How do you narrow down trips?

Hello Mary57

I am an old lady who has a fairly tight budget, For many years, I was not able to travel so I am trying to make up for lost time.

For me, a cruise works best. I take one cruise a year usually in September or October. I sail Norwegian. Currently working on my 9th cruise with Norwegian and my third time to Europe.

Last cruise was from London (Southampton) to Lisbon.. I had a very old friend in London who I got to see and a very old friend in Lisbon who I got to see. So my old friends helped me decide on my cruise. I spent 6 nights in London and 4 nights in Lisbon. Then there was an amazing. cruise in between. Sadly because of an arthritic knee, I could not fully enjoy this cruise.

Now I am working on a Mediterranean cruise leaving from and coming back to Barcelona. I am spending 5 nights in Barcelona pre-cruise. And I still have the same arthritic knee but feel better prepared. I have chosen this cruise just on what I heard and read about Barcelona and the Mediterranean.

I spend all year working on my cruise. Because of my limits (age and money), I always seek out new places.

I have Asia on the brain so maybe the next one will be Asia but I am eager to go to Norway and Iceland. as well

I go to the Norwegian site and search for cruises in September, October and November or April, May. Then I see what is sailing those months. I look for cruises that are 7 to 10 days. Then I look at the itinerary and what port we are leaving from.

I love the research. As said, I spend about a year doing my research. I ask a lot of questions on this forum.

I accept that I can not see all that I want to see. I try to enjoy that which I can see. You may be young enough to go back to places but I cannot.

Mary57,
For me, I have a general wish list, a kind of bucket list. Whether I go by that list, from #1 on down, depends on many circumstances. For instance, my #1 has always been Egypt, but I didn't get there until 2019, when I was 75. Poilitical circumstances there sometimes made it difficult to go, or I didn't have the money when politics weren't an issue, or I didn't have enough time off work in a lump. Or someone at home needed me here. So I would swap in what worked at the time.

Sometimes a good deal came up, as our trip to Kenya. Other times I realized that I had enough air miles to go somewhere far away (with pricey air fare). That is how we flew business class to Chile. I always have places in mind that I want to visit, and when the opportunity arises and all factors seem to fall into place, then I guess the universe is telling me to GO there, then.

Like you, I watch tv shows about destinations, and read books about them, and my juices get flowing and I try to plan a trip.
Ultimately, I look at what else is going on in my life, my home, and the world.
When I do pick a country or region to visit, I narrow things down as I go, taking into consideration what attracted me to that destination in the first place. It might be something as simple as the floral abundance in the Netherlands in the spring, or the migration of animals in Kenya, or the call of ancient history, or the desire for a good cassoulet. It is a bit ineffable. From there I find what else is happening in that city/country/region and build from there. The details of how long and what to do vary by location, so no consistent rules there.
By the way, from pre-computer days, I have a two-drawer file cabinet of clippings and articles about places all over the world, divided by country, and in the US by state, and in my home state of California, by region and county and city. Very travel-nerdy!
There are more useful ways to spend my spare time, but not necessarily as satisfying.

Interesting. I have done cruise as a middle part of trip (enjoying start and finish cities) as a way to help with the “fomo” of wanting to see more places without the hassle of moving my stuff.

I think my biggest Europe issue at moment is that I’m NOT thinking “I’d like to visit Amsterdam!” I’m thinking “I want to go to all the Europe places which ones can I shove into my next trip but still feel relaxed and fun?”

I tend to be more random. I don’t think too far ahead, although I always have a list of places that I would like to see. But sometimes I just seize the moment and pick someplace. For example, when I was in Germany in 2022, I was waiting for a guided tour of a castle in the Rhine area and started talking to 2 women who were sitting next to me.

One of them was German but the other one was Scottish and was talking about her hometown. And all of a sudden I got this idea in my head that I had to go to Scotland the next year. And I did. I loved every minute of my Scotland trip and I hope to go back at some point.

I think sometimes the trips that I take without too much forethought are the ones that I enjoy the most. Maybe it’s because I don’t have as high an expectation as I do of a place that I have been dreaming about for years.

I am heading to England for 5 1/2 weeks this year. Originally it was supposed to be a trip to France to visit a friend of mine who had recently bought a place in Pau. But I kept trying to think of ways that I could maybe squeeze England in, and finally I realized that I really wanted to go to England. So I canceled the France portion, and just focused on England and I’m very excited. I leave in three weeks. For what it’s worth, my friend totally understood. In fact, it worked out because they had to come back to the states much earlier than they had anticipated.

