The first step towards packing your bags and rushing off is figuring out where you are rushing off to. With approximately 29% of Earth’s 510 million km² (~ 196 million sq miles for the ‘SI-unit challenged’) surface area being land, the options are pretty wide. The obvious factors to consider while picking a destination are the weather, distance, trip duration and budget. There are numerous websites dedicated to showing you where to go when based on the weather and local festivals/events. Here is one such website.

Sometimes, the best time to visit a place may not be the best time to visit the place. Unless, of course, you like paying through your nose to deal with maddening crowds. The best time to visit a place is just before the start or just after the end of the peak/high season when the weather is still great, the prices are acceptable and you don’t have people swarming over your slice of heaven. Also, there are some places that do not have extreme variations in weather through the year. We visited Jamaica in July (the lowest of low seasons) and had to put up with a slightly warmer weather and about an hour of rain every evening. In return, we probably spent half the money that we would have during the peak season and had the entire beach to ourselves. The same holds good for places where activities are not weather dependent. When we visited the Arenal and Monteverde area of Costa Rica during the wet season of July, we regularly got drenched in the evenings for a few hours. But it did not matter because we were either white water rafting, zip lining or hiking through a cloud forest that was humid 365 days a year.

Another aspect to consider is how far away from home you will be traveling. I believe that “the duration of a trip should be directly proportional to the distance from home”. A good rule of thumb I like to follow is to at least spend in days the number of hours I need to fly to get there (4 hour flight = at least a 4 day trip). You might be tempted to hop on a flight from New York to Paris for a long weekend to take a peek at the Eiffel Tower. But if I am going to be spending 8 hours one-way on a plane and paying that kind of money for a ticket, I would like to see a little more of France. On the other hand if I lived in Europe, I wouldn’t hesitate to make multiple trips to France and explore a different area each time.

Research a little before you research a lot. There have been times when I have been fixated on going to a certain place and done most of the planning before I realized the trip wasn’t logistically feasible. A quick check of the destination weather, flight ticket prices, travel documentation requirements (how long it will take to obtain a visa if necessary) and accessibility to your points of interest will tell if the trip is practicable.

Happy Travels!