Planning the Trip

 

(vero;2012-Jul-11)

(A few comments by Vero, who does most of the planning.)

When we depart, we usually have our flight tickets booked and nothing else. We do have a plan and a quite clear idea of what we want to see and achieve, but nothing is fixed, all can be changed as we go and as we feel (which sometimes happens). This does not discourage me to spend hours and hours in the preparations of the journey: I love to read the guide books, invent routes, and imagine what will happen, this is a very much cherished part of the whole experience.

Thomas leaves it to me to check the route and do most of the packing though he is responsible for all technical aspects, ie loading music onto our MP3 players, selecting the battery chargers etc.

As to the budgeting process, we have both our own approach:

I tend to do it the “hard” way and it takes me about two weeks:

1. Define for each country an average price for accommodation per night
2. Define for each country an average cost for food and drink per day
3. Painstakingly detail each transport leg and estimate the price (thank you Lonely Planet)
4. Select likely museums and attractions to be visited and capture their cost
5. Round up everything and eventually, come to a final budget

Thomas does it very differently and it takes him 10 minutes:

1. Define for each country an average price for accommodation per night
2. Define for each country an average cost for food and drink per day
3. Estimate transport cost for each country visited
4. Estimate entry fees and collateral expenses
5. Add x% and that's it

You'll be pleased to know that, in the case of Calamyti, both approaches arrived at very similar figures.

So here are the results of our planning activities, and me being me, the queen of Excel and pivot tables, I could not resist the urge to create some nice charts to share the result of all my budgeting efforts (see our page Final Budget to see what we really spent while on the road):

• Planned Budget details by country and type of expenses:

• Budget structure showing type of expenses as percentage of the total value:

Want to read more? Go on to Calamyti Itinerary or go up to Blog

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$updated from: Blog.htxt Mon 04 Mar 2024 16:04:44 trvl2 (By Vero and Thomas Lauer)$