Last year one of my couch surfers introduced me to what he calls his 5 year plan. At first I wasn’t impressed because I expected to hear one of those sleep-stimulating narratives of career, family, privately owned home etc.

But it turned out that he had a 5 year travel plan. Now doesn’t that makes sense? I found it hilarious!

So did you already pick your travel destinations for the year 2009? Need some help planning your trip? Want to go backpacking?

Hello Backpacker

You may want to look into the Hello Backpacker website to help you pick your travel destination and plan your world trip.

The site is set up into five different categories – get inspired, plan your trip, on the road, back home, and discuss. Let me guide you through each of them.

The travel videos contain material from the most famous cities, historical and natural sights. If you have any videos you would like to share you can submit them to the site.

The rest of that section still needs some work as it doesn’t contain a lot of material, so let’s move on to the next one because that is where it gets interesting.

In the backpacker’s toolbox you can download a free 99 page PDF file that contains checklists, templates, FAQs and lots of advice to prepare you for your trip. A must have!

In the crowd recommendations section you can pick your travel destinations and see where other people who picked those destinations tend to visit.

In the next step you can compare price levels between those countries. Or you can go to that section directly and choose from different ways of doing that.

The power plugs section provides information about voltage, frequency and plugs used in different countries. That’s critical information if you’re going to carry an electric device that requires recharging.

On the road you may know some country-specific gestures to keep out of trouble. But frankly, there are the same four gestures for every country and either they are using an de-escalated F** U sign or they fail to show the actual one. Very puzzling.

The currency card for currency conversions is more helpful, although you can never be sure how up to date it is. The currency converter tool may be better, at least it was already updated in 2009.

The conclusion of this section is the emergency card that you can create for yourself. It’s something you should really carry with you all the time, just in case. The one below is of course just an example. We all know you don’t call Chuck Norris, Chuck Norris will call you!

Once you’re back home you can update your travel map with all the places you want to see, don’t want to see or already have seen.

The profiling section is a small test of 10 questions that will tell you what kind of traveler you are. It totally failed me though since all the right answers were lacking and I had to pick the one I found least repellent. I actually don’t imagine myself shopping in New York and didn’t drink any latte in London (who can afford that anyways).

This leaves us with the last category.

Check out the forum to share your experiences and maybe you have some blog awards for the site, so that this section won’t be so sadly empty?

We have covered other websites useful to travelers in the past, for example:

- 10 Travel Websites That Should Be Bookmarked by Aibek
- 5 Review Sites To Help You Find The Perfect Hotel by Varun
- 6 Useful Last-Minute Booking Sites For Your Next Trip by David
- 6 Sites To Make Flying A Whole Lot Easier by David

How do you organize your trips and where will you go this year?

Picture credits: barunpatro

Tagged: planning tools • travel • travel tips