How to Determine Destinations

The speaker discusses how she decides on her next travel destination. She considers three factors: climate, geography, and safety. She prefers warm weather and a more humid climate. Safety is her top priority, and she recommends using the website Numbeo.com to compare safety levels of different destinations. Government websites also provide safety information. Lastly, she considers the cost of living and recommends using Numbeo.com for comparisons. She also suggests researching neighborhoods in a city to help make a decision. Once she has narrowed down her options, she looks for specific accommodations. So how do you decide where you want to go for your next destination? That's a question that I'm asked very frequently because as a nomad I'm always going from place to place to place and sometimes people have said, well do you just, you know, stick a pin in the map and say this is where I'm going? Well, no, that's not how I do it. I actually have three factors that I take a look at. The first is climate. So I'm a warm weather person. I don't want to go where it's going to be cold and I'll need a winter coat. So that's my first consideration. And temperature includes things like high and low desired temperatures as far as, you know, Celsius, Fahrenheit, how hot is it going to get, how cold is it going to get at night. But also whether that climate is a dry climate or a more humid climate. I actually prefer a more humid climate. And I know a lot of people would prefer a drier climate. So that should be looked at as well as the temperatures. And then also the geography. Whether I want to go to the mountains or the desert or to the seaside or whether I prefer to be in a city or in the countryside. And so those are all things that I look at first in a general sense. So once I decide in general where I want to go, now there are two critical things that I look at. Safety is the first and foremost. Again, because I'm a single female traveling as a nomad, safety is my primary, primary consideration. And it should be for everyone. So the best tool that I have found for deciding whether a place is safe is called Numbeo.com. N-U-M-B-E-O.com. And it's on the handout that you can download. This is a fantastic website because you can look for safety and it will give you from general safety index of that area to very, very specific things. What is the safety level of assaults? What is the safety level of pickpocketing? What is the safety level of car theft? And you can get very, very specific. And the other thing that I like about it is that you can compare two different destinations at the same time. It will actually put them in two columns. So if I'm trying to decide, well, do I want to go to this spot over here or do I want to go to that spot over there, they both look like good places climate-wise, I can actually do a comparison on Numbeo and decide how safe they are. Maybe one really has some major safety issues that I would not want to be around, whereas the other is better. So Numbeo.com is a really, really great resource for that. And the other thing is government websites issue safety levels for travel as well. And so that's always, if this is a country that you're not familiar with and you're not sure of this area, go to the government websites because that will also give you some good safety information. So once I determine that the place that I want to go has a reasonable safety level that I'm comfortable with, then the third thing I look at is the cost of living. I live on a small income and so cost of living is a major issue for me. I don't go places that are too expensive and I don't stay in inexpensive housing or any of that as well. So cost of living is an important one for me. Again, Numbeo is fantastic because you can now switch from safety to cost of living and you can find out how much a dozen eggs is, you can find out how much an apartment is to rent, you can find out how much a meal costs. So very, very specific and very helpful. And again, you can do comparisons of two different places at the same time. So I always go to Numbeo.com. And then the other thing that I often will do if this is, especially if I'm going to a city and I'm not sure where in that city I want to stay. So then I'll do a search on Google and I'll do just a text search asking what neighborhoods are there in Buenos Aires? Or I'll type the neighborhoods of Buenos Aires. And I'll pull up a whole bunch of different articles. Some are written by bloggers, some are written by different organizations. But I can find out. I can find out things like, well, this neighborhood of the city is great for families. This neighborhood of the city is great for its nightlife. And that helps me make a decision. So now I've really got it narrowed down. Now I know where I want to be. I know it's safe. And now I know within this city or this area, now I can narrow down to what area of it I want to be in. So now when I look for accommodation, it's much easier. So these are the tools that are my favorites for figuring out where I want to go. And then after that, then I'll start looking at specific accommodations. So hopefully these were helpful and some things that you haven't heard of before. If you do know of some, please pass them on and I can update this. And be sure and download the little outline and then you'll have that as a reference.