Planning your trip isn't as exciting as taking your dream trip. Making a travel itinerary may sound like a completely trivial, waste-of-my-precious-time task. But when you do it right, when finally on the road, you'll be rewarded instantly. As from the very beginning to the end of your journey, you won't have to take care of anything else but you can spend more time exploring or relaxing and less time trying to organize yourself.
Creating a travel itinerary is quite simple. From planning your route and itinerary to how to set a travel budget, we got you covered:
1. Gather all information
You will need flight tickets, hotels bookings, day trip info, restaurant reservations, car rentals information, and travel insurance details. Make a hard copy of all your documents.
2. Be realistic
Surely, you want to maximize all the time you have in your trip. If you really want to squeeze in every tour, meal and excursion you've typed into your itinerary, you might as well have spent the week in a correctional bootcamp. Add a day or cut an activity.
Create a list of everything you want to see or do in a seamless schedule. Put the list in priority order then estimate how long an activity will take or how long it will take to get there. Research events happening in your destination. Note local holidays coinciding with your trip. In week-long tours, look at a map and start grouping the different attractions you want to see by neighborhood or region-this will help you minimize transit time between one part of your itinerary and the next.
3. Create a digital itinerary
A digital version is easier because you can copy and paste hotel addresses and flight numbers without fear of reversing a number or missing part of an address or reversing a number. The Evernote app can keep maps, photos and links to important websites that can be accessed on any device. When you don't have access to the internet, you can also up an offline notebook in order to see your notes.
4. Divide a city into sections
Many large cities will be split up in districts. Create a header in Evernote for each district. Start taking the items from your master list and placing them in the sections.
5. Determine your trip length
Whether it's a two-week holiday or a global one-year adventure, the reality is that your travels will come to an end so you need to get your flight dates fixed. Convert your timeframe into days.
7. Create a travel budget
Deciding on a how much money you want or can spend will help you to stay in control of your budget. Thinking about the budget will also help you to select places you can afford to visit. A spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel can help create an organized and portable budget. Alternatively, consider using a budgeting app.
A travel itinerary helps your travel to go smoothly and the best itinerary is often the most flexible one.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
