Hi Reader,

It won’t be long before we’re flying back to Sri Lanka for a three-week holiday. It suddenly feels like the countdown has really begun.

From our previous emails over the last few weeks, we’ve been talking about choosing a destination, touched on the planning stage and how to make travel work around a full-time job.

Well, we are now at the exciting stage where everything is coming together.

Our flights are booked, most of our accommodation is sorted, we’re just finalising the last few details, and our itinerary is now complete.

Every time we visit Sri Lanka, we make a point of spending time with friends and family in Colombo before exploring more of the island.

In this case, we are heading to our favourite hotel in Dambulla, and from there, we’ll continue to Trincomalee for a few days, before returning to Colombo for the final part of our trip.

If you have been following us for a while, you’ll know that we try to visit Sri Lanka annually.

And on this visit, we’re heading to the other side of the island, somewhere I’ve never been, although Shams visited over 25 years ago.

One of the things we are excited about with visiting Trincomalee is snorkelling around Pigeon Island.

We’ll also be sharing plenty of footage and behind-the-scenes moments on our social media while we’re away, so if you’d like to follow along, we’d love to have you with us.

As we put the finishing touches to our own plans, we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to share our travel planning process, so you can see how we put it into practice.

So once you’ve chosen your destination.

What comes next?

We follow a very similar planning process each time we book a trip. It helps us stay organised without feeling overwhelmed, and although every destination is different, the process rarely changes.

So for our Sri Lanka trip, our planning process looks something like this:

1 - Choose the destination.

In our case, this is Sri Lanka.

2 - Do your research.

Research is probably the stage where we spend the most time, but it doesn’t have to be complicated.

For this trip, we looked at when we wanted to travel, what the weather would be like, and which parts of Sri Lanka would be at it's best.

Because Sri Lanka has two monsoon seasons that affect different parts of the island throughout the year, we knew the east coast would have the better weather during our visit. That’s one of the main reasons we decided to include Trincomalee this time.

From there, we started looking at things to do, places to eat and recommendations on where to stay. Most of our ideas come from Google, YouTube, Pinterest and other travel blogs. We’ll make notes as we go before turning those ideas into our itinerary.

There’s no right or wrong place to find inspiration. The important thing is collecting ideas first, then narrowing them down into a trip that suits your time, budget and travel style.

3 - Set your budget.

Once we know where we’re going and roughly how long we’ll be away, we can build a realistic budget. That gives us a clear savings goal before we start booking anything.

4 - Plan the route.

Once we know the places we want to visit, we look at the best route. This helps us understand how much time we need for travelling between destinations and stops us from spending unnecessary time going backwards and forwards.

5 - Book the essentials.

Flights are usually first, followed by accommodation.

One thing we’ve learnt over the years is not to rush this stage. We’d rather spend a little longer finding somewhere in the right location than save a few pounds and spend hours travelling backwards and forwards.

6 - Build the itinerary.

This is where everything starts coming together.

Rather than trying to squeeze in everything we find online, we look at what we’d genuinely enjoy, how long journeys will take, and whether the plan actually feels realistic.

For this trip, we’re breaking up the journey to Trincomalee with an overnight stay in Dambulla. It makes the journey far more enjoyable, and it gives us another excuse to stay at one of our favourite hotels.

No two trips are ever the same, but having a simple process means we’re far less likely to miss something important.

This week’s travel challenge

If you’ve already chosen your next destination, spend just 20 minutes planning one small part of your trip this week.

Maybe that’s researching the best time to visit.

Maybe it’s looking at accommodation.

Or perhaps it’s watching a couple of YouTube videos to get a feel for the destination.

You don’t need to have everything booked today.

Just taking one small step can make your next trip feel that little bit closer.

If you’re planning a trip to Sri Lanka, our Pocket Sri Lanka Guide brings together many of the tips, recommendations and planning advice we’ve learnt over our many visits.

We’re also putting the finishing touches on our one-to-one travel planning consultations, and we can’t wait to share more about it with you very soon.

Before we go…

We’d love to hear from you.

Are you currently dreaming, planning or booking your next trip?

Just hit reply and let us know. We'd love to hear from you.

Happy travelling

Bev & Shams

P.S. One more thing before you go…

Don’t forget to stay safe online while travelling. We use NordVPN whenever we’re connecting to Wi-Fi abroad, and it’s become one of our travel essentials.

Stay safe online with NordVPN.​

Email: bev@bevandshams.com

Website: www.bevandshams.com​

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Resources: www.bevandshams.com/travel-resources/​