According to a survey done at the top of 2024, more than 60% of Americans said they planned to spend more on travel than usual throughout this year. After being stuck at home during the pandemic, many people are starting to get out and see the world in whole new ways.
If you’ve been trying to pick the perfect time to take your dream vacation, right now might be your moment. Whether you want to travel alone or go on a family vacation, you should look into taking the trip of a lifetime between now and the end of the year.
You should also aim to make the absolute most of your dream vacation by planning ahead for it. We’ve thrown together a list of travel tips that’ll get the planning process off to a strong start.
Take a look at how to have a dream vacation below.
Decide On a Destination
When you close your eyes and imagine your dream vacation, where do you see yourself? Are you:
- Sitting on a beach
- Walking around in an amusement park
- Hanging out on a cruise ship
- Taking tours of ancient buildings
- Watching your favorite sports team in person
Your dream vacation doesn’t have to be the same as everyone else’s dream vacation. You’re more than welcome to let your imagination run wild and select any destination you want.
For some people, that will be, say, Australia. For others, a Virginia vacation will be everything they’ve ever wanted.
It’s important to make your dream vacation your dream. You can do this by taking some time to decide on the ideal destination.
Set a Budget
Once you have a better idea of where you would like to travel for your dream vacation, you can set a budget for it. It’ll be very important to do this so that you don’t come back home after your trip to a tall stack of bills that you know you can’t pay.
It would be worth learning about how to budget for vacations if you don’t have the slightest clue as to how to do it. It’ll put you on the right path as you set out to create a budget that you can actually stick to.
It’ll also let you know how much money you’ll need to try to save up between now and the time you go on your dream vacation. You’ll want to leave yourself at least a month or two to save so that you can spend freely when you start traveling without it coming back to bite you later.
Choose a Resort
You’re probably not going to want to spend too much time sitting in your hotel room when you’re on your dream vacation. But that doesn’t mean you should just pick the first resort you can find in your dream destination and run with it.
For your dream vacation to truly be every bit as magical as you want it to be, you will need to try to stay in a very nice resort. It’ll make your trip that much more special and enable you to enjoy yourself at every single turn.
If you’re going to be headed on the Virginia vacation that we alluded to earlier, there is only one Williamsburg resort that you’ll want to consider staying at. The Westgate’s Williamsburg resort is absolutely incredible and will make you wonder why you thought about staying anywhere else.
Whatever you do, please don’t skimp on your hotel in an attempt to save money. This will backfire on you fast and possibly even turn your dream vacation into a nightmare.
Figure Out Transportation
How are you going to get from your house to your dream vacation destination? That’s a question you’ll want to start trying to answer sooner rather than later if you can.
The sooner you’re able to start looking up tickets for flights, the sooner you’ll be able to book them for the best price you can possibly get them for. You don’t want to wait too long and end up spending a small fortune on flights and have it cut into your dream vacation budget.
You’ll also need to look into taking other modes of transportation while you’re traveling. For instance, you might need to rent a car or plan to get around in a new city in another way.
You might even want to splurge a little and book something like a limo or a party bus to pick you up at your house and take you to the airport. Doing something like this will come at a cost, but it’ll also get your dream vacation off to a fantastic start.
Line Up Activities
What exactly are you going to do on your dream vacation? Ideally, you’ll want to map out an entire itinerary for it long before your vacation actually begins.
It’s a great idea to do this for a few reasons. First and foremost, you should do it because it’ll help you generate some buzz around your trip. You’ll start to feel more excited about your upcoming vacation as soon as you start putting plans in place.
You should also do it because it’ll make sure you’re able to see and do everything you want to do during your vacation. You may run the risk of not being able to do certain things that you wanted to do on your dream vacation if you just wing it and hope for the best.
Additionally, you might be able to begin paying for some of the activities you’d like to take part in long before your vacation for a good price. For each of these reasons, you should try to start lining up vacation activities as far as in advance as you can.
Start Packing
When you go on a regular, run-of-the-mill vacation, you might be able to get away with waiting until the last minute to pack. But this isn’t the approach you’ll want to take when you’re going on your dream vacation.
For a vacation like this, you will want to pull out all the stops by packing at least a little bit ahead of schedule so that you definitely don’t forget anything. You might also want to do some shopping to buy yourself new clothes, shoes, etc. for your dream vacation.
Just try not to go too overboard and break the bank on things for your vacation. It might limit how much you’re able to spend on the trip itself.
Build Up the Anticipation
As we already mentioned, lining up activities to do on your dream vacation is going to help generate some buzz and excitement for it. But why stop there when it comes to building up the anticipation for your trip?
There are also lots of other things you can do to create anticipation for your dream vacation regardless of whether you’ll be traveling by yourself or bringing your whole family along with you. You want to get as excited as you possibly can for your trip to start.
How can you do this? Well, reading up on the destination you’ll be visiting should work well. It’ll have you eagerly anticipating touching down in your destination to see some of the things you’re reading about in person.
You might also want to skim through some blog articles that other people have written about visiting your destination. They might be able to give you some much-needed advice on what to do (and what not to do!) when you visit your destination.
It might even be worth speaking with other people you know about what it was like for them to visit your dream destination. They’ll also be able to give you some advice while assuring you that you’re going to have the time of your life on your dream vacation.
Get In Great Shape
No matter where you’re going to be traveling to on your dream vacation, there is a very good chance that you’ll be doing your fair share of walking and moving from one place to the next. For this reason, you’ll need to be in excellent shape to fully enjoy your vacation.
With this in mind, you may want to consider trying to whip yourself into shape between now and the time when you leave for your vacation. If nothing else, you should start walking at least a few times each week so that you’re able to walk around on your vacation without getting too tired each day.
If you aren’t in decent shape on your dream vacation, it might limit the amount of fun you might have. It might even prevent you from seeing things that you’ve waited practically your whole life to see.
Document Your Travels
You’re only going to get to go on a dream vacation once. There will, of course, be other vacations that you’ll go on in the future. But this one is going to be something truly special.
Because of this, you should do your best to document almost every minute of it so that you don’t ever forget it. How can you do this? Well, you’ll have a handful of options.
You might want to start a blog about your dream vacation. You can document the buildup leading up to it and everything that happens on it. It’ll be a great way to look back and remember your trip and how excited you were for it.
You might also want to start up an Instagram page devoted solely to your dream vacation. You can take tons of pictures and put them up on this IG page. Even if you don’t share it with anyone else, you’ll like looking back at all your photos and sharing stories about them.
Outside of doing these things, you may also want to consider shooting as many videos as you can of your dream vacation and then trying to edit them together to create a highlight reel of your trip. It’s just one more way that you can document your trip in a creative way and make some memories in the process.
Let Loose
When the time comes for you to finally go on your dream vacation, you almost won’t believe it. You will have waited so long for this day to come that you’ll have a difficult time wrapping your head around what’s happening.
It’s okay to be a little shell-shocked at first. But at some point, you should let your hair down and really soak up everything your dream vacation has to offer. It’ll allow you to make the most of the situation.
You’ll inevitably have the opportunity to try things that you’ve never done before. Do them even if they make you nervous and have you second-guessing them. You’ll regret it if you don’t.
You should try to stack as many memorable moments as you can on top of each other. It’ll make your dream vacation a special occasion and make you so glad you put so much work into planning it from the beginning.
Begin Planning Your Dream Vacation Today
Planning your dream vacation might be more stressful than you thought it would be if you wait until the 11th hour to do it. You might also risk not being able to see and do everything you’d like to see and do on your vacation if you don’t start planning it now.
Take all the travel tips we’ve provided for you and use them to bring together the plans for your dream vacation. You can turn this vacation into almost anything you want and love every second of it.
Look for additional travel tips and tricks in the other articles published on our blog.
