You might have noticed that people are traveling more and more. That’s a fact. It was the case in 2019 and will be in 2020 and onward.
We plan our trips, we save the budget for traveling and we are looking for more authentic and unique travel experiences. Yet it all comes not without the stress of travel planning. Here’s is where a personal trip planner can help you probably better than anyone on anything else.
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Travel is for freedom
We live in an era of travelers, travel bloggers and vloggers. Travel embodies freedom. And freedom is the utmost value of what people are always seeking. The way today’s economy is structured does allow more freedom than people have ever had. Yet, the limits are still present, although well disguised.
Sure, you may afford more traveling, you can take more vacations, there are more holidays after all. However, eventually, you will have to return to your working desk. Even if you decide to travel a year or two, you will have to return unless you choose a profession that is closely related to traveling.
The limited freedom feels a bit painful. It is not rare that people feel more depressed after the trip than they were before. It is called post-travel depression. Any depression has just one root: it is the lack of freedom to do what one truly wants.
Hence to feel freer many people overcome their fears from the unknown and instead of choosing travel agency’s packages they dare to do travel planning themselves, as well as travel solo or with their friends.
Why you should not limit yourself with compromises offered by travel agencies?
The new technologies have made the world “smaller” than it has ever been. Hence there are more travelers out there then it had ever been. The tourism industry is flourishing. Yet a modern traveler is getting more demanding. He/she wants truly authentic experiences. He/she wants to feel free while escaping from his/her daily routine. And this is a fair demand.
The most progressive travel companies adjust their offers according to what a modern traveler wants. Their travel planners make trips more authentic, more off-the-beaten-path with more freedom and with more adventures included.
While travel agencies may want the best for their clients, their business model is still very limited to a concrete target audience. Travel agencies combine and re-sell services of local and international travel service providers. So, unless you choose to go for a trip on your own, you are more or less pushed to choose what is available (and what is profitable). This goes against your natural need for freedom.
How your natural temptation for escape travel is exploited?
If you are a hardworking person, you know the moments you want to escape from everything and everyone around you (hence I like using the term escape travel so much). You want to change the environment; at least for a while. Sometimes you even want to radically change your life. You start dreaming about your ideal escape travel and looking for your ideal travel planner. It must be your dream escape travel and not anybody else’s dream. Everybody deserves this regardless of his/her income level. 
“Well, let’s see. This trip looks just fine. There are some good highlights and some not that appealing to me. Yet I cannot find anything better right now. I don’t have time and I don’t want the hustle of my own travel planning. I just want to escape. Now!” Do you know this feeling? If yes, we’re on one boat. I’ve been in your shoes. You are pushed to accept travel planning compromises you don’t actually want to accept.
There is a “golden middle-way”
What if I told you there is a golden middle-way and you don’t have to agree with compromises? What if, instead of going to the closest travel agency, you just pick up your personal trip planner who will prepare a personal travel plan just for you; a personal trip planner that does not sell or re-sell tours, hotels, flights or packages but plans your trip according to YOUR needs only. Besides, you can do it online from any place in the world and plan your trip to any place in the world accordingly.
Getting the most out of your escape travel
If you had ever done a detailed travel planning on your own, you know that it can take a lot of time and effort. Besides, you are still not sure if you are getting the best out of it. However, you want to get the most out of your escape travel. You want your free time to be spent at its utmost. You don’t want to waste a minute for something you don’t want. This is why it is so difficult to choose. Besides travel planning or detailed planning at all might not be your life passion. You may just want to enjoy your trip, yet a personal very special trip only.
A personal trip planner just for you
The best way to enjoy it actually is to hire a personal trip planner/travel planner! He/she will prepare an individual travel plan with a detailed itinerary and several alternatives just for you and you will pay only for travel planning services. Every single activity during your trip will be planned according to what you really want.
Just pick up a destination, name what you are actually interested in and the trip planner will plan an ideal escape journey just for you and your travel mates. Heck, a good trip planner will even suggest a new exciting destination that you might not guess about before.
A personal trip planner will remove so much hustle from your pre-travel planning. He/she will find the most authentic experiences, activities, places to stay, tours and other travel essentials for you. So you can simply relax and focus on other things before your trip. A professional trip planner is also a traveler. Hence he/she will also ask you about your passions and what you want to try out. Hence your personal travel plan will be focused on your interests and not on the assumptions on what you may or may not like. You will get info about travel experiences and adventures you actually want to go for, so you can book only the best ones that you like.
Here are 10 practical reasons why it is a great idea to hire your personal trip planner. If this is too much for you to read, skip it an go to the summary.
#1: A personal trip planner saves your time and money
Your time is precious
What do you do when you need more information about the travel destination of your dreams? Right, you either go to Google or look for a piece of advice in a travel agency. You know very well that the cost of making the wrong choice can be high – wasted time and money. Especially if you choose to go to a longer and more distant travel destination. Sure, you can earn more money again, but you cannot get back your time.
As your trip planner I will need less time to plan your trip because 1) I am in love with what I am doing (that said helping people to plan their dream escape travel), 2) I am doing this professionally and frequently and 3) I travel frequently myself. By going through this process countless times I just know what to look at to send you to the best places to do the best and most authentic things. This saves your time tremendously.
It saves you money in a smart way
While hiring a personal trip planner might seem like an extra cost, it is actually a good value for money. Your travel planner may save you a lot more than you would spend going somewhere without any prior research or buying something from a travel agency. Why?
A trip planner prepares an individual travel plan precisely according to your needs and your budget, following your escape travel dreams. A trip planner does not get a share from travel service providers. You pay only for independent consultancy. In return, you get a professional travel plan prepared just for you with several alternatives on what to see and what to do following what YOU really like. It’s a clear gain.
#2: A real-life human trip planner provides personalized – not automatic response services
There are a bunch of “automatic” travel planners available online. Yet to be honest they are far from being ideal trip planners. By using one you can get some non-personalized offer combining some beaten path destinations or drawing of a very vague travel route. This is especially true when it comes to less known travel destinations where. Automatic trip planners just don’t have enough information and their planning tools are simply not good. This is not what you actually deserve.
Algorithms might give you some hints, but they are incapable of doing the human-alike travel planning job for you (not yet at least). A professional trip planner in person on the other side will find out all your preferences and needs much more effectively. A personal travel planner will screen for the best services that fit your needs perfectly.
Hence a personalized travel plan based on what you really want is a much better choice to go for.
#3: A personal trip planner is independent
Let’s be honest, it is hard for travel agencies to be truly independent in the process of travel planning for you. Don’t get me wrong. I believe that most of the travel agencies try to do the best for their clients. Depending on your needs and interests their services might be a good solution for you. Yet it is good to keep in mind that travel agencies often get their own share from tour operators and other travel service providers. Hence they are very much motivated to convince you to join the tours they offer.
Sure, it is not necessarily always bad, as this is what you might actually want to have. Yet, in most cases, it is far from what you expect. Especially if you are into adventure travel, ecotourism, and authentic experiences.
Hiring an independent trip planner (consultant) gives you much more flexibility. You are free to choose whatever you want, keeping the freedom to book whatever you like and change your travel plans as you wish. You will pay only for the independent travel planning (a personal travel plan) that will include several alternatives for you to choose from.
#4: Your trip planner will follow your passions (and may find new ones)
We all know how different we all are. Everyone has his/her own interests, passions, things he/she prefers to do and not to do. The same applies to travel. The big advantage of planning your own trip is knowing what you really like and finding it. Yet through a personal approach, a trip planner can do that for you even better.
A good trip planner will find out what you really like before he/she plans your trip. He/she is also a passionate traveler, who knows how important it is for you to get the utmost from your trip. A perfect trip planner though will suggest you something new to try by listening what you have to say about your passions. Isn’t this what you expect from a good travel service?
#5: Finding the most authentic things to do and places to visit
More travelers are looking for authentic experiences
Today more travelers are searching for the most authentic travel experiences. Why are we traveling after all? We travel because we seek unique adventures. We want to see different cultures, take part in original traditions, and see unique and unspoiled nature and historical values. If for any reason we don’t get this, we consider our trip failed or not well planned.
Treksoft Travel Trends Report for 2019 notes that “Travelers are choosing to become more immersed in the local culture when visiting a destination. They want to do what the locals do and eat where locals eat.”
Unique Latvian Sauna Ritual
The problem is that there is not enough time for an average traveler to find out what experiences are actually authentic. As said above making the wrong choices may end up with frustration about wasted time and money. Here’s where a good trip planner can help you a lot.
Getting out of the box
By going to mass tourism destinations only you may start believing that this is what “normal people” are going after when they travel. A big surprise comes once you get out of this box. Only then you realize how much time and money you have wasted for something that is not only fake authenticity but even distorts your perception about the travel destination as such and about people living there.
This is why finding authentic travel services is the key task of every trip planner. Your travel experiences depend very much on how authentic they are. A great trip planner will help you to get out of the box. He/she will look for the best and most authentic travel experiences based on reputable online reviews and his/her own experience and common sense.
A personal trip planner will help you to choose the best
What’s obvious for a travel planner, may not be so obvious for a traveler. Real travel professionals want to help you to choose the best and most authentic travel experiences, and the best travel adventures to make you happy. When I do travel planning for others, I want them to crave for the next trip. The worst thing for any travel service provider should be leaving their guest disappointed and bored. The same is for a personal trip planner.
I once met an Estonian traveler who had just arrived from Moscow and was pissed off the airport employees’ attitude. They had been rude and unfriendly just because she didn’t speak Russian. Well, no traveler is fully protected from such experiences. Yet she noted one very important thing: “As a traveler, you don’t need much actually; you just need to feel welcomed”. It is that simple. A good trip planner will make sure that the traveler will feel welcomed in any place he/she goes.
#6: Planning all travel essentials effectively
We all met some common difficulties while planning our trips. It is very common to consider travel essentials being the things that you have to take with you like passport and other travel documents, convenient shoes, backpack and so on. There are tons of online articles about these topics. Thus let me extend the list of “travel essentials” here and define them in a more unconventional way. Here are “travel essentials” that we actually must resolve before we come to the fun part of our trip.
Travel essentials include:
- Choosing the travel destination,
- Time and budget planning,
- Finding the best value for money services: the best places to stay, best local tours, experiences etc.,
- Figuring out the best flights and local transport,
- “Know before you go” things and
- Deciding what to pack.
It is possible to find out some of these “travel essentials” by searching the information online on your own. Finding and booking the flights, places to stay as well as car rental services have never been as easy as it is now. It can be still time-consuming to find the best options though.
It is more difficult to find experiences, tours, adventures that fit your interests and are most authentic simultaneously. Here is where a professional trip planner’s services come in very handy.
#7: Finding “Best value for money”
We all know how hard it is sometimes to fit in your travel budget, especially if you travel to some distant exotic destination. You want to get the utmost out of your trip. Most travel companies come out with compromises here according to the principle “you get what you pay for”.
But what if I will tell you that there is another – better way. What if I will tell you that you don’t have to go with the flow.
With the huge travel experience I have, I can say that you can find great authentic travel experiences regardless of your budget. Sure, they might not be luxury ones (or they may be), but do you really always need them anyway. A good trip planner will always look for the best value for money experiences that fit both your budget and your dreams.
Choose not the cheapest but the best value!
I think the “best value for money” is the best term that describes our needs whatever we buy. It means that we are looking for the best quality for the money that we are ready to spend. Not the cheapest, and not the most expensive, but exactly the best one that we can get and afford for the budget that we have.
Many travel agencies are not concerned about this principle. At least it is not their priority. Also, the big package tour operators do not care much about the “value for money principle” for their clients. They try to attract you with the “best” price. This is why we often see crappy hotels and so-so tours included in the package trips. Just by checking Booking.com and/or Tripadvisor we can often find more authentic places to stay with much higher customer trust and even cheaper.
