Are you ready for week 5 of the Making the Most of Travel Series? I hope you have found it helpful so far, and that you have learned a trick or two for planning your next adventure! To recap, we have so far covered simple ways to get cheap flight tickets, some awesome trip planning resources, and some great websites that can help you save money on travel.
How To Travel Research
Researching for a trip is always fun, regardless of how much knowledge you have of your destination prior to starting your research. Whether you are heading somewhere you’ve never been or heard much about, or if you’re visiting a place you have been reading about for years, the excitement when researching a destination is real.
Below I share my favourite ways of doing research for a trip, and I hope it will help you find some extra inspiration for your next adventure!
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Reading Travel Blogs
One of my favourite ways to get excited about an upcoming trip is to read other travel bloggers’ experiences from the destination. This is also a great way to figure out what to do there, and to add some must-do’s to the list!
Travel bloggers work really hard to share the best sights and activities at each destination they visit, which is why reading their blogs and experiences is one of the best ways to research your next trip!
Some of my favourite travel bloggers, whose blogs I always check when I have booked a new trip, include The Blonde Abroad, My Life’s A Travel Movie, and Alex in Wanderland. Just like in my menu up top, they’ve got all their destinations easily sorted for you, so you can check out what they have to share about each spot!
Whether you are looking for a Madrid city travel guide or a 3-day Lisbon itinerary, you are always welcome to check out my blog as well!
Bloglovin’
Another great way to research a new destination through travel blogs, is utilising Bloglovin’. Bloglovin’ is a simple feed where you create a user, and follow all your favourite blogs (follow me here!). But what is also so great about it is that it has a ‘Search’ feature, which is one of my favourite things about the platform.
Simply type your destination into the Bloglovin’ search bar, and you’ll be able to browse thousands of helpful posts covering anything from where to eat to what hotels to stay at! I always make sure to have a look through the Bloglovin’ Search results whenever I am heading somewhere new.
Pinterest is by far my favourite way of researching for a trip! What many people don’t understand about this social platform (and I didn’t either until I took this amazing course!)* is that it is not only a social media platform, but a search engine.
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This means, that the Pinterest bots will always do their best to show you the most valuable and helpful content (yes, I am picturing tiny little robots doing this job). So when you type in a destination in the Pinterest search bar, these little bots will do their very best to find the top posts on that destination.
Pinterest will also suggest more keywords to go with your search, based on what other people are searching for. This could be a good way to discover some things you didn’t know about the destination where you are headed.
For example, if you were to search for ‘Bergen, Norway‘, one suggestion that shows up as an addition to your keyword is ‘Fish Market‘. And voilá! You’ve just discovered that Bergen does in fact have a popular fish market (in case you didn’t know).
How do you research your trip?
Now over to you. Please leave a comment about your favourite way to research for a trip! Do you ask friends and family who may have been there? Spend hours on TripAdvisor? Buy a guidebook? Or just wing it upon arrival? There are so many ways to do travel research, and I can’t wait for you to share how you do it!
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Found this helpful? Make sure you don’t miss the other posts in the Making the Most of Travel Series!
Week 1: Introducing the Make the Most of Travel Series!
Week 2: The Guide to Getting Cheap Tickets
Week 3: Must-Use Trip Planning Resources
Week 4: Websites to save you money on travel
Week 5: The Best Ways to Research for a Trip
Week 6: Budgeting for and During your Trip
Week 7: Travel Bloggers Share their BEST Travel Planning Tips
8 comments
There is nothing wrong with research, but it is also nice to be surprised by things during travelling.
I think I use lonely planet, trip advisor and pinterest the most…. I think that is a good mix of opinions.
x
So true, Stephanie! Research is great for figuring out your ‘musts’ for a new destination, but being surprised by a place is always great! 🙂
Pinterest is a huge help! I also still like getting an old fashioned print guidebook. I always double check the info online to make sure it’s up to date, but it’s nice to have the physical books sometimes. I want to get a good collection of travel blogs to fall back on for when I go somewhere. Right now I follow you, Cosmos Mariners, and the Suitcase Scholar. Those are my favorites!
Pinterest sure is great for researching travel! 🙂 My mum always buys guidebooks, too, and I love reading them! 🙂 Thank you for following, Becky – I really love hearing that! 😀
I spend a lot of hours over at Youtube whenever I’m researching directions to places, because it helps me to actually see landmarks to avoid getting lost. 🙂 I never knew you could research via Pinterest!
Teesh ♥ || Adventures of Cupcake Girl
That’s so clever, Teesh! Gonna use YouTube to research for my next trip now!
Great Post! It’s always good to read about other people’s experience on a specific location, I always get new ideas on what to do and where to go 🙂
Thank you! 🙂 I do love reading travel blogs during my research, it gives so much new insights and inspiration! 🙂