The Itinerary
The heart of why we travel — experiencing the world’s wonders and curiosities.
How do you best fill your vacation time with museums, excursions, restaurants, parks, events, markets, tours, and activities you didn’t even know existed?
Spreadsheet: Attractions
This next part of Trip Planning is the most time consuming, but it is the bread and butter of any trip — researching activities to do. Create a new tab in your spreadsheet that contains columns for each of your main trip segments (generally different cities, but any time you need new accommodations)
Begin adding the activities you had already mapped out in a ranked order (Hours, Duration, price).
Make sure opening hours are not seasonal and are for the days that you are there. Pay attention to any disruptions by local holidays.
Add to your Trip Map.
Share with travel mates.
WikiVoyage See, