Inspired To Travel : Travel Planning With Tyler Lebaron

7/02/2018Jake Ryan

Guest Post From Tyler Lebaron - Inspired to travel

Tyler Lebaron has spent most of his life traveling North America and has spent time as a tour guide in Alaska. In his spare time, Tyler is usually found with some kind of board under his feet. If he isn't doing board-sports, he can be found lost somewhere in the outdoors.

Organizing Travel Plans

As a tour guide, I have had a lot of experience helping individuals have an enjoyable and

smooth vacation. It has been interesting to observe how differently people will go about planning and enjoying their vacations. I am always shocked when I see people who have been planning to visit a specific place for years but never actually took the time to effectively plan what to do once they’re there. Planning and organisation are key to getting the most out of your vacation. Here are a few tips to help you.

Your Schedule

In places with seemingly limitless options, it is important to prioritize the possible activities. When I was in Alaska, I was a guide to a family who had wanted to visit Alaska for most of their lives. They finally made it, and they tried to take full advantage of every minute of every day (this was made easier for them because it was summer solstice, so the sun was up 24 hours a day). They were in Fairbanks in the morning after a 12-hour flight and immediately went on a short river cruise. Once this river cruise ended they grabbed lunch and jumped on a 3-hour guided tour that would drop them off at their hotel once finished. Once they arrived at their hotel they immediately hopped on a flightseeing tour that returned a little after 10pm. They grabbed a quick dinner and went straight to bed knowing they had to wake up at 5am for a guided tour in Denali National Park. By the time this tour ended they were so exhausted that they began to cancel other plans they had made. They missed out on salmon fishing, golfing under the midnight sun, and a glacier hike.

This was only the first 3 days of their 2-week long vacation. They couldn’t enjoy their vacation because they had tried too hard to milk every second. You want to ensure you don’t try to do everything and miss out on the things you really want to do.

It’s virtually impossible to look over every option for a vacation. It’s important to plan out blocks of time to do something you haven’t thought of yet. Try to fill that slot once you’re there, by researching, talking to locals, and sometimes just wandering until you come across something amazing. This will often give you a taste of what the locals do for fun, and it’s often different than what the tourists do. It can be scary to plan this way, but it usually pays off.

You need to plan a little time where you can just relax. This is a little different for everyone. For some, this time can be used for a walk or a long dinner. For others, this can come in the form of a much-needed nap. The specific activity is up to you, but if you plan for this time, your vacation will flow much easier and be significantly more enjoyable.

Your Suitcase

For most people, living out of a suitcase is not an ideal situation. It takes simple morning routines and turns them into a challenge. While living out of a suitcase isn’t ideal, it’s something we’ve all learned to put up with for the sake of vacationing. Finding an extra ten minutes of sleep on a vacation can go a long way. It is amazing how much time a planned-out suitcase can save.

Everybody’s wardrobe is different, so it is up to you how to go about packing, but there’s a few universal techniques that are gamechangers.

Pack items that you use at least once a day at the top. This makes it so you don’t have to do any unnecessary deep suitcase diving.
Pack your clothes in an organized fashion. If all your pants are at the bottom of your suitcase, you’ll be digging through and throwing clothes around every day. I like to pack by outfits so it’s all together, so you can grab whatever is on top and go.
Plan what you’re going to do with your dirty clothes. Don’t mix. Life is just easier when you know what is clean and what is dirty.

Your Documents

Have a place where all your important documents are. This can cover a wide variety of things like passports, foreign currency, credit cards, itineraries, schedules, tickets, etc. Have somewhere where you know where these things are and have easy access to. This also helps with the problem where one person in your group shows up to a flight or border without a passport. Normally, everybody remembers theirs, but at least you avoid that split second where you’re not sure if you have yours.

These are just a few tips that have worked for me and others I’ve talked to.

How have these worked for you?

What other travel tips have helped your vacation flow?

This was a guest post from Tyler Lebaron.

Thanks Tyler