One thing that I’ve realized brings the most reward in life is experience. With experience comes lessons both good and bad. I want to share the important lessons found in traveling with focus on group travel. Not everyone has a group of friends that are willing or able to just book a flight, pack and go. Hell, even I’m not that friend. But I am the friend who takes pride in proper planning, budgeting and sacrificing to see things come into fruition. This will be me and my friends second group trip this year and I want to give you an inside on how we are able to do it while living four completely different lifestyles, schedules, salaries and priorities. We’ve made a pact to travel together twice a year and explore the world together. One domestic trip and one international trip. Since this is the first year of our pact, we’ve decided to begin with two domestic trips this year. In fact, next week we will be on what I like to call an East Coast Tour Takeover and here’s how:

First and foremost the most important part of traveling, especially group travling is knowing personalities, relationships and attitudes. You will have lots of friends and associates begging to come on a group trip but now is the time to use your best judgement. Not every trip is for every friend. If you have a friend who complains a lot and doesn’t like to try new things, you probably shouldn’t invite her to the camping trip. If you have a friend who shuts down around new people, you probably shouldn’t invite her to the reunion trip. If you have a friend who can’t budget her money correctly and will have to sit out all of the activities, you probably shouldn’t invite her on any trip. Okay, I’m sure you get the point now but as funny as it might sound, those are huge problems that can ruin the fun of others. So make sure the group is a solid, open minded group of women who can get along and turn lemons into lemonade because there will always come hiccups in any and every trip.

The second most important part of group traveling is communication. We speak every single day via What’s App Group Chat. Although this might not be realistic for everyone, it’s a start. Communicating as much as possible has allowed us to share unexpected surprises, express concerns and pretty much stay updated ahead of time on any and everything occuring. Our communication allowed for us to agree on destinations, time of the year and length of the trip. For our upcoming trip next week, we decided to celebrate my bff’s birthday starting with Philadelphia for a day/night. Next we would take over New York for two days/nights then head over to Atlantic City, New Jersey for her big day spending our last day of the trip back in Philadelphia where we will all fly out of. Communication opened up the lines for honesty which helped us eliminate unnecessary expenses.

Next on the list came researching costs of hotels and flights. Since we began researching and planning this trip back in May, it was plenty of time to price and purchase reasonable flight deals. Flying from Dallas, TX, Las Vegas, NV and Fresno, CA into Philadelphia, PA was reasonable around this time of the year but we wanted to make sure it wasn’t the weekend of a holiday or big event in the cities because that would raise the cost of hotel stay and activities. We used sites like theflightdeal.com, travelzoo.com and priceline.com to keep us aware of low flight fares. We used sites like hotels.com, airbnb.com, and tripadvisor.com for hotel deals and reviews. We were able to reserve our hotels at really low rates and lock in the dates. We don’t have to pay until check in which is great but the best thing is had we waited until now to book a room, we would be paying over $150 (per night) or more than the rate we reserved the rooms for. So reserve ahead on great deals with the pay upon arrival option and cancel free of charge if need be.

The fun part was next.Planning the fun. I made all of the girls (including myself) list their top 2 must do/must see’s in each city. We planned our itineraries using the list and filling in where needed. For example, in NY we had African American Museum, Walk Manhattan/BK Bridge, Statue of Liberty, eat at Sylvia’s in Harlem. Based off of that alone, we knew Harlem was known for it’s African American History and once we researched, we found that Sylvia’s restaurant was also in Harlem. I’m sure you can guess how one of our days will be spent. As much as I love Google, nothing beats experiencing a city like knowing or speaking with a native of the destination. They can easily tell you the best restaurants, clubs (if that’s your thing) and hidden gems that google won’t always share. So it helped to have an avid traveler in the group who was able to contact people she has met in different places and ask for their suggestions. Google then allowed us to do the rest as far as reviews and locations.

After the itineraries for each day was planned, this allowed for us to budget. I came up with an estimate total we would each need per day. That included a high total amount and a low total amount. I’m sure, whatever is spent would be somewhere in between but this left room for no surprises. Gas, tolls, parking, food and fun was all included in our daily budgets. This allowed time for us to save up the money for this trip. I’ve been on trips before where nothing was planned and we just did whatever we all felt like doing at the time which never ended well because someone would always run out of money. Always. It helps to plan ahead, money included and it’s only fair.

Of course we cut some corners when it came to what to spend money on. We knew since we would be staying in hotels with mini kitchens to plan smart. Buy your own liquor instead of purchasing watered down over priced drinks that weren’t on the Happy Hour Menus. Stock up on water, snacks and breakfast food. Search for groupon deals and coupon deals ahead of time. Planning ahead has definitely made for smart travel and rich experiences. I highly recommend doing research on any and every destination you plan to visit and ask lots of questions. You can never ask too many questions. I plan to have the best time of my life next week with some of the best people in my life and if I can remember it all, I will be sure to come back and share my East Coast Experience with you all.

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Daja is a Mentor for young ladies in the Community of Las Vegas where she teaches them to love themselves unapologetically. She wears many hats but the one that is most recognized is her ownership and dedication to No Boiz Allowed, a Women Empowerment Brand that she launched in 2011.