Planning for family reunions, weddings and other large group vacations can be overwhelming to say the least. Because of this we thought it might be helpful to give you a step by step checklist to make planning your next group vacation a little bit easier.

1. Call me, your travel agent and let me know what you’re planning so that I can help guide you on things like budget, top destinations, best travel times and more.

2. Decide on a destination. The best part about being the one in charge of planning is you have the biggest influence over choosing where to go. Pick your top three locations and add them to a survey that you will ultimately be sending to the group.

3. Pick three dates you can go. Decide if the trip will be a few days or a full week. Add this to the survey too.

4. Once you have destinations and dates on your survey, draft an email to everyone everyone that you want to come on the trip letting them know you’re planning a getaway and who your travel agent is along with a link to your survey. Tell them all they have one week to answer it giving them time to check their schedules. Remind them a few days before the deadline explaining that anyone who doesn’t turn it in will not have a say in the particulars of the trip.

5. After you gather the responses the actual booking of travel can begin. At this point you can email everyone with the chosen date and destination for the trip as well as what hotel everyone can book their room at.

6. Let us handle the booking of flights and hotels while you focus on potential tours and activities you would like for your group. Then, once you have the extras picked out we can help you plan that too.

7. Finally, tell everyone your official plans. Understand that many of them may not want to join you on some of the things you have planned. Try not to take this personally.

Eventually, it will be time to simply take the trip. Expect some people to drop out or want to join at last minute. That’s okay. Just redirect them to me and I will handle it to keep the stress off of you. My ultimate goal is for your group vacation to go off without a hitch.

Jody’s Travel Inc

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