Tips – Make Travel Effortlessly Organized With This Trip Planning Template
When you’re planning a trip, how are you currently keeping it all organized? Is it a hot mess of different emails and a jumble of details in your head? Haha, that’s how I started too.
After a few trips, I started to crave a structure during the trip planning process and created a single document to pop in all my notes, links, confirmation codes, and addresses. The initial Moderately Adventurous Trip Planning Document was born.
After even more trips, a particular structure emerged where I can now keep and find information quickly. If you are currently planning a trip, a single document you can keep coming back to will be KEY to keeping everything organized. This blog post is here to help you create a trip planning document. I will walk you through how to structure your trip planning document. BUT I’ve made it even easier for you by creating a trip planning template. I’m keeping the price low – currently at $5.00 – because I really believe that everyone needs a trip planning document. It’s up to you, but let’s get into why you need a trip planning document!
Why You Need a Trip Planning Template Document
No matter what kind of traveler you are, it is helpful to keep all information in one place. For someone who likes flexibility, that might be a document with the essentials: flights, rental cars, and accommodations. Or perhaps, you like flexibility, but you want to do a little more research to have options when you arrive, and you need a place to put Trip Advisor links. For me, I use a centralized document to toss all research, hotel options, confirmation codes, addresses, and restaurant options. It’s a bit like organized chaos in the separate sections until things get booked, and I can eliminate unnecessary information and get a clear picture of what my trip looks like, with room to make choices as I go.
Especially if you are planning the trip with another person, instead of sending 10 emails to each other about which Airbnb looks better, you can add the links to one document and add your thoughts. Which leads me to my next point… Google Docs is a phenomenal tool when creating a trip planning document.
Google Docs is Your Best Friend
When making a trip planning document, Google Docs (or Google Sheets) is by far the best option for three reasons: (1), so you can simultaneously be adding to the document with other people, (2) there is a phone app to continue editing and adding to the document, and (3) you can choose to see the document offline and continue to reference it while traveling.
Google Docs is an online word processor that operates very similarly to Microsoft Word or Pages. If you can use either of those, you will be able to use Google Docs – you just need a Google account. I introduced Google Docs to my mother when planning our Germany trip in 2018, and now both of my parents use Google Docs for Christmas lists and other things.
The beauty of Google Docs is that it lives online, so you and whoever you share the link with can access it everywhere, AND you can simultaneously be editing the document. With simultaneous editing, you can both edit the document whenever you have time or at the same time, and everyone will have the most up-to-date version without having to reshare the document. Everyone plans a trip a little differently, so I would never expect my friends to organize or color code the Google Doc, but having a single document allows everyone to add input on the things they care most about.
I used the trip planning template to plan each one of these trips:
Structuring Your Own Document
Now that I’ve convinced you to use Google Docs to create a Trip Planning Document for your upcoming travels, I recommend setting up a general framework to adjust as the trip develops. Here is a list of the critical sections:
- Name/Dates of Trip
- Transportation: Including flights, rental cars, driving distance, and anything else related to getting to your destination AND around your destination.
- Accommodation: Leave blank spots for a link to the accommodation, phone number, address, and confirmation number.
- Activities: I like to categorize these by the different areas I am going to with space for the price, timing, and additional information.
- Restaurants: I also like to categorize the restaurants by different areas. I don’t always look up restaurants, and rarely make reservations, but having a few restaurants pre-picked out often helps with the overwhelm and fatigue of the day.
- Reference Information: I usually include a section for random bits of reference information – sometimes info about the currency conversion or what to expect during a border crossing. What you put in this section will depend on your trip, but it’s great to have an area to pop odds and ends.
- Packing: Completely optional, but some of my friends LOVE to see what I’m packing.
These are the essential components of a trip, but your destination and type of trip will determine if you need additional sections. You can and should customize the Planning Document to YOUR TRIP and your style of thinking so that everything is easy to find. With Google Docs, it’s super easy to move things around, add or remove sections, and create your own color scheme.
