Travel Planning With voyay!ge to Bar Harbor, Maine

Travel planning shouldn’t be stressful, but with life these days getting busier and busier, it usually is. Researching locations, checking reviews, comparing hotels and creating an agenda can be too much to even THINK about after a long day. I felt exactly like that last month, after procrastinating in putting together an itinerary for a girls’ trip to Bar Harbor, Maine. When the team at voyay!ge, a new travel planning company, told me they could do all that work for me I had to find out more. I’m so glad I did!

What is Voyay!ge?

Voyay!ge creates completely bespoke travel itineraries based on your personal preferences.  You work directly with a travel designer who does all the research, comparing, and planning for you before delivering an organized, detailed agenda. The entire process from start to finish is easy as pie and stress free. I promise, I would never say that lightly.

Getting Started

First things first

To get started, head to voyay!ge and enter the destination, type of trip, and travel dates. There are a bunch of options for the type of trip, like road trip, family vacation or adventure. Since mine was for a group of friends to celebrate a birthday and just have fun, I picked the option “other” and wrote in girls’ trip. If you need accommodation suggestions, there is a place to input preferences for them as well.

Next, pick what type of trip you want (relaxed, balanced, or cover as much as possible) and then choose from a long list of preferred vacation activities. For this part I picked the “balanced” option. We didn’t want to be constantly on the go, but did want to get out and enjoy the fall weather. There are lots of general activity options, so pick everything that interests you! The next section is my favorite.

The most important part for you as a traveler is adding in any other requirements for the designer to know. This is where you put all the things. Take your time and tell your designer specifically what you like to do and go into as much detail as possible. I included the specific types of restaurants I like, a need for local coffee shops and wine bars or breweries. I like to shop local boutiques (nothing touristy), but time is limited so I asked for places that were within walking distance of each other. I was even specific about what I like to buy. For example, any local crafts, specialty foods, books and jewelry.  This is when I started rambling into random detail (Sorry Emma). It sounded something like:

I LOVE a good food or behind the scenes tour. Do we like outdoor activities? Kinda.. we like to go to national parks and hike an easy trail to a specific spot. Don’t even try to send me on a 20 mile round trip hike up a mountain and back. A good short hike to the best views. Something on a boat would be fun, like whale watching or a day sailing. Something quick or unexpected to mix it up, like a quirky museum or historical site. Lots of lobster for dinner! Time to relax after a busy day before dinner.

The last section is a breeze. Just enter how many adults and children are attending, and any additional details about people in the group. If someone is terrified of sharks an aquarium may not be the best option. Some things to include here could be food allergies, mobility issues, or any disabilities.

That entire process, going into as much detail as possible, took me less than 30 minutes. In truth, it would obviously take longer if the trip is a two week long family safari, but in that 30 minutes I saved HOURS of planning. It can take me more than 30 minutes to decide what guide book I want to read. Yes, I still read guidebooks.

Picking A Designer

With all that hard work behind you, it’s time to pick your trip designer and let them do the dirty work. A variety of trip designers are available to choose from and each has a bio with general info, specialties, and destination expertise. I chose Emma, a fellow midwest girl with tons of travel experience, and let her take it from there.

THe Itinerary!

It only took a day before I heard back from Emma. She had some questions and asked for a few more details. Just two days later she sent me an itinerary. The itinerary was way more detailed than I ever expected. Each day was laid out on a schedule that included drive time between locations.

What I really loved were the details shown when clicking on an activity. Each activity had relevant information like phone number, address, a general description, and special notes from Emma. She even included links to sites with more information that might be interesting or helpful. Seriously, this is a traveler’s dream itinerary. The clean, minimal site design made it super easy to look at and click through.

Itinerary Review

With everything included in the itinerary, I only asked for one change. One afternoon included a few hours at a spa (which I did check as something I liked to do) but wasn’t a priority this trip. She replaced it with a winery (yay!) and that was it!

ready to go!

After receiving the final copy of the itinerary I felt a sense of confusion, like when you can’t remember if you turned the oven off. Here was a detailed travel plan for the entire trip. Done. Without any stress or anxiety. I thought there must be something else that had to happen, something I neglected to do, another step. This was too easy. But no, the only things left for me to do were pack and enjoy the trip.

Final Review

After working with Voyay!ge on this itinerary for Bar Harbor, I would encourage everyone to give them a try. The entire process from start to finish was not just easy and stress free, it was fun. I did research the trip on my own a little as well, especially restaurants. Reading through lots of blogs and reviews, the same restaurants were promoted over and over and I expected to see most of them on the itinerary. Surprisingly, Emma had added mostly places with names I didn’t recognize. I reached out to her out of curiosity, wondering where she looked for those recommendations. This is what she said;

“I actually have a good friend who goes almost every year to that area so I gave them a call and asked for their personal best recommendations. On top of that I do a lot of research and read tons of reviews if it’s a place I’m not familiar with to ensure the place will fit your personality.”

That is exactly the kind of person I want doing my travel planning.