So I say go with your heart or your soul or your brain, or whatever it is that feels right to you. In other words, make sure your trip sparks joy. 😊

Yeah, you really need to just narrow your trip goals down. While we have no "bucket list", we do like to list trip "themes" or relatively compact regions.

So over the last few years, we did "Portugal", ""Spain: Andalusia and the Basque Region", "Sicily, with a bit of Naples and Rome", "Cornwall and Southern England", and in April, the "Portuguese and Spanish South Coast" (only from Tavira to Nerja)

We usually start with how long a trip, so maybe 21 nights, then figure, on average, no less than 3 nights per stop, so max of 7 stops in 3 weeks. We also try not to ever travel between destinations for more than 4 hours. Those guidelines tend to limit your area of travel, though fast trains and cheap flights prove to be tempting.

We are however lengthening our trips (to maybe 4 weeks, up to 6 weeks), though, with that we do more 5,6, and 7 night stays, not really more stops.

My process, if i can call it that, is based on my work cycle. a long summer break allows me to move at a relaxed pace even if i end up visiting a dozen places. i pick a country or a region first. then i make a list of all the places i would like to visit. i use tripadvisor to visualize the placement of each city/town on their map feature. concurrently i use apps like google maps, and rome2rio to figure out distances, time, and transportation options. i use airbnb to find places to stay. i don't plan my itinerary based on 'nights' but full days at a location. i count travel days separately. i pick 'bases' where i like to spend at least two days (i don't like packing and unpacking too often). i allow a full day for day trips. i then eliminate the least interesting and/or difficult to get to places. simultaneously i look at entry and exit cities for flights. i prefer an open-jaw itinerary. i keep track of everything by making a fillable calendar. this general system has worked for me so far!

Age is not in our favor, so we are planning our trips to take the more intensive and strenuous ones now.
We’re looking at those that require more language leaps and intricate travel while our brains are facile enough not to struggle. It’s not a very romantic answer, but we’re still traveling and have a grand time.

I would separate my list into regions for ease of travel and do one region at a time. I prefer trains. I like a more active, on the go approach that most people on this forum hate. But to each his own, I have adult onset ADHD and like to be moving thus usually spend 2-3 nights in one spot unless there are easy day trips from my base, then I stay longer. We will be 5 weeks in Europe this spring and my longest stay is 4 nights, the average is three but there are a couple of one nighters. I also like to do a half day tour ,bike ride,activity each day so I can learn as much as I can. I rarely have a day that I have nothing planned (gasp!)

I also like to do a cruise for the last ten days to see more difficult to get to spots like Greek isles, Baltic Sea cities etc. It is nice not to have to think about lodging,food,logistics after “being in charge” for three weeks, it is a great way to relax.

I guess it all depends on your travel style! It will be fun regardless if you have the right attitude, things can go wrong but it’s not the end of the world and makes for a great story when you get back home!

Hi Mary, I’m currently planning European trip #18 & 19, so our/my travel wish list has been in the process of being fulfilled for several years.

How to narrow down? I do almost all of the trip planning - a huge hobby of mine, and have always kept each trip to one country or two adjacent ones. When we were working, vacation time was very precious, so I aimed to minimize any transportation time.

How many stops? How much time at each? When we were working, our limit was 18-20 days. My husband doesn’t like to switch locations as often as I am willing, so each city was 2-5 nights typically. Largest cities were 4-5 nights. How much time depended solely on what we wanted to do there. I didn’t set the number of days at a location, first; the activities set the number of days. And that would determine the number of cities we could visit. At first I kept locations more to regions. For instance, our first independent trip covered just the Italy Veneto & Dolomite regions. And I always included one non-touristy city - a great experience!

Now my travel style has changed drastically. We’re retired. My husband likes to come occasionally, but he loves to be home playing golf during the warmer months which is when I like to travel in Europe. We just finished a wonderful 3-week trip in Spain, and the other two this year will be solo trips for me. My solo trips are fast-moving to many cities near each other - 1 or 2 nights are typical with a couple of longer stops. I travel relatively cheap & by train and keep almost all of the routes less than two hours. I really don’t like day trips.

My next trip is longer than I originally planned, but that’s driven by a couple of local festivals I want to attend, and they’re almost a month apart. That’s given me a lot of opportunity to plan to see more smaller cities which I love. The other trip is a 9-day sketch/watercolor art class plus afternoon activities Italy. I looked up festivals and have two that may make that trip longer, also…still haven’t decided, yet, where to “force that limit” that you mentioned balanced by being considerate to my husband. : ). I total all of the hours on trains I am planning for a trip and will switch options if it’s getting to be too many per the amount of days.

