Travel Planning Seminar Day 1: Brainstorming and Activities

Brainstorming

When I knew it was time to go overseas again I felt a strong urge to explore an excursion to Europe. I was looking at England, France, Spain, and Italy. All of these places have incredible scenery as well as major cities that I’d love to explore. One night, I received a call from my friend in Florida and told him about my intent to travel. He thought it was a great idea too, so he decided to tag along. We looked at flights on many different websites and found all the flights in the $700-800 range. This is not a terrible price for an international flight, especially in the off season, but we were looking for something in the $550-600 range. A week has gone by and he calls me again and tells me that a round trip flight to Amsterdam was $415 round trip. I looked it up for St Louis and we would be on the same flight over and back and we would meet up at the connecting in Chicago. At this point we realized how real this was becoming and the next week, we booked the flights at 10:50pm.  

Activity planning

Once we knew where we were going when, it was time to think of how we were going to spend our time. We planned to have one paid excursion a day. This way we do not overbook our time and we have time to explore each city and observe their culture. We wanted to check out Amsterdam (Netherlands), Cologne (Germany), and Brussels (Belgium), so we planned our trip as such. On day 1 we would arrive at Schiphol at 9am and get into Amsterdam at 11am. We would get the day to explore and walk around and to see what this city is like. At night, a canal cruise with food and unlimited beer and wine. The next day to visit the Van Gogh museum and to walk around Museumplein, a region of the centrum in which there are museums and other cool buildings. In Cologne, see the beautiful architecture and the Cologne Cathedral on the first day and visit all the Christmas Markets on day 2. Brussels has some cool sights and architecture, so the only day spent here would be for sightseeing and just walking around the city. On our return trip to Amsterdam, visit the Heineken Experience and attend an Ajax game at the Amsterdam Arena. All of these ideas were very cost effective, ranging in the $15-25 range except for the Ajax game, which we bought for $100.