Welcome! In today’s post I thought it would be helpful to show you how to have a nice, organized travel itinerary. I have done some written itineraries but never a document on my laptop and I’ve learned that it is so much easier to do it this way. Traveling and preparing for traveling can be hectic and you just want to be able to relax during your vacation so it’s important to have everything written down so you could look back to it when you need important information such as addresses, phone numbers, events, and times of activities.

I will be using my actual itinerary that I made for my recent trip in Iceland as an example of how to organize your own itinerary. Note: You do not have to follow my examples or instructions, they are merely a guide on what I prefer and you could of course edit it to your liking!

Choose where you want to make it

This means do you want to handwrite it, type it out in a document, or just input information in an app? It is totally based on your preferences.

Itinerary Builder Application

(Source: Hello.travefy.com)

Here is an application that allows you to make your travel planner almost step by step:
Travefy Travel Itinerary Builder 
This option is great if you want all of your information right on your phone where it is easy to access it.

Handwritten Planner

(Source: Pixabay.com)

This is a good way to get creative with your plans! If you have a notebook that you plan on bringing to collect your thoughts and experiences, this is the way to go and it’s great to look back on for memories afterward.

Typed Document

This is the route I am taking! It started off as a simple Google Doc page with some quick notes of addresses and and dates, but I decided to make it look nice because it makes me feel like it’s organized with everything in its place. Also, you could easily access it with the Google Docs app on your phone and set the document to offline availability- which is what I did!

 

Jot down important information first

This means you need to know the important stuff first before you get too creative. Here’s a checklist of things you should know for your trip and should write down:

• Departure dates to destination and back home
• Destination city and other cities
• Departure city
• Airports
• Hotel or Airbnb addresses and telephone numbers
• Local emergency numbers
• Booking numbers for flights, events, and overnight accomodations
• Translations of important words and phrases for emergencies
• Dates and times for allotted activities or events
• Currency conversions
• Hotel, event, and car rental fees to have ready
• etc.

Organize the information into clusters

So you have all the information you need for your trip, but you can’t just have them floating around all willy nilly! The next step is to place the information into relevant categories so you can get to them faster and easier when you need them. For example, I have information on how to take photos of the Northern Lights with a nice picture on one page with a paragraph (that I shamelessly copied from a website) so when I was on my Northern Light hunting excursion I just scrolled to that page and failed at configuring my camera like a pro.

Instructional information

This is my Northern Lights photography instructions example I just mentioned. This is especially important if you’re a beginner photographer (or even advanced) so you know how to capture a moment that’s very different than your home terrain. This can include information on photography, international driving laws, or anything else.

 

Miscellaneous Information

This is where you can insert reference numbers for events, “good places to know”, foods to look out for, places to be at night, and how to get around.

 

 

Hotel Information

This is no doubt the most important part of your itinerary, so it would be helpful to add some useful information while you have this segment with check in times, bath towel rental fees, breakfast times and prices, location, etc.

Day-to-day Itinerary

I cannot stress enough how important this is! This really helped me when I was in Iceland by myself because I’d forget what I had planned for the day. So really take the time to go through each hour of each day of your trip so you can make sure you don’t miss an important excursion or event. It also helps when you’re booking for things in advance so you know if you have the time for it, or to move things around to maximize your vacation.

Fluff it up!

You’ve probably noticed my pink inspirational inserts or lyrics that I sprinkled into my itinerary. Let loose and make it fun! It makes you even more excited for your trip, I highly recommend doing this as well!

So that’s all I have for now, if you have any questions please leave a comment below and if you want a link to my actual Google Doc itinerary, I don’t mind giving it out to serve as a guide.

Also, please let me know if this has been helpful to you at all, I really want to improve my usefulness!