My husband & I are in our ‘60’s. When I mentioned the art class, he told me, “Do it while you can.”

I check out travel guidebooks from the library to see which areas sound interesting. I also watch You Tube videos of an area that I am focusing on to see what there is to do there and whether I still like it.

When I narrow down the country and cities or towns that I wish to go, I look on TripAdvisor.com for hotel possibilities for the dates I am considering. Booking.com and Hotels.com are very helpful. Often the places where I can get a hotel room that I like help me choose the location. I book the rooms with free cancellation and read the reviews over time. I use googlemaps.com to put in the hotel and pretend I am walking along the streets near it to see if it is near restaurants or public transportation. A hotel can have great photos online, but sometimes when I look at the area nearby it may be less desirable.

We like to use public transportation between locations so that is a factor that we check on also.

If we are able to mentally plan our days and location, then I begin looking at flights. Sometime we book a multi-city flight in to one location and returning home from another location so that we are not backtracking.

Research is a lot of the fun.

It's hard to believe that I've been traveling to Europe for 53 years--after attending college in Austria one summer. We've been to all the major European and Scandanavian cities numerous times--except Lisbon which we've never been to. I never thought I'd get tired of visiting big, busy cities, but future trips will be to smaller and less expensive cities.

We used to travel as far and fast as we could make it in a rental car. But very expensive gasoline cured us of that--and we discovered traveling slower and better. If you think many future trips to Europe are in your future, we suggest you travel to a central location and take day trips or work a smaller region.

If you're just beginning to see Europe, I suggest visiting London and Paris. If you have 3 weeks to spend, take a fast train to Barcelona or a train up to Amsterdam. And Italy seems to be everyone's favorite country to travel to. My granddaughter loves the food there.

I also like visiting Munich, Bavaria, Tirol district of Austria and Salzburg. Munich, Salzburg and Vienna are also great for one trip. Our new favorite city is Budapest, and we also suggest taking in Bratislava and Vienna on one trip. We were late visiting inland Spain, but we loved our trip to Madrid, Grenada and flying over to Barcelona before taking the fast train to Paris. Other than Barcelona, we don't care a thing about visiting the Mediterranean coast of Spain.

My wife is now having mobility problems, but we've been traveling with a personal power scooter without incident. We met our match in Venice last Summer with the arch bridges, but my granddaughter has now seen the city walking with me--my 10th+ trip there. We've been taking a week on the ground and a week on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean the last 3 years.

When we've had the time, we've taken two Spring repositioning trips from the U.S. to Italy and one trip into Southampton. The cruise ship is a very good way to visit new countries, and the prices are often cheaper than visiting on the ground--especially in very expensive countries like in Scandinavia.

Happy travels!

Like Patty, we need to schedule the more active trips now. I have 5 more bucket list trips outside of the US(in Europe and Central America). There's still a lot of the US I need to see. Time in each place is determined by what I prioritize to see there.

I have places that are “places of interest “ to me that I keep an eye on. I am also a bargain hunter. Usually one of those two elements play a major role in trip planning. The best trips are when they both come together!

I have a trip to Norway this spring that is not a bargain, but covers an experience that will disappear after 2025. I have a trip to Turkey and a trip to Japan that showed up under the bargain hunter element after that.

Many of you it seems don’t think “oh and —- is only 4 hours away! Then from there I can visit ——“ and make a long winding 6 country trip and I believe that’s what is holding me up.

One of my mild worries is always that we’ll become fatigued of local cuisine/offerings and we should sample/hop around vs dig into one place or area.

Mary 57: I’m guilty of thinking, “it’s only ___ hours away. I can get us there.” 😊 At our age, time is not on our side.
Our trips usually last about a month. The last few trips have been “anchored” by a RS Tour. After I decide on a tour, I look at the Europe planning map from RS.
For ex, last year we were on the Eastern (now Central) Tour which ended at Bled. We took the bus to Ljubljana. Flew home from Munich.
How did we get there?
Took GoOpti to Trieste. Then took train to Padua where we spent several nights.
From there, Dolomites by train & bus for 6nights.
Headed to Austria for a couple of nights.
Train to Mittenwald, Germany for several more nights…and finally Munich airport.
I would not have thought of piecing together our trip had I not visually seen how close those towns were to one another. So, we added 3 countries after our tour.
We had been to the Dolomites before and knew I wanted to go back. I like to revisit places i enjoy.

