Tips to avoid decision fatigue?

General
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I love travelling but lately I feel it’s too much planning for one person. The flights, hotels, activities, transportation… so many choices, prices, and time pressure! It gets super overwhelming when trying to find the “perfect fit”.

I’d love to hear some tips to avoid this kind of burnout because in the end I either don’t book anything or I do last minute and encounter a few “sold out” moments. Thank you!

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For most of my trips, and I travel a lot, I like to book a group tour for part of the time and then I do what the tour didn’t cover on my own. This way, I am only having to do the leg work for part of the trip and not the whole time. It’s a balance that works well for me.

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I actually LOVE the planning. I am the person to spend weeks doing research, then make word sheets with all info, plans, things to do, walking/subway distance to each activity/restaurant so on.

For me its the best part of the journey. But I also sometimes travel with friends who are the complete opposite, so they are happy when I can plan it all.

Many of the tours here on tourradar saves you alot of planning. Also more and more of the travel companys (tripadvisor,booking.com,Airlines and so on) now offer more than just their primary service, so you can get hotel,flights and so on on the same app.

However my experience is that its always best to order flights directly with the Airline, because there are often changes and disruptions, and if booked with the Airline they fix everything for you. booking.com and some travel companies are really difficult when this happens. For flights i ALWAYS use skyscanner and I try around with different dates withing the period I will travel.

Therefore my advice is to do it like this to simplify:

  1. Find out which dates you can travel within and where you want to go.
  2. Order flights (up to 12 months prior to travelling, they say best prices are 8-10 months before your journey), check prices via skyscanner, order through an airline! (if you go directly on the Airlines app the price may be higher because of algorhytms)
  3. Book hotels (often it is possible to do this even before flights, since you can usually edit or cancel booking for free, so this can be step 2)
  4. Order a tour on tourradar if you want to do a tour - if not skip to step 5
  5. Do research on the place you travel, find out where your hotel is located in relation to activities and so on (here i use google maps and search up different locations)
  6. Check guided tours or sights and activities you want to do, i mostly use tripadvisor or getyourguide for this (here I also use google maps to see what is close to the hotel, and where the things i want to see or do is in relation to each other so I can get at least 2 things in the same day, to leave 1 day or 2 open for “chiling”. Most of activities on tripadvisor can be cancelled for free up to 24-48 hours prior to the day of the activity so no problem to book early.
  7. Lean back and wait until the trip is nearing. 2 weeks or so prior to the trip I go through my plans, revise them. And make a packing list.
  8. Its time for your vacation…

Im definitely not saying that everyone should plan as much as I do, and if you have a travel buddy who loves planning, let them do all this. But steps 1-3 are higly adviced to get right..

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I completely understand how you feel @micatravels! Im always searching for the perfect fit but the issue is it often doesnt exsist and i find it hard to commit until I look at every possible option and realise this!

I used to plan every aspect of my travels which is fun, but I have less mental energy to spend on it these days, this is why I love organised tours and think @traveler_502352 has it spot on. Take a tour, and then spend a few days independently. Especially if you take a tour at the start, get used to yoir destination, how it works etc and then you can also get some great local tips from the guides.

Brilliant list to follow by @Plasticbrain, agree with Skycanner being the go to for flights, and booking any extra hotels that have free cancellations helps you make a decison knowing you can change it.

Usually once you book something you’ll be happy with it!

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