Escape Hunter Planning How to Manage Your Time More Efficiently on Trips?

How to Manage Your Time More Efficiently on Trips?

Never plan without considering how you'll spend your time!
We plan trips by looking ad maps and calculating budgets, but do we also plan how we will use our time?

Go well beyond costs and target destinations: do efficient time management to squeeze more out of your trip. Memories are priceless!

As I traveled more and more, I noticed how much time I was wasting and took measures to better manage this single limited resource.

#1 The basics of time management: you can't compensate time lost

The most precious resource we will ever have is also the most precious one when traveling. Yes, more precious than money.

You can hold yourself from spending too much, but you can never do anything to time already spent!

I don't want to repeat the cliché, I just want to underline the importance of planning according to the time that you have at your disposal!

#2 Speed up your lifestyle, just a bit...

Don't be hasty, just speed things a bit up: doing things faster on trips spared me 1-2 hours per day (yes, I did in fact measure that!).

This includes: the time spent preparing your clothes, the time spent packing in and out, the time spent charging cammera batteries, the time spent with breakfast, the time spend actually getting ready to go out of the hotel room...

1-2 hours more is a lot of time!

#3 Estimate the duration of activities

Estimate everything you can: transportation, commuting, time spent at a particular location and resting times during the day. It will be impossible to calculate perfectly, of course... but it would be unwise not to have estimates, at least!

Yes, overplanning can ruin the travel experience and I love letting things a bit loose... open for surprises!

#4 Pack and manage your equipment in a time efficient manner

More complicated equipment consumes time...

While many hotel rooms have a single wall socket, I have 3-4 things to charge at any given time. In the beginning, I charged them one by one in the order of priority: camera batteries, cellphone, laptop etc.

Now I use splitters, additional adapters and power banks. A little more weight added to my luggage, but a lot of precious time saved!

#5 Don't waste the best time of the day

Don't was during daytime, nor do anything that you can do in the evenings or early mornings. The "core of the day" is when the sun is up and that's the most precious time to use for exploring!

Therefore: plan, pack, eat in such a way that you don't have to return to your hotel during the day. It will burn precious hours!

#6 Avoid unnecessary "non-travel" activities

Do you have bad habits, "vices"?

Wasting time browsing the internet, tapping your smartphone, watching TV or just chatting in bars with various people... no matter how "fun" or "normal" this might seem, it can be extremely toxic and erode your time away.

When I wrote about toxic behaviours that ruin trips I mentioned a few of these bad habits...

#7 Try not to go on the same route twice

Unless it's very beautiful or necessary, avoid going on the same road twice! It's a new experience, a new adventure going down a different route every time.

When planning urban explorations with concrete goals, I take the shortest route possible and the fastest transportation means available to the target locations.

When the purpose is to ramble and explore every corner, I don't pay much attention to time...

#8 Having meals can also be very time consuming

It's wise to have a big breakfast at your hotel and set off shortly after. Instead, many spend precious hours every morning going out into the city to have breakfast.

It's a similar case with eating out in the city...

But food in supermarkets or small shops near your hotel and prepare your own meal at home. Although you won't always eat at home, it helps spare some time.

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