Art is my passion, with history a close second. Spending 8 days in Florence and 8 days in Rome was a typical trip for me. I’ve spent 1-2 weeks in Paris several times. I have done a trip to Scotland and England where I traveled by train to 5 stops in all but always spent 3-10 days at each stop. All of these were solo trips.

Now that I’m turning 74 soon I really feel like I need to keep moving but for me it will be more trips a year but still a slower pace than many you’ve heard from already. I think finding the pace that suits you is very important. I go into sensory overload if it’s too much too quick but others would be running for the exits if they were with me in the Louvre 😉.

The problem: how to choose?! How do you narrow down, and how do you
decide how many stops and how much time in each place is available?

Ha! I wish we had a simple and easy method or process to follow. For the most part, I'm limited by about 4 vacation weeks a year, so that puts firm limits around going too berserk. Add in an aging pup at home, and that limits it a bit further as we don't like to leave her for more than 2 weeks at a time. And then, we own a travel trailer, so international travel competes with US travel. We can take some of the US travel out of the equation by driving with the trailer on weekends and sticking in one place for the work week where I can work remotely. Also, long holiday weekends can be used for "quick breaks" that aren't full "vacations".

But coming up with new trips and prioritizing them and then actually planning & executing them is quite an on-going process. I get a lot of e-mails from travel groups/blogs/agents along with my various membership emails (airlines, cruise lines, Costco, credit cards, etc) advertising their latest & greatest offering. Add in YouTube orPBS travel shows, and there are tons of ideas being floated at me daily. I'll comb through stuff periodically, and if I like something, I usually bookmark it under something like Travel\Germany or Travel\Cycling or similar. Then, I can wander back to it later. Also, I sometimes print it out - if it is a newspaper article or blog or even just a map - and drop it in one of my physical travel folders.

Eventually, something from those saved lists percolates to the top and is incorporated in a vacation plan. Sometimes, something comes from nowhere and supplants previous plans. At worst, I start getting really antsy if I don't see stuff starting to fill up my calendar. When that happens, it's time to dig in and figure something out ASAP.

As others have replied, our trips have been more random--opportunities have just presented themselves, or we just sort of agreed that a certain place was a place we wanted to go. We tend to pick one place as our base, and do side trips from there. I don't think we have ever traveled between multiple countries or done multiple cities. We also have never been able to go for very long, so only being able to have an 8-day trip (10 at the most) has a lot of bearing on our planning too. The only trip I have absolutely researched to death and planned for years to do is the Camino Frances. I am still a couple years away from being able to take that much time away in Europe. My job would in no universe give me that much time off. I can barely get away for a dentist appointment! Have to retire first!

Seat Sales or reading about a location in a novel or seeing it on a movie or TV has been our most recent inspiration. Seat Sales also move places up the list in a hurry.

Narrowing it down further, we have an informal list based on what we should see while we're still young and bouncy with healthy knees and hips. For example we thought that due to the steep hills in Lisbon, it might be easier now than in 10 years.

I'm also prioritizing places that would be handier with a car so I can drive while still reasonably young.

Mary57 I am the same. A huge travel wish list (still in my early 50's so hoping to get to many of these places), that always seems to be growing! We are fortunate to travel often and for longer durations. Sometimes I'm overwhelmend by all my choices but then I remember that I do not like to bounce around a lot (makes me tired and grumpy lol!) So, I try to focus on my top priorities. For example, we leave in a few days for 6 weeks in France. We will do some day trips around and then we have one, four night trip planned. For this trip, a priority was to visit a seaside village on the Mediterrean before the crowds. Last spring our priorities for the trip were to maximize miles we needed to use for a far flung destination where typically flights are expensive and to get some warm sunny weather. In the past, we've also focused on countries or an area of a country (30 days just in Italy, Dolomites to Sorrento, 17 days in Republic of Ireland--no N. Ireland, etc.) My top priorities may change based on new information, a great airfare sale, special events that may (or may not) add to an experience. Interested to hear how others cull their lists.

Hi Mary, I thought about your question again this morning, and I think maybe you should just embrace wanting to see several countries at once and go on this tour:

https://www.ricksteves.com/tours/europe/europe-21-days

It would certainly give you a nice “Europe 101” experience as History Traveler mentioned, and you could focus on enjoying the trip!

While Iove the idea of a tour, the pace is too forced and quick and I strongly dislike idea of not being able to choose my own hotels. I couldn’t give up that much control- planning and plotting is so fun! We have found success with adding in a cruise (admittedly only done a few of those) with the right itinerary and destination as a part of our trips as I can pick quality of ship, do a lot of my own thing or let someone else take charge depending on mood.

