How to Plan For a Trip Overseas

In just over a week's time, I will be travelling to Malaysia with my family! In fact, by the time you read this, I'll already be there! 

(Yes, this post is being written in advance and yes, I am finally getting more organised with scheduling my posts!) 

We'll be in Kuala Lumpur, the capital city, for 6 days and my Dad has put me in charge of planning what we do during that time. There are a lot of different ways to plan for a trip overseas but here are just the ways I like to do it. 

Pin a Whole Bunch of Images
Before anything else, I'll go on to Pinterest to scroll through images of the place I'm travelling to. That way I'll know what attractions to expect to see when I start doing more of my text-based research. If I'm feeling really inspired, I'll select images of my favourite looking places and arrange them on an A4 page in Photoshop. Just like the one I did below. 

Make a Bucket List
I love goal keeping and I love checklists. If you're the same, then I highly recommend making a bucket list for your holiday. There are usually plenty of ideas for pretty much any place you search for on Pinterest. I'm thinking of creating a bucket list devoted solely to all the restaurants and dishes I want to try. I'm really looking forward to all the food I get to eat while I'm away!

Read Travel Guides on Your Holiday Destination 
The Lonely Planet travel guides are always a great source of information. I already have a pocket book for both Hawaii and Beijing when my family and I travelled to these places in the past. Neither one of those trips would have been the same had I not bought those travel guides. I recently found one for Kuala Lumpur and have spent hours poring over it already. 

Talk to People Who Have Travelled There
I've spoken to a few people who've been to KL. It always helps to get firsthand advice. You'll also get a better idea for the overall experience of a place. Guide books and online articles tend to be more factual than anything else and while that's great for research purposes, it's still nice to hear the stories people have. 

Create a Detailed Itinerary 
Once you've got a definite list of all the places you want to visit, make an itinerary out of them. Write out the dates for all the days you're away then allocate two or three attractions to each (depending on how big or small the attractions are). Consider location when sorting these out as you want to make it easy for you as possible to get from one place to the next. 

Q: Have you been to KL before?
Thanks for reading!