How To Plan A City Trip

Introduction

Navigating a new city can be like waking up to an early alarm without hitting snooze: challenging. From finding out where to go, to finding the right place to eat, to having enough strength to carry your bags with you all day, urban adventures require full-force effort. Oh, and you have to remember to enjoy yourself in the process.  

Embarking on a new experience can both be exciting and a little daunting. Thorough preparation allows for easy traveling so you can fully enjoy your getaway. After all, my good friend Ben Franklin once said that “failing to prepare is preparing to fail.” In honor of Franklin’s wisdom, this blog post will help you prepare for your exhilarating adventure through a new city.

How to Build an Itinerary

The first step of your journey is to plan how you’ll spend it. Spontaneity can be fun, but last-minute plans are better laid out in areas you know well enough to have backup plans if anything goes wrong. Planning can be fun, and when you’ve done it properly, you’ll have given yourself something to look forward to. 

Timing is one of the most important factors when planning an itinerary. Within your itinerary, it’s important to cushion time between meals or activities in case you deal with variables like long lines or your mother asking to speak to the manager of the restaurant. 

If your visit includes an overnight stay, hotel check-in times are normally set for mid-afternoon. Don’t wait to explore the city! Get in early and fill out your morning itinerary before your check-in so you can make the most of your trip. 

What Should I Book Before I Leave?

Don’t self-orchestrate an episode of “Survivor.” After you plan what you’ll do, find a place to stay while doing it. This is where you and your friends would send Airbnb links back and forth in the group chat. The sooner you book your stay the less it’ll cost you.   

Skyscanner, a website many people use to find convenient deals on flights, doubles as a resource for finding reasonable hotel deals. By filtering through dates and cities, you can conduct a direct comparison of offers from different hotel booking websites you might have otherwise come across separately. 

After booking your stay, think with your stomach. A trip to a new city means an assortment of restaurants you’ve never tried before. Pack  an elegant outfit and treat yourself to a lavish meal. Secure your reservations so you don’t end up deferring to the KFC next door in your high heels because the delectable restaurant you were looking forward to got overbooked.  

Other activities like concerts, events, and gatherings often require a degree of planning to purchase tickets in limited time windows. Depending on the season, you can catch an outside concert, play, or festival. 

For finding concerts, Spotify is a great place to start. It has a section titled “Live Events,” where it shows upcoming popular live events near you and analyzes and caters to your listening activity by suggesting artist events you’re likely to take an interest in. 

Other fulfilling experiences appear as suggestions on third-party sites. Below are some common resources to jumpstart your brainstorming and make your booking experience easy: 

4 Helpful Resources for Brainstorming Trip Ideas

(1) Tripadvisor

TripAdvisor is the most well-known and conventionally sought-after online forum for itinerary planning.  The website offers several attractions, activities, and restaurants in or around virtually any area you enter in the search bar. 

If you’re searching Google for ways to spend time in any city, Tripadvisor will likely appear as your first search result.

Tripadvisor makes your search digestible by separating city experiences into categories to filter your results. For example, you might find a section for nature & wildlife, food, boardwalks, or more depending on where you’re visiting. 

TripAdvisor also offers reviews and ratings from others who have experienced the attraction.

(2) Secret

Secret is a younger, hipper Tripadvisor. While it covers fewer cities than Tripadvisor does, you’re sure to find activities and events you never knew existed, like a blueberry farm with treehouse restaurants in NYC or an opportunity to enjoy fondue in an igloo in South Brisbane, Australia. 

Secret not only outlines riveting facilities for every day access, but its writers are constantly releasing articles that discuss new events, festivals, and pop-ups for each weekend and month. If you want to come back home with a story to tell your friends, Secret is the website to visit.

(3) Social Media Pages

A great way for social media users to put their scrolling skills to use is to research foodie or travel accounts. There are valuable profiles on Instagram and TikTo that report authentic user experiences for different restaurants and attractions. These users commonly report on restaurants that are trending online, filming and reacting to the food they receive or the sights they see in real time. 

