While there is something to be said for the "top sites", you're the best expert on what you generally like...outdoors, active, museums, historical sites, modern attractions, foodie experiences, etc. For example a person who has no interest in artwork won't care that an art museum is the top "must do" attraction in a given city. What sorts of things are you interested in?

Some of my favorite memories are not from things that a guidebook told me not to miss.

 

Try to do as much as you can on your own, avoid groups i.e. organized tours. If you have to do "must do's" do them at the most counter-intuitive time as there's likely a legion of other people who read the same guidebooks.

 

I agree that seeing things by yourself is typically better, but some organized tours do offer the ability to cut the line of all the people waiting to get in by themselves. If you're going to a city during peak tourist time, this could be a huge time saver.

We did an organized tour of The Vatican and it was great to skip the lines and go right through security. We didn't do an organized tour for the Colosseum and had to wait in a very long line.

 

That's the other advice, don't go at peak tourist time.

 

Haha that is probably the best advice

 

I like short guided tours, food tours especially. As a solo traveler they're also a good way to meet people. I went on one in Seoul two years ago and met a married couple�he's on-air for Fox News, her for MSNBC. Made for an interesting evening, plus the food was great and introduced me to some local dishes I wouldn't have otherwise tried.

But an organized multi-day tour? No way.

 

For me, it's always a case of "who am I going to see". I have a friend in Montreal, for example. I've been there a half dozen times and I've seen the Biodome, the tower, the gardens, etc. But I keep going back because I get to see my friend and we do "tourist stuff". He always has suggestions for places to try, and I generally trust his judgement.


For research, it's mostly a matter of budgeting (which can be difficult on a first trip) and also making restaurant reservations. If I simply went to the top 5 restaurants on an online site, I might be missing out on some local color. But if I want to go to a nice restaurant, I need to know far in advance so I can make reservations. Some are old favorites, some are a new experience.

 

Read masses, ideally you should know more or less what you want to do before you book any of it. Consider different options for getting from A to B - the quickest way might not be the most enjoyable, the cheapest may not offer good value. Otherwise prioritise based on what you're interested in - I had a great time in Venice largely because I didn't go to any art galleries and only to one museum.

In terms of how tightly you should plan, I think it depends on your personality. I am going on an 11 day trip in May/June. Accomodation is all booked, all the transport that can be booked is booked and the locations of my hotels are marked on the maps in my Lonely Planet. I'm currently trying to find what food you can buy at Sarajevo railway station (it's a 9 hour ride to Zagreb and there's no catering on the train). But I don't have many strong plans for what i'll do in the places i'm visiting - apart from a few must see things which I have researched in detail. Incidentally I've bought a small notebook to write all this info down in.

 

Since the original title asked about "problems" let me site 2 things to be aware of.

First, I avoid the typical travel guide books. Lonely Planet, for example. Has some good information in it but is mostly geared to backpackers and in the books I've looked at, at least half the information is just plain wrong. I live part time in Thailand and I picked up a Lonely Planet Thailand guide to read while waiting for a flight one time and I went page by page "wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong". Even many of the language translations are bogus.

Second, be careful of site like FT and TA and others. You can get a lot of good information, but you need to learn how to separate the wheat from the chaff. If you see someone posting about how evil a particular place is, how the locals are all thieves and liars and everyone rips you off, move to the next post. These are usually people who created their own problems but wanted someone to blame it on. Similarly, ignore those that create too bright of a picture. Do like they do in Olympics gymnastic scoring. Throw out the highest scores and the lowest scores then based your decision on what's left.

 

I completely agree with this method for using sites like TA and FT. I find most people are more likely to take the time to complain than they are to praise. It can be good to look at the profile of the person reviewing. If they have good and bad reviews across the board, they're probably putting more effort into giving an authentic review. If they have a handful of positive or negative reviews they may just be using the site to complain or to bolster reviews for something.

Good luck with the planning!