Patty, we are of the same mind. The clock is ticking so we are trying to go further afield. We will be back in Africa this summer and India and Nepal in November.

Very, very interesting question. I enjoyed reading all the responses and found myself nodding to many in agreement.

I am still working a job and have family responsibilities which limit my time and funds for travel. For decades I have been putting travel off for "someday", but my patience finally ran out in 2019 and I booked my first big trip for September 2020...we all know how that went. Finally in September 2022 I got to go on my trip - which I had started planning when I was in third grade! In the decades in between I had quenched my travel thirst by mostly opportunistic 2-3 day stopovers in Europe or eastern Asia on the way to my home country to visit my parents, and some travel in the USA including camping trips, trips to visit family/friends, and some road trips to national parks. Over the next few years, I want to prioritize some of the most active trips on my wishlist but I am finding it tough to narrow down things to my budget and time constraints.

This is what my strategy is for my next trip (this Sep) with my husband: Figure out how many days we can get away for (10 days), and what our budget is. We knew we want to go to the UK. My husband and I each picked our top destinations - Ironbridge Gorge for my husband and Dorset coast for me. We then tried to find other interesting things to do near these two areas, and asked questions on this forum. Since my husband is interested in visiting industrial revolution sites, we were recommended to add in Bristol. Of course this has meant that both of us will have to sacrifice a day each in Birmingham and Dorset, but we do want to fit Bristol in. This also means that we will be travelling a little faster than we generally do (2-3 nights/place instead of 3-5 nights) but we feel we will not know if we like it or not till we try it. I expect our travel planning will evolve as we figure out our travel style.

We are retired now and have found that about 4 weeks away is our "sweet spot". As a few others have mentioned, we like to sandwich a cruise with interesting ports between two land trips at either end. Cruising can be very cost effective and is a good way to visit those places where you can see the highlights in one long, well-planned-out day. On land, I usually feel that it takes a good 3 days to get a feel for most places. (Now that we are retired and have more time, I allow 4 to 5 days - mostly because we do not have the energy we used to have.) Like most here, I enjoy research, which I think goes a long way towards eliminating places and sights that you will not actually like so you don't waste your time or money.

The first thing I look at is what we would would like to see and do in a place under consideration. I read guide books and Youtube it and that will tell me how to plan our days there (grouping sights by proximity to each other) and how many days we will need to cover things. That daily plan will also tell me where I should book our hotel so that it is convenient to what we plan to do. I try to avoid "one night stands" and we prefer train travel within Europe as it is "downtown to downtown" without wasting time in airports. I look at the train routes between destinations and lay them out efficiently. Sometimes at that point I will notice things of interest on the way and do a bit of research to see if we should add a stop there to the itinerary.

One thing I have NOT been very good at is minimizing the cost of airfare. We have been very averse to connecting flights (for a medical reason and also because my husband still values time/convenience over money). Both this year and last year I feel we are overpaying for airfare. I like to feel I got a good price on things, so in the future I am going to step up my bargain hunting in this area and that may very well change some habits.

Many of you it seems don’t think “oh and —- is only 4 hours away! Then from there I can visit ——“ and make a long winding 6 country trip

GUILTY!

Many people are not in my place, where my biggest limitation might be Schengen. I frequently now do trips that seem illogical - except that it is where I want to go and when I want to go. After a year of numerous trips back and forth (a few years ago), I am not a fan. So I now stay gone longer and tend to do what pops up. This year I started with a month in Ireland. Then a friend and I were talking about one of her weeks in England and somehow that wound up with me tacking on 12 days pre-Ireland to join her, with a short flight on to Dublin for the original trip. THEN another friend wanted to go somewhere for 10-11 days and settled on northern Italy (we do so well together that I would pretty much go anywhere with her) - and that ended up with the ferry over to Wales for a week after Ireland, followed by a flight to Italy. 🙈 My fall trip is not that bad - the Baltics and a flight to Budapest.

I do try hard to not race through a city (or country) but like most of us, time isn’t getting longer so I don’t feel like I have to be logical. If it takes a full day of transit, that’s fine because I am not on a limited 2 weeks of vacation.

However, I am also trying to work toward a balance of new places I want to visit, as well as previous places I want to re-visit. That’s the hard one for me. Some of those choices are determined simply by how I am feeling. When my nostalgia for a place reaches a certain level, I have to go back - however it has to fit in.