Shortcut: The Trip Planning Template
If creating this structure sounds fun, go for it! If you’d like a template to work from, click the link below to purchase my template structure. It won’t plan the trip for you, but it already has these sections filled out and ready for your information. Right now, it’s only priced at $5.00 because I want everyone to use a Trip Planning Document!
I wanted to speak to the fact that the Trip Planning Template is designed around being structured with flexibility. You’ll notice that I didn’t say to list out a day-by-day, hour-by-hour itinerary. Nope! The closest you’ll get is the overview chart at the top of the document. You are, of course, welcome to add a detailed itineary to the document! But the template is there to really nail down the logistics, so that you can have the boring bits done before you get to your destination and can feel fully emersed. If that sounds good to you, click the link below:
Planning with Your Trip Planning Template
Now that you’ve created the structure for your Trip Planning Document (or are using my Trip Planning Template – YAY!), the next step is to start using it! Here are my tips for using a Trip Planning Document when planning a trip with someone else:
- Start with what you know. Add a name and dates to the trip, anything that is already booked – flights, rental cars, or accomodations. It’s exciting to see things become populated!
- Add the basics before sharing with your travel partner. Always remember that other people plan trips differently than you. Some people might hate a trip planning document (until they need the information), so be sure to OWN the document. Don’t expect anyone else to go in and organize things, but they will likely add links or reference the links you add to help make decisions. And by adding the things you know first, it will feel less like an assignment to anyone else.
- Get messy. I give you full permission and even encourage you to get messy during the planning phases. You might need to add five Airbnb links, two hotel links, and a campground before deciding where to stay. This is what the document is for! Once you’ve decided, you can clean it up accordingly.
- Add more than you need. Again, the beauty of GoogleDocs – the number of pages is limitless. You can add 10 restaurants per area, knowing that you’ll only need 3. I use my Trip Planning Document as a reference tool for options.
- Customize the document to you. Again, the most important thing about a trip planning document is that you’re using it! If you like to pick restaurants when you’re there, eliminate the section! Adjust the document so you can find what you need when you need it.
Traveling with Your Template
A couple of days before your trip, or maybe you end up doing it the night before, don’t forget to do the following:
- Clean up the document so that you can find everything easier! Eliminate or move things to the bottom of the document that you no longer need, use bold and colors to highlight important things, and ensure all the items you booked has the appropriate information.
- Download the GoogleDoc app if you haven’t already.
- In the GoogleDocs app, choose the “Make available offline” option to access the document without Wifi or service. You will even be able to edit the document, which will save locally on your phone until you have wifi or service again.
- Consider printing one copy of the document to take with you, if you prefer a paper copy.
Pretty much on every trip, I’ve had to pull out the Trip Planning Template to point out the address of the first accommodations to the taxi or uber driver. I ALWAYS have my phone on me, so it’s easy to pull the Trip Planning Document and scroll directly to the section I need. And by the time I’m on the trip, I have the sections memorized due to how many times I’ve touched the document.
What often happens during a trip, especially if international, is that I use the Trip Planning Document heavily on the first couple of days. Because everything is so unfamiliar, the document provides the comfort of pre-chosen activities and restauarnts. As I become more familiar with the destination, I rely on the Trip Planning Document less and less. And that’s the beauty of the planning document – you can use it however much you need, and it’s there when you need it.
Trip Planning Template Overview
Overall, I believe a Trip Planning Document will make it easier to plan a trip because it will give you a single location to save information and prompt you to fill out the next section. And although I recommend that one person takes the lead on the document, it’s incredibly useful to get everyone on the same page without sending separate emails or have multiple versions of a document. I hope you give it a try! Don’t forget that I have a trip planning template that is only $5.00 if you would like to shortcut the structuring and get straight to planning:
What is your favorite part of planning a trip? I LOVE looking up activities and things to do at the destination. Let me know in the comments!
Happy Travels,
Hanna
