Our Top 5 Tips and HACKS for effective trip planning

Welcome to this month’s edition of our VANOTHER vlog. In this episode, we dive deep into our chaotic form of trip planning. Whether you’re a seasoned traveler or planning your first getaway, our tips and tricks will help you navigate your next journey with ease. Join us as we highlight some of our favourite tools, tips and hacks, and provide insights to make your next trip smoother and more enjoyable. Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more travel inspiration!

The VANOTHER Collective is a collaboration of Motorhoming, Campervanning and Caravanning vloggers; a group of like minded content creators who share a mutual love for travel and camping. We would absolutely recommend that you subscribe to them all and, in alphabetical order, the Collective members and their channels are:

** Adventures with Helen and John: https://youtube.com/@helenandjohnsadventures
** Al and Ciska’s Moho travel: https://youtube.com/@alandciskasmohotravels4101
** Caravan Escapades: https://youtube.com/@CaravanEscapades101
** Caravanning with the Mrs: https://youtube.com/@CaravanningwiththeMrs
** Footsteps & Tyretracks: https://youtube.com/FootstepsTyretracks
** Hey Ho Let’s Tow: https://youtube.com/@heyholetstow
** Julie & Andys Ace Ventures: https://youtube.com/c/UKMOHOTOURING
** Lang & Sarah: https://www.youtube.com/@LangSara
** Nuts On Tour: https://youtube.com/@nutsontour/featured
** Our Leap Of Faith: https://youtube.com/c/OurLeapOfFaith
** Stuart & Andy Vanlife: https://youtube.com/@StuartandAndyVanLife

This is a link to the VANOTHER Playlist where you can find heaps of fun VLOGS from the Collective: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgrJmTx-m-liDamoWc5DUuwkfFDgenrF6

Our music comes from Epidemic Sound (you can get a free month and up to 50% discount here: https://share.epidemicsound.com/7ea1zv) and Youtube music.

You can contact us here: helenandjohnstravels@gmail.com and if you’re feeling generous and would like to buy us a coffee (or pizza actually), feel free to take a hop over to here: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/helenandjohn

