As you're starting to see, we love traveling all over the world. ALL over the world. You might see some of the international spots we've visited and wonder - how do they even decide to go there? Well, let me tell you! It's not as easy as you might think... but it's also 100% doable if you put in the time (and follow these steps)!
We're inspired.
We may get inspiration from a magazine, blog, coffee table book, co-worker, fictional tv show filming location... you name it. We're usually keeping a mental list (and sometimes a physical one) of our all 'must visit' destinations. Since we have such a long list and we don't plan to stop traveling anytime soon (fingers crossed), we don't stress too much about an exact location... We start with a search based on this wish list (this year it was Kenya) and go from there. We're also usually just happy to go anywhere new on our list (which is sometimes coupled with somewhere familiar that we loved!).
Safety always take priority.
We take that initial short list of new places on our list (e.g. Kenya) and test the waters using the state department site. This site is the BEST. We've been using it for over a decade, and they just keep making improvements. It's so easy to use and has all the highlights on the first page. So if it seems like we're going somewhere 'crazy' always know that we've checked here before booking!
Once you get on the site and search your destination country, the main thing you'll want to check is the 'advisory level'. It's always clearly listed at the top. They have a 4 level scale -
Exercise normal precautions
Exercise increased caution
Reconsider travel
Do not travel
We've never been anywhere that was ranked as a level 4 at our time of travel. We rarely go to a "3 / reconsider travel" destination - unless the very specific areas within warning are areas we're far away from at our specific destination.
We're very often in the 'exercise increased caution' countries though. And within those countries, we always read the fine print (scroll down and open sub-tabs on that main State Dept page) about specific areas within country that are having conflict or other safety risks. We also make sure to sign up for the alerts to make sure that nothing changes as the trip gets closer... Unfortunately that just happened to us with an area in Kenya we wanted to visit, so we changed our plans.
Health risks and readiness are studied.
And then, we pour over all potential health risks. Our health investigation has four pieces.
First, we make sure there are no huge health crises happening in country. This is typically reflected in the main page of the state department website (linked above too) in the 'alerts' section. But you also need to cross-check the CDC website.
Second, we also need to make sure we have required vaccinations and that they'll be effective at our time of travel. These requirements are listed clearly on the CDC site. You can also enroll the help of a 'travel clinic'. Some vaccinations are part of multi-shot series and others require several days of medication to take effect... you have to back that up against your trip timing to make sure you're comfortable with the coverage. For example, for a recommended vaccine with a low likelihood of coming in contact with the virus, we may say that completing the first shot in the series (and being 80% covered) is within our risk tolerance. Usually it's up to you. I'll write another post on this too.
Third, sometimes it's not up to you which vaccines you get and when you get them. For example, some countries require certain vaccines for entry (e.g. COVID vaccine may be required within a certain timeframe to enter various countries, yellow fever is required if entering from a listed country, etc.). So we always check that too.
Fourth, we look at our specific situation at the time and determine our health risk tolerance. For example, Emily had an anaphylactic allergy to eggs from age 0-3. During that time, we decided not to travel anywhere without good allergy documentation and awareness. (This may sound silly, but some populations have very few food allergies and not everyone really 'believes' in them... I get it, but in Emily's case it was actually a serious situation that we couldn't chance it.) So that year, we'd been hoping to go to the countryside of Taiwan as we found some great miles deals, but we passed it up since we just didn't want to deal with the risk (lots of local restaurants and street food on our list there), especially without big hospitals in the countryside. But instead, that year we went to Japan (which at the time was the #1 consumer of eggs :/), and we printed off some sheets that said she had an egg allergy in Japanese. We also packed a LOT of snacks for her in places we didn't feel comfortable. Plus we stayed in the cities and knew where the hospitals were, just in case anything went wrong and we needed quick healthcare. And of course we had her epi pens with her name/prescription taped onto it. We'll have a whole post soon on what we pack to prepare for health situations.
Visas are equally important.
For many countries, you can get a visa on arrival... but in others (e.g. Vietnam, India), you can NOT. Which means that they *usually* won't let you even board a plane without a visa for these countries, but if you somehow sneak through on the flight there, you're not getting out of the airport on the other side. Not great.
And for some of the places that require pre-travel visas, the process can take longer than you have before you fly out. We made this mistake booking flights to Baku, Azerbaijan a few years ago and will not make that mistake again since we had to cancel the whole thing at the last minute! I will also say that if you need a pre-travel visa and you think you're close to being within the window, you can always take a shot at getting a visa expedited. Each country has various ways they can (or can't) make that happen. Know that it may be easier to do this if you're in a major city (with lots of embassies), but it's always worth the research. Do your research and be prepared to make a decision based on your personal comfort level (comfort applying to the fact that you may have to cancel your trip at the last-minute if you don't get it in time).
And lastly, I'm going to put this tidbit here (even though it's not related to a visa, per-se, and applies to most countries).... you can't even get on a flight to most other countries unless your passport is 6+ months away from expiring plus have enough 'blank pages' in your passport. Check out those restrictions on that same state department site before you book! I've found that the European countries seem most strict with this, but it's stated as a rule in many other places too and you probably don't want to roll the dice. If you realize you have an almost-expired passport, there are, again, ways to expedite the renewal - but beware that some are quite expensive!
And then really, for us, the miles dictate where we go.
This is the exciting part - where we search the world for our next destination!
For all our big international trips, we only book using miles*. When you need 7* seats on a plane, you either need to make a huge investment, find an elusive cheap flight (which again is possible maybe to find a few seats... not as easy to find SEVEN cheap seats)... or you need to buckle down and use miles. *7 means our family plus Sabrina, who started traveling as our +1!
A note that we also narrow our search to one airline for the big segments of the flight. That is because Bill has the highest level of status with United since he's traveling every week for work... so we're pretty much stuck traveling United for life (and use the United credit card too).
But if don't have that setup, you actually have more options. There are bloggers out there that get pretty creative finding points through credit cards and other sites. I'd search the Global Munchkins site for all the creative ways they grab flights without being consultants. :) There are apps and site where you can set up searches or search the whole globe - and Global Munchkins has all the info on their site linked above.
So anyway, if you have a preferred airline, you can follow our process. It's not rocket science... it just takes some grit! We pull up the United app and we check every destination on our list. Every one. We also have a globe or Google Maps handy. This is because if we don't see anything in that initial search (often happens), we'll check countries nearby the one on our 'target' list. If we find a good deal to a nearby country, we'll fly there and then take a cheap regional airline to get from that country with a United deal to the destination country. Just confirm that these regional flights exist and are, in fact, cheap before you book your big flight of course. For this same reason, we almost always book one-way flights... that way we can find the best deals home too - from wherever we end up.
In terms of best timing for flight purchases, I know there are sites that a lot of analytics on this topic and have specific recommendations for you. I'm just going to say - we're typically about a month out when we search (as it's easier for us to figure out our work schedules, kids' sports schedules, etc. by that point), and I think that is a pretty good sweet spot. We have booked really good deals as many as six months in advance and as little as a day in advance... so you can start searching whenever you're ready to dream. But I'd suggest about a month if you asked me. :)
If possible, we book long layovers... but more on that later!
I'll get into this more in another post, but we also embrace long layovers in cities we love or cities we haven't been to. This usually aligns with the flights that are cheap, so it works in our favor. For now you can think I'm crazy, but after you read the upcoming post about layovers, I bet you'll try it yourself!
Alright - so that's a wrap. It can seem like a lot of work to do all this prep, but I promise that it's worth it! As always, let us know if you want to see more of anything here or have any questions! Happy searching!
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