These pages are often run by younger social media members looking to get in on an experience as well as recommend one to other people. Their pages are great resources for finding new and exciting things to do with extra sneak-peeks and video snippets that you wouldn’t get from Tripadvisor or Secret.

(4) Google 

If you’re looking to collect new experiences, Google can be the simplest place to visit. If you research something along the lines of “What’s going on in Atlanta, Georgia this weekend?”, you’ll find a long list of random events any organization in the city has posted. You might find out that “Queensland’s Hottest Ginger Contest” is happening on Friday and that “The Rap Battle of the Century” is at a bar near you on Saturday (true story).

Researching upcoming events on Google might allow you to meet people you never thought you would and attend inexpensive events you wouldn’t have found on viral social media pages. 

How to Prepare Your Items for a Trip

What’s the first thing a cartoon character does when it runs away from home? The most generic move is to acquire a hobo stick, with a bandana attached to a branch. Cartoons seem to have something right: when you stray from home, you must pack a bag.

It’s better to come prepared than to search for necessities at the last minute, especially in an unfamiliar city. Having what you need begins with the bag you choose as your traveling companion. 

Calpak is a hot new brand for backpacks or any other type of luggage you’re searching for. One of their prime products is a backpack that opens as suitcases would, providing enough space for extra necessities, a square shape that makes for easy storage in public transit, and a lighter feel on your shoulders. 

If Calpak is not your style, Monos Carry-On Pro has a stunning 5-star review and is designed to protect your belongings from Mother Nature’s different moods. With 360-degree spinner wheels, you’ll find yourself drifting— not dragging.

After you secure a bag, write a packing list while considering potential adversity lurking within the concrete wilderness you’re traveling to. Here are 10 necessities you should consider bringing:

1. Cash

2. Portable charger

3. Sunglasses

4. Hats

5. Sunscreen

6. Rain jacket

7. Water bottle

8. Snacks

9. Camera

10. Tissues

Access Quick Storage With Exchange Zones

If you came prepared with a bag full of necessities, an itinerary full of activities, and daydreams of attractions you can’t wait to visit, you’re in great shape. But will you lug your suitcases around the city throughout your morning itinerary before your hotel check-in? If you ever thought God, I’d love to put my things down and enjoy my walk instead, you’re in luck. 

Exchange Zones have you covered.

Exchange Zones are secure convenient locations that allow people to drop off and pick up items asynchronously. With Exchange Zones, you can drop off and pick up your bags in safe compartments around the city you’re visiting to remove the burden of carrying your bags whenever you want.

Shopping in a downtown mall or hitting the Strip with your friends? Don’t try to stuff those bags under the bar stools at happy hour. Planned a Picnic in Maymont in Richmond? Go see the Japanese and Italian gardens without lugging your picnic blanket around the whole time. 

How can you enjoy an experience you aren’t fully paying attention to? We call vacations “escapes.” How can you enjoy a liberating escape when you’re tied to and limited by your stuff?

There’s nothing better than living hands-free. Living hands-free is living worry-free. 

How to Use Exchange Zones

There are 5 simple steps to using any Exchange Zones:

1. Download a Relai App: Search “A Relai App”  in the search bar of any app store and download the result. 

2. Select an Exchange Zone: Review the list of Exchange Zones in your city and select the one most convenient for you. 

3. Pick a Duration: How long will you need to store your items at an Exchange Zone? Don’t worry we’ll send you notifications when it's time to get your things. 

4. Navigate to the Exchange Zone: Copy and paste the address of your selected into the search bar of your Maps application.

5. Drop-off or Pickup: Follow the in-app prompts to open the Exchange Zone to drop off or pick up. 

Conclusion

While you’re planning your trip, keep in mind what you’re truly preparing for. You’re designing blueprints for moments of bliss. 

As you find time melting away, collect stories. Keep them alive. Take pictures. Journal. Jet from a farmer’s market to a concert to a dinner to a night out with friends. 

Imagine if your bags didn’t have to come with you everywhere. You travel to live freely, and there is nothing freeing about the heavy weights of your bags.

Check out our website for more information on enriching your experiences.

Take advantage of the conveniences Exchange Zones offer because any trip is better when you are enjoying it hands-free.