see over here on my Doc,
I have west Tokyo and then I have Shinjuku, Shibuya, and all the stuff to do in there.
I have east Tokyo, all these different places.
Northern Tokyo, all those different places.
South Tokyo and outside of Tokyo, the places and things to do.
The reason why I do this is I like to be efficient when I'm traveling.
I kind of like to generalize areas and see things that are close to each other,
instead of bouncing across town, wasting a lot of time traveling.
So everything that I do in my itinerary is on the way to the next thing that I'm gonna
do.
It's kind of like start here, and then you want to go boom, boom, boom …
Or maybe start in a circle.
You just want to be efficient with your time.
So after you've organized everything by location, it's time to decide
what goes on what day of your travel.
So then you're gonna go to your weekly schedule
and in the beginning, this is all empty.
And what you're gonna do is
you're also gonna look at the weather for each day.
For example,
I noticed on Thursday and Friday it said there was a chance of rain.
So ask yourself, are you doing outdoor activities and if so, you should probably plan them
on days that are not raining.
For me, what was really important was Disneyland
and I wanted to go to Disneyland on a weekday and on a day when it wasn't raining.
And since I arrived Tuesday, then I technically only had two days
when I could choose to go to Disneyland.
Because I didn't want to go the day we landed,
I decided to go to Disneyland Wednesday.
So that was locked in from the beginning.
And I knew that on the first day I wanted to eat sushi as my first stop.
So knowing that, I go down to here.
The Fish Market is in east Tokyo,
I would say, so I basically decided that this was going to be my Day 1 itinerary.
I was going to explore east Tokyo.
And it turns out that going to east Tokyo was on the way
to going to northern Tokyo, so we hit some of these spots on our first day as well.
So this is what our first day looked like.
We started here in the morning,
and then I knew that the first thing I wanted to do in Japan was eat sushi.
So Sushi Market was the first stop.
So going back to my Doc, these were the places
that were in the same general locations as the Fish Market,
so I decided to make a stop where I could.
So I went to Muji,
and then I went to this fruit café right here.
Since we were here,
it just made sense to keep seeing what was in the area.
So from here
we stopped by Akihabara, and then from that we went to the Sensoji Temple,
and then we ended our day at Skytree.
And then we took the ride back home.
So as you can see, everything is on the way to the next thing, and it just made sense
to see it all in one day instead of seeing this much and then jumping around
to this side going home, and then going all the way here another day.
I also knew that I was gonna meet up with my friends when I was in Japan
and we were only crossing paths two days of the trip which was Thursday and Friday,
so I actually kind of reserved these two days for hanging out with friends.
And I wanted to take a day trip away from Tokyo, so it made sense to do it Saturday
because I knew that I wanted to spend Sunday shopping.
I hope that gave you a better idea of how to plan your itinerary.
So organize things by location, check the weather and see if there are any conflicts.
Maybe when it's raining, choose to do the things that are more indoor.
Also, if you want to go shopping, then probably plan to do that
towards the end of your trip so that you're not always carrying so much stuff with you.
And of course, be efficient with your travel strategy and make sure
that you're not wasting too much time on extra travel.
Next, I'll briefly talk about transportation.
This can vary depending on your lifestyle.
So you can take metro, Uber, taxi, even rent a car depending on where you're going.
For me, if I'm going to a major city like Tokyo, I'm obviously going to take
a lot of metros and buses.
So for me, the only thing that I really plan
beforehand with modes of transportation is getting from the airport to the Airbnb,
because when you're lugging that much stuff you don't want to be lost
figuring out where to go, so I really like to research heavily beforehand.
First, do your research on the best methods to get from the airport to your place of stay,
whether it's taking a train or a taxi or airport shuttle.
For example, usually I would take metro
if I'm traveling with me and some friends, or just a small group of people.
But when I went to Europe this past summer with my family, we had fourteen people
and we had children, three kids with us.
So my aunt really didn't want to take
public transportation so what we did is we rented airport shuttles to pick us up at the
airport
to take us and our luggages to our Airbnb.
So it's really up to you
what you're comfortable with and what you consider safe for yourself.
Aside from that initial trip from the airport to your place of stay, after that guys,
all I used was Google Maps and Google Maps is amazing.
Basically gets you everywhere.
I use it for walking and metro.
And what's cool is you can save offline maps.
So if you don't have internet, then you can look at the offline map
but I probably recommend having data.
That's just me.
I'm a girl that needs data,
not just because it's my job but because I feel safer with getting lost.
If I have internet, I feel like I won't get lost.
[Computer sound].
Sorry that was my computer.
Alright, let's move on to phone, data, and internet.
How do you have internet
when you're on the go?
So there are a few options.
My personal favorite option now is
just to get a SIM card when I'm traveling.
What I do is: At the airport,
I usually find a cell phone station where they sell a SIM card with data-only plans,
like a pre-paid card that I could just put into my phone.
The thing is, you have to have
an unlocked phone to be able to do that.
So my iPhone is unlocked and wherever I go,
I just buy a SIM card and the prices vary depending on what country you're visiting.
The reason why I like this method is because your internet is the fastest.
It's the fastest compared to when you use pocket wi-fi or your own cell phone provider
from your home.
I used to have T-Mobile in the states.
T-Mobile has free international data,
so I used to just travel with my T-Mobile data.
And the thing is, it does work
but it's very, very, very slow internet.
But if you're on a budget
and don't really care about having fast internet, then you can check
if your cell phone provider has international free data.
Another option is getting a pocket wi-fi.
I wish I had one to show you, but it's basically a little thing that is portable wi-fi
that you carry with you in your bag.
It's kind of like a personal hot-spot.
I've used this in Europe and in Asia, and in my personal experience,
the Europe one really sucked.
It was called Pocket MiFi and I used it in London,
France, and Germany, and it was just not good.
But the ones that I've used in Asia
were pretty fast and decent.
So two ways you can get pocket wi-fi.
You can actually rent one at an airport or train station.
You should do your research
beforehand on where you can rent one specifically.
And another option is:
If you look on Airbnb, you can check listings that provide a pocket wi-fi.
So my Tokyo Airbnb actually gave us a free pocket wi-fi.
It's funny because I didn't even
look at the listing details to see that that was an amenity.
But I think, yeah,
mostly if you travel to Asia with Airbnb, a lot of them provide a pocket wi-fi now.
So you might not have to get a SIM card or rent your own wi-fi.
They might provide it for you, so make sure you check that on your Airbnb.
Lastly, depending on where you travel, you might not even need a portable wi-fi option
at all
because wi-fi is widely available everywhere.
This is rare, but for somewhere like Japan
there's literally wi-fi in almost every café and every public space.
There's free wi-fi so you can actually get around pretty easily
without having a SIM card or pocket wi-fi.
You can just use wi-fi wherever you're at,
maybe look up the directions to the next spot, save it, and then work like that as you go.
In the end, it just depends on your priorities, what is important to you, what do you need,
what do you not need, what your budget is, and decide what's the best option for you.
Alright, I hope this video was helpful and I hope you learned something new today.
Let me know if you have other questions related to travel down below
and I'll do my best to answer them.
And if you have any tips on
how I can improve my travel game, maybe you know something that I don't,
definitely let me know in the comments below.
I'm always learning new things from you guys.
In the last video, I learned about Google Flights.
I never really use Google Flights
but maybe I should start doing that now.
I feel like the comments section
is crowdsourcing information and honestly, there's power in numbers.
We are smarter
as a group.
One person can only know so much, but as a group we know so much more.
Alright, love you all so much.
Have a great day and have safe travels.
Bye!