Again, it takes some time to find the best local travel services and to combine them with your needs. Here’s where a good personal trip planner is actually “the best value for money” that you can get. A trip planner will prepare a personal travel plan just for you.
#8: Getting the best out of online info & reviews
Reviews play a big role for travelers in deciding where to go, stay, and what to do. This is why Tripadvisor has become so big, popular and reputable online source. Mouth to mouth recommendations is the most effective and reliable information source about the quality of any travel experience. All the travel service providers know this and are motivated to get the best reviews.
One of the trip planner’s key task is to check out online reviews and to propose the best-rated travel services for you.
There are lots of good small local service providers though, who may not have enough or any online reviews yet. It is worth giving them a chance if you want to discover new and authentic experiences. A good travel planner will include such options in your travel plan.
#9: Adventure travel is the future of travel
Authentic escape travel experiences come hand in hand with adventure travel. To get the utmost out of your trip you should be ready to go for an adventure. It may be a soft, medium or hard one. It all depends on your preferences, fitness level and willingness to challenge yourself and push your limits.
Adventure travel becomes more and more popular as it colors any travel experience. Besides, you do not have to jump from the cliff or go deep diving to be adventurous (although you can do it, of course). Moderate hiking, kayaking, recreational diving, snorkeling and wildlife spotting are adventurous too. Besides adventure travel are good for your wellness and expanding your world-view.
A trip planner will fine-tune your travel adventures according to what you really want and are ready for.
Adventure travel naturally becomes the travel of the future. Why? It is just more interesting. Also, instead of being passive any physical activity during your trip lets you feel more fulfilled and more joyful. Hence you can enjoy your travel experience at its utmost.
#10: Sustainable Travel & Ecotourism
We cannot avoid the global environmental challenges we are facing today. Wherever we go we see the consequences of environmental calamities, excessive resource consumption, pollution, climate change, poverty, and biodiversity loss. They are affecting all of us every single day even though we are not always aware. Sustainable travel is just one but very important way how we can help deal with these challenges.
Here’s where a personal travel planner comes in very handy. A trip planner will reach for sustainable tourism companies and sustainable travel products for you. Get more tips for sustainable travel in our blog post here.
Discover ecotourism
Although ecotourism has not been the most popular way of travel in the world so far, it is becoming more and more attractive and interesting.
Ecotourism goes hand in hand with authentic travel experiences. It is all about immersing yourself in nature and local traditions.
Pristine nature charges us. It makes us more aware and less stressed.
Ecotourism allows you to enjoy the original beauty of any travel destination. Ecotourism focuses on small like-minded traveler groups and brings people more off-the-beaten-path. This helps to reduce the huge over-tourism problem in mass tourism destinations.
Ecotourism also means sustainable travel. By raising awareness, it helps in solving environmental and social problems. This is why the trip planners from “i-Dā” Adventures focus on ecotourism combined with the adventure travel very much.
Summary
The advantages of using the services of a personal trip planner are obvious:
- It saves your time and money;
- You get personal real-life human approach while planning your travel adventure;
- A trip planner does not receive any commission from travel service providers, hence being independent in his/her recommendations;
- A trip planner suggests you “the best value for money” travel experiences. You get recommendations for the best travel services that you can afford for the budget that you have;
- A good trip planner listens to you and focuses on your passions (and may find some new ones for you, if you wish);
- A trip planner finds the most authentic things for you to do and places to visit, combining the online info, reviews, professional experience, and common sense;
- A personal travel planner prepares all the travel essentials for you more effectively than a travel agency or even you yourself would do. These include travel destination, time and budget planning, finding the best value for money travel services, figuring out the best flights and local transportation. compiling “know before you go” things for you and finally recommending what to pack;
- A good trip planner puts an emphasis on sustainable adventure travel and ecotourism. These have the potential of providing you with the best and most authentic experiences. You will most likely leave a positive impact on the environment and local communities instead of exploiting them.
Have you used a personal trip planner service so far? What was your experience? Have you found any advantages by using a personalized trip planner? Leave a comment below or drop me an e-mail to rolands@escaperies.com.
