Planning Your Next Trip? The Ultimate Travel Planner Guide
The good news is that a little pre-work ahead of time will save you tons of stress, money, and uncertainty in the future. It may seem daunting at first but well worth the effort. I'll break it down into 3 essentials:
The itinerary. The outfits. The packing.
Let's start with the itinerary.
Planning the Itinerary: The Roadmap for Your Trip
Without a detailed itinerary, you have no direction for your plans. If you are a young couple or just a group of friends traveling, your plans can be pretty loose. But as a family with kids, the itinerary is your North Star. It can still be flexible but in order to plan accordingly, you want your itinerary to include these items:
- Date(s)
- Destination
- Weather
- What to wear
- Transportation
- Accommodations
- Agenda
- Other sites to see
- Restaurant and shopping recommendations
This should cover most of what you need to research, schedule, purchase, book, confirm, etc. on your trip. Below is the template that I created and used for our last trip. I was able to see the whole itinerary at a glance and then each day in greater detail.
Ever since the Covid restrictions were lifted, everyone is traveling. It is busy out there! What that means for you is that booking transportation, accommodations, tours, and restaurant reservations are more important than ever. Trust me the lines are long and the good restaurants are taken first. Book what you can online and ahead of time.
What to Wear: The Outfits for Your Trip
Packing the night before and throwing a bunch of clothes in a suitcase usually never works when you want to pack light and efficiently. Plus you want to look good. The longer the trip and farther away you travel, the more important planning the outfits become. Laundry is usually scarce. I started doing this on a blank sheet of paper and wrote down the dates and what I was wearing each day. Now I plan my outfits for almost every trip so I decided to create my own template. It includes the date, destination, outfit, and shoes for day and night along with accessories. My daughter gets creative and takes photos of each outfit, adding a piece of paper on top with the dates. Whatever works for you.
Don't Forget to Pack the Essentials
After your itinerary and outfit planning is complete, the fun of packing begins. The stressful part of packing is remembering everything that you need. Did you remember to pack the toothpaste, phone chargers, sunglasses, headphones?...the list goes on. To alleviate the anxiety of forgetting and having to find and purchase items on vacation, I created a comprehensive travel packing list with all the essentials. I print a list for each member of my family.
A little hack that is trending now is packing cubes. Each member of my family had their own. They are genius for long trips and make packing so much more efficient. You can sort through your outfits fairly quickly and even pack a cube for each stop or destination. I wanted more luggage space so I took it a step further and purchased compression packing cubes. Worked like a charm!
If you are looking for the Ultimate Travel Planner PDF Guide. Here it is!
