Free travel guide, how to do it?

After many independent travels, I have summarized a set of 4W1H independent travel strategy methodology and practical experience to share with you.

WHOM? (Who are you going with?)

The first step is to determine the travel group.

Many people have the misconception that when making travel plans, the first thing to do is to determine the travel destination. However, this isn't the smartest choice. The first step in formulating a travel strategy should be to find out who you are going with this time, that is, first determine the group of people you are going to travel with.

Why? Who to go with? is more important than where to go? Because each tourist destination has its own attributes, of course some have similar attributes. For example, Beijing is suitable for both study tours and family tours. However, the personality of the destination is universal. The most extreme routes, such as Antarctic travel, circumnavigation, and extreme mountaineering, are obviously not suitable for mass tourism.

So the first step is to find out who you are going with on this trip! It is also a parent-child tour. If you are traveling with teenagers aged 7-14, children aged 3-7, or children under 3 years old, the priorities of your choices are also different. Choosing the right destination will make your journey more enjoyable. More interesting.

Some people also question, who is more important to go with? Could it be that I posted a post in the community to recruit companions before I decided where to go? If you decide to use the community to recruit travel companions to travel, you have actually chosen to travel with yourself. In most cases, you will still set off on your own, meeting up with your travel companions at some point, perhaps traveling together for a certain period and then parting ways.

WHERE? (Where to go?)

The second step is the well-known "Where to go?". After determining the travel group, you can choose the travel destination accordingly.

Choosing a travel destination is a skill! Unless you are setting out alone. Before I gave birth to a baby, I always liked to go out alone. As long as the vacation allowed, I could stay wherever I wanted, as long as I wanted. But after you have a baby, you have to choose based on the baby's characteristics. For the time being, you don't dare to take him to places with high altitudes and relatively difficult conditions. For example, last year someone offered me a self-driving tour in Populus euphratica, so I had no choice but to decline.

One key point in formulating a travel destination is to combine the big and small, and briefly list the big and small places you want to visit during this trip. For example, if you plan to go to Vietnam on this trip, it is a big place; if you plan to go to Da Nang, Vietnam, it is still a big place; if you plan to go to Da Nang, Hoi An, and Hue in Vietnam, those are big places. +Small place.

The way to quickly reveal the complete free travel strategy is to initially draw up the places you want to go to, large and small, so that they will not be missed when you refine the itinerary later; secondly, you can make a preliminary decision Map out the route of this trip so that it will be much easier to book the next trip.

When formulating this step, you must have a "relaxed and open-minded" mentality. Because independent travel is not a group tour, the planning is not that strong, and the journey is full of variables. It is very common that you are not able to visit all the landmarks you originally listed. If by any chance you are unable to visit the place you planned to visit, just leave some regrets and use it as an excuse to go again next time!

WHEN? (When will you go? How long will you go?)

The third step is to confirm the travel time. This step cannot simply be understood as planning a trip on . Doesn't this step make sense?

Of course not. The significance of confirming the travel time is to confirm whether there are any special festivals at the travel destination that you can participate in during the trip. For another example, if you plan to travel to Thailand in April, then you can see if your vacation time can coincide with the Songkran Festival, which will also affect the subsequent itinerary refinement.

If you are planning your trip directly and are going to Thailand to participate in the Songkran Festival, then this step involves confirming the travel duration. For example, if your vacation lasts for 12 days and you want to participate in the Songkran Festival in Bangkok, Pattaya, and Chiang Mai, Thailand, then the itinerary plan will generally emerge. You can fly directly to Chiang Mai to participate in the first water splashing war in Chiang Mai and stay for 5 days; then fly to Bangkok to participate in the water splashing festival in big cities and have fun for 4 days; and go to Pattaya by land for a 3-day vacation.

WHAT? (What to play?)

The fourth step is to list the projects you want to experience.

For a certain tourist destination, there are always some reasons that make you tempted, which are actually the items you want to experience. For example, if someone goes to Da Nang and hopes to see the "50 places that must be visited in life", then Linh Co Bay and Van Hailing should be included in the itinerary; someone goes to Chiang Mai just because he hopes to participate in the elephant conservation project, then the itinerary An elephant conservation camp will be arranged within. The experience project mentioned here is actually a more detailed arrangement than deciding the size of the place. It can be said that it is an arrangement down to what you are going to do on a certain day during the trip.

HOW? (How to achieve it?)

The fifth step is to formulate an implementation plan.

How to implement it may be the most difficult part of the free travel strategy. The first four W's have solidified the appearance of the entire itinerary plan, and then there are the ways to implement it.

Compared with 10 years ago, today's Internet era is more than 1,000 times more friendly in solving the problem of free travel.

I still remember that in 2005, I went on a free trip to southern Sichuan and northern Gansu. At that time, I needed to print out the maps of some places before departure, and also checked the public roads in each place through the Internet before departure. How to connect the transportation and record it in a notebook, and go to the bus station to buy tickets locally. In terms of hotel reservations, we also relied on corporate connections to find local travel agencies to introduce hotels. At that time, our company was even responsible for the planning and adjustment of the area and was not very clear about the local hotel situation. I needed to use my own journey to help find the way.

In today’s Internet age, all of this can basically be solved through various platforms, and it’s completely timely to make reservations locally, so my only suggestion is to make full use of the platform. Free travel does not mean that you must travel to every place by yourself. For some relatively remote destinations without public transportation, you can try to participate in one-day tours provided by local travel agencies.

TIPS (my practical experience)

1. When making plans, I always leave about 30%-40% of the blank time in the itinerary without making specific arrangements, because Free travel means variables. If I encounter a place I like in the local area, I will choose to use the free time to stay more; if you are a person who is more accepting of variables, this ratio can be expanded to 50%-70%.

2. Even if the travel strategy is detailed to each day, only book accommodation for the first 1-2 nights before traveling. The developed Internet era makes it possible to book at any time. Even if the plan changes, there will be no loss of room fees due to NO SHOW.

3. The domestic platform is too powerful, especially when traveling in Southeast Asia. Many local entertainment products can be found on the platform, and they are far cheaper than consulting local travel service providers, hotels, and fleets. , the response speed is also faster. Of course, if you go to each local consultation and compare, you will have a different feeling of "free travel", but after comparing, you may be more willing to solve the problem on the platform.