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hey guys and Welcome to our Vlog for June for the vanava collective the vanava collective is a group of likeminded vanas caravanas Campa vanas motor homers and every month we put together a vlog on a certain subject so I will list down Bear all of the other members of the collective and their channels do please take a look at them give them a like give them a subscribe follow them if you can it helps all of us coming up are the logos of all the other members and we’ll catch you on the other side thank you very much [Music] [Music] so this month’s Vlog is how we plan our trips um to be fair Helen and I are generally quite spontaneous and just get on with things and go but we occasionally we do do some planning so we’ll step you through all of that lot um hopefully Helen will be back from her gallivanting around Europe with her mom so she may well join us in this Vlog or not guide books we still use guide books Lonely Planet Rough Guide walking books great things the internet is absolutely super but sometimes you know these are great and they’re just you can read a guide book in bed you know you can sit there and go okay I want to go to this this area you can sit around and read it in bed you can’t read Google Maps or the internet in bed guide books for us are still a thing we still collect them we still buy them other things like the things like the camping acsi it’s great if you’re just looking for somewhere you want to flick through into a country you’re not really quite sure you may go there you may not say we we don’t have always have the most upto-date one but they they’re generally close enough we use guide books still because they’re nice they’re touchy Fey it it’s sometimes it’s just nice to have a thing with you in the same way that we’ve still got a map in the van if we’re going in the van the car whatever we still take a real map cuz saavs are great but sometimes you just want to just get that overview of of where you are so yeah we still use and recommend guide books a great hack if you want to save money on these is go on to Amazon and look for one that’s a year old nothing’s going to change um so it it’s when that they update these about every 2 or 3 years so look for the the the guide that was the previous version and these don’t know uh this one says it was 10 can’t see on this one but it was published in 19 to 2019 this rough guy of Croatia was £15 but if you buy one that is the previous Edition you you can pick these up for 2 or3 you know and and they’re generally new so we still stick with GS they’re good it’s nice to have something touchy feely you can sit in bed and read it in the morning with your cup of tea great way to start planning obviously we use all the same Internet Resources as everyone else does um I mean our starting point is always Google Maps pretty much everybody’s starting point must be Google Maps these days um once we’ve kind of found an area we want we’ll zoom in have a look at what’s around sometimes Google marks things like Camp of an a sometimes it doesn’t if we can’t find Campa van a straight away on Google Maps um or campsites you know things like that quite often then um our next Port of Call straight away is park for night or search for sites both of these are incredibly useful for planning your your trip you can see where they are they give you the Latin long there’s obviously a list of facilities that are available other things such as really important reviews that you tend to find that the people’s reviews especially on Park forite are a bit more legit they are I I I don’t want to say more trustworthy but more trustworthy than some of the reviews you’ll find on Google and things like that they are a little more honest we feel so that they just kind of get what you get from those it gives you a a good sense if if you’re planning another thing is to think about what you want to do when you get somewhere you know it’s all very well going to the coast going to the mountains going to the forest wherever you know picking a a a campsite that’s in a beautiful part of the world but what do you want to do when you get there do you want to go hiking do you want to go cycling if you’re going to the coast are you looking at you know I don’t know dolphin trips say if you were down on the port south Portugal Coast in the alar things like that one of the things we use is Trip Advisor just to start off with it can be a bit flaky again you know some of the the reviews on trip advisor I think are dubious at best and also these days it feels that it’s less of an advice service for people and more of a sales service for the the the companies and the people that are running the these trips it’s aimed at selling you something rather than giving you the information that’s said it’s it’s a really good place to look to find out about things quite often you’ll find that because Expedia who run Trip Advisor obviously put their commission onto any prices that you would pay if you booked something through Trip Advisor use it as a starting point and then look up the companies themselves almost certainly that there will be be a way of booking and paying less because you’re not including the Expedia Commission in there so yeah Trip Advisor great place to start great place for ideas don’t just dive in and book take a look if you find somewhere that looks good that you think yeah I’d like to go with them that looks a great trip or a great adventure or whatever Google them because you’ll almost certainly be able to book cheaper direct um of course the other one is to get away from all the electronics all the books and everything else get in your camper van your motor home your car and your Caravan whatever it is you’ve got um air keeping your tent and just head south or north or east or west the amount of times we’ve woken up in the morning and going should we go somewhere today it’s like yeah where we going to go don’t know let’s go that way um and we do and we’ll go that way um you know we’ll find something now to be fair especially in France the joy of having a camper van or a motor home is that there there are a zillion places to park up there’s the paid for airs there’s the free or ridiculously cheap Town airs it’s okay to park up by the side of most roads there is a system of Park ups that I can’t remember the name something France Kela PRI but basically you buy um a membership and it’s about €30 a year and you can mark up in farms and Vineyards wine producers things like that all for free providing that obviously you are self-contained so you have your own toilet and waste facility basically the the the whole idea is you’ll visit their Farm Maybe by something in the farm shop maybe buy a bottle of wine that kind of thing they let you stay overnight it’s it’s you know it’s a very symbiotic thing it’s it’s great and when I remember the name of it I’ll stick it down in the comments somewhere or put it on the screen up there or over there or down there or somewhere anyway by the time I’ve edited this I’m sure I’ll remember the name so yeah so so France passion there you go um yeah so I will stick it down the bottom as well France passion really good really great way of getting very cheap overnights um and a great way to sample very local local food local drinks things like that as well so France passion definitely a good thing to do but yeah so we’ll just we’ll drive to the coast or we’ll drive to the lakes or we’ll drive to the forest you know throw the dog in and we’ll just end up somewhere some of those times have been the best breaks that we’ve had it’s like oh didn’t realize this was there we’ll just stop there on route and end up there all weekend so yeah just don’t discount just getting in your vehicle and heading that way as as a friend of mine who’s a truck driver says all roads go somewhere and you may not know where that somewhere is but if you follow it you’ll find out so yeah all roads go somewhere another thing to think about when you’re planning a trip is how you are going to get around when you get to where it is you’re going um if you got a caravan the answer is generally fairly simple you’re going to take your car but you may have a camp van or a motor home something that once you parked it you don’t want to move too much so at that point are you going to take your bikes is it easily cyclable what’s the terrain like do you need public transport all those kind of things and once again Google is the answer to this there’s some really good overlays on Google Now you can overlay public transport so it shows you things like buses and trams where the where all the bus stops are where the tram stops are assuming your city has trams in it so that’s really good it’s really useful the planning part of that is excellent you can go from A to B and say Hey I want to use public transport Google is super cool for that another thing is cycle tracks now you can put the the cycling layer onto Google and again it shows you once you’re there it will show you dedicated cycle tracks roads that are good for bikes I.E sort of not massively fast main roads du carriageways things like that so that’s another really useful overlay on Google as is the terrain overlay you turn the terrain on and you can see straight away whether it’s flat really mountainous things like that so again you know if you’re planning on taking your bike or an electric scooter or something like that gives you a good idea of whether or not it’s going to be navigable easily I guess another thing thinking about planning is what are you going to wear what’s the weather going to be like you know is is it likely to rain is it going to be super hot sunny usually you’ve got a good idea anyway but one of the places we check is we check AI weather it’s really good it your exceedingly detailed weather forecast places you’re going along with options for one two even three months in advance at times so you can dive into a location and you you can get a month in advance easily no weather forecast is perfect um let’s be honest the most weather forecasts are far from perfect but AI weather seems to be one of the better options so that’s our tips really yeah it’s oh doggies come to say hello that’s that’s our tips things like that don’t over plan would be my biggest tip just kind of go with the flow sometimes best way you know we we’re carrying our accommodation with us so you don’t need to plan too much just get on and do it get a rough idea of where you’re going and get on with it so thanks very much for listening please like And subscribe and do all of the things that we ask you to do click the like button click subscribe and you can hear he more of these pathetic ramblings at whenever we release them really helps us like subscribe that’s about the 20th time I’ve said it so one more time like And subscribe and do all those YouTube things it’ll help us thank you very much for watching