Tips:

• Keep an eye on flights long in advance to your actual trip so you know what is a "good" price. I use the Hopper, Google Itamatrix, and occasionally check other sites. Then, when you find $200 roundtrip tickets to Banff or $400 to Alaska, you know they are a good deal.

• Create a Google Doc to share with everyone who is going with trip details, resources, prices,ect. (This is especially important when trip planning with people in different states)

• Call the backcountry office, park rangers, or talk to people who live in the area. I remember having trouble finding weather information for camping in the bottom of the Grand Canyon. The park rangers told me it would likely be a low of 80+ degrees so do not bring any heavy sleeping items. Most people use a sheet and a sleeping pad in the summer months. We passed a huge group of people that didn't get the memo and brought their large, heavy sleeping bags.

• Include a supplies list and organize it with items people will share and individual items too with names of who is bringing it

• Know things could go missing-- we lost our back-up camping stove (never had been used) and Andrew's cup/bowl when we flew to Alaska! We thought the airline could have confiscated them but there really would not have been a reason.

• If doing something dangerous, don't be afraid to do a class at home to prepare you if you do not have a guide. We cannot normally afford a guide so we need to be sure to prepare ourselves. For instance, we completed a sea kayak safety course which included rescues and flipping our kayaks since we do not normally have sea kayaking in central Ohio.

• Make camping reservations early! Camping in Yosemite requires reservations way in advance and for the Grand Canyon trip, all the campgrounds in Colorado where we were going were full. We stayed at an airbnb for an evening which ended up working out well due to the bad weather.

• Even with doing your research, things will go wrong. The lodge which sells bear spray in Alaska was out and it takes a minimum of a week to get more. We had to make a special trip into the only town, Gustavus.

• Pack multiple types of medication (pain, allergy, first aid). There are many things to cut back on but medication is not one of them.

• Ideally, you will be equipped with high quality equipment. However, if you are on a budget (like me) you can make do without purchasing top of the line items. We used 2 liter pop bottles instead of large water bladders once and I used my grandmother's huge/heavy sleeping bag for multiple trips. Was it ideal? No. But it was a lot better than not going on trips because I couldn't buy nice, lightweight equipment at the time. Also search for budget airfare and wear a lot of layers to save on baggage fees.

• Read and communicate with people on blogs. This is also great if you do not like to plan trips or are on a short time frame for planning. Often, blogs will list itineraries, budgets, and more. I have even emailed back and forth with others for advice prior to our trips.