Travel Planning Made Easy: How I Organize Every Trip

Planning trips can seem daunting, but with the right tools, resources, and game plan, organizing your itineraries is easier than you would expect.

As a type A girl, I’m always planning some kind of trip, even if it never happens.

I love having all of my destinations, restaurants, hotel stays, ticket links, and reservations in one place to keep me living in the moment of my trip as opposed to trying to figure out what’s next on Google Maps.

Organizing your Trip:

For organizing and planning, I like to use Wanderlog. Wanderlog has been an absolute game-changer for organizing my trips and helping me map out my days. I’ve had just the free version for a long time and love all of the features.

Starting off: Pick Your destination (duh)

Where are you going? Then find a cute cover pic to keep you inspired.

Budget: What Kind of Trip Will This Be

Figure out how much you are willing to spend. Is this going to be an activity-heavy trip, a trip with lots of museum fees, or a trip that you’re willing to splurge on a fancy hotel.

Pick Your Dates: When Are You Going

To actually create an itinerary and start booking things, you’ll need your dates, but if you are still on the fence about when you want to visit your destination, then you can still make a list of your top attractions, sites, and restaurants that you want to visit!

The Research Part

Now for the fun part of picking out where to go. This is where I go to Google images and find pictures of the best experiences in the destination. I let myself go down as many rabbit holes as needed to find all kinds of hidden gems and unique experiences. I also love touristy stuff; I’m a big believer in that things are hyped up for a reason. So I love to check out tourism board sites to see what they are promoting. Sometimes free stuff as well

Some other sites that I love to scour for inspiration and information are:

TripAdvisor – https://www.tripadvisor.com/

Get your guide – https://www.getyourguide.com/

Viator – https://www.viator.com/

Wanderlog Blogs – https://wanderlog.com/guides

Pinterest – https://www.pinterest.com/outnaboutme/

Expedia – https://www.expedia.com/

Google Flights – https://www.google.com/travel/flights

Booking – https://www.booking.com/

Organizing: Getting Everything into Place

Now that you have lots of activities, restaurants, and sights that have caught your eye, we can start organizing everything.

I like to start with putting in destinations all on one day and then moving them into clusters depending on which sights are closest together.

For example, if you are visiting London, it would make sense to visit Big Ben, The London Eye, The River Thames, and Westminster Abbey in one day.

But it wouldn’t make sense to have something far away in the morning, like Stonehenge, since it requires a few hours of travel as opposed to a simple bus ride from your lodging.

When it comes to organizing days, I also like to take into consideration how much walking will be done. I like to do this so as not to overload the itinerary with too much of one thing back to back.

Booking: Making Sure it Happens

Now that you have your full game plan, you can start booking and importing all of your important information. That way, you have it all in one place!

This means your hotel reservation number and the link to the reservation page, the tickets you buy, the restaurant reservation confirmation, and the times. Everything and anything that you might need while on your trip. This takes away any kind of ‘log-in stress’ or is helpful if you don’t have any kind of cell phone service.

Especially for National Parks and for campground Information.

Put in your flight departure and arrival times

Pack your bags

Get ready for the trip! Take a look at the weather for the dates you’ve booked and pack your bags

That’s all for now, I’ll see you