The fourth year of medical school (the last year) is known to be one of the best times to travel before residency starts. This is mostly due to the more flexible schedule that comes with residency interviews and elective scheduling. At my medical school, we get 2 months for "interview/vacation" plus a few months for research depending on your particular situation. I managed to take light and/or remote electives during November and December which left me with two additional, true vacation months. I took one in February, where I visited Orlando and New Orleans and the second one was planned for May which aligned with my friend's vacation month.
We wanted to do it big while also realistically noting that planning international trips is more work and more expensive. We kept it to the two of us and decided on a road trip up the west coast. The trip was going to be a mix of hiking/nature and big cities. We flew into Phoenix and worked our way up, dipping into British Columbia and coming back to Seattle.
 |
| Our road trip itinerary! Over 3,000 miles total |
Planning a trip can be stressful and complicated. We looked into a few trip specific planning applications but ended up using good old fashioned Google apps:
- create a shared google map
- star/save locations of interest
- check routes/highway closures and alternate routes
We were able to save places we wanted to visit and figure out the best order to visit them on google maps. Looking at the routes also helped us figure out how much we wanted to drive in a given day.
 |
| A part of our WEST COAST BEST COAST itinerary |
- create a shared document with a table
- suggested columns: day/date, transport time, main attraction/city, other attractions, hotel/accommodations, food/meals and other notes/misc
- detailed tables are helpful, but after a certain point it gets overwhelming
- stay organized with color coding
- when in doubt, always post links "link me!"
We were able to keep track of realistic days/movements during the trip with our google doc. Highlighting colors included things like "to confirm," "still need to purchase," "purchased" and we also used colors to assign tasks to a specific person. We made the mistake of not always saving links on the doc, which created confusion when discussing ideas.
- all relevant files stayed in one folder
- all PDFs of recipes and confirmations
- google sheet to keep track of each person's expenses so we could keep it even
We were able to keep everything organized in one place that was accessible to all of us (we shared with our parents before leaving). This way if one person had service but the other didn't there was no problem. I didn't put all of my confirmations in the folder which created trouble when I couldn't find an email on my phone... however my friend did not have this issue!
- share photos post-trip
This is a good way to share trip pictures with each other and relevant family and friends without having to post on social media. Google gives a decent amount of space for free which makes this a great option.
0 comments