I have been organizing an annual fishing trip for my buddies and I for around 6 years now and each year is better than the one before it. This year we are looking at some Miami yacht charters listings to see if we can’t up the ante a little from previous years, a feat that will definitely be difficult.

As much as I love these fishing trips, organizing them does take quite a lot of work and in the first few years I made many mistakes. After such experience in organizing these things, I wanted to share with you a few tips on how to ensure that you organize a trip that everyone enjoys and nobody forgets.

Keep it Democratic

If you simply choose the destination and then tell everyone where they are going, you will run into all kinds of complaints from your friends. This is something that I did for the first two years and I frankly got sick of the moaning. In order to avoid this then, the best option is to put together 3 different options in 3 different destinations and then take it to the vote amongst your friends. Once you ahem reached a conclusive decision there can no longer be any moaning and groaning and it will save you a great deal of earache.

Deal With Simplicity

As the organizer of the trip, your only responsibilities are to book the accommodation, the flights or transport, the fishing trip itself and absolutely nothing else. Once you start organizing equipment rental and the like, you are treading into dangerous waters that can leave you open. In order to avoid problems, the best thing to do is stick to these things only and leave the worries about baggage and equipment to the people going on the trip. Just because you are organizing it does not mean that you need to be on hand for every minor problem that goes wrong. Keep it simple, focus on the big events and leave the details to those who are going on the trip.

Put Your Money Down

Three years ago I lost $700 because two people backed out of our US trip at the last minute and I was too foolish to get them to put their money up front. Trust is an interesting thing amongst friends, especially when it comes to money and I would strongly advise you not to pay for anything until you have received some money first. Anyone could back out for any number of reasons and there is nothing wrong with that, as long as you have their money first, there is no reason that you or anyone else should have to pay for someone else’s problems. It may be tempting to put it all on you credit card, but for security sake, I would urge you to think again about this idea.

You will learn more from experience like I have but the best advice is to keep things simple and don’t get overly involved.