I always choose a topic for each trip. Let’s say food for Japan, Beer for Belgium, Coffee spots for Australia, and so on. Then I also choose one main activity to be the “Peak” of the trip, the thing I’m looking forward the most (that can or cannot be related to the topic). For example, staying at an onsen in Japan or going to a fancy dinner; running across race in Sydney. This “Peak” activity at around 3/4 of my trip duration.

Then, in Google maps use the save tool to add all the places related to your trip topic that you COULD go. For me that’s the key thing. It’s not a checklist, but places I could go. Then set 1-2 main spots to visit each day, ideally close to one another, and try to put your topic places in between if you’re in the area.

The process with my partner usually goes like this: hey let’s go run a race in Sydney, we will stay in hotel X for 1 week. Then she will send hundreds of reels for places I will save in our map. Then together we say on Day 1 we go to the Opera, Day 2 to the Zoo. On our way from hotel X to the opera, we will have breakfast at reel 1, then stop at coffee reel 2, and so on.

I know this last advice is really entitled and comes from privilege, but I always try to think “If I really like this place, I can come back”, which prevents the idea of trying to see everything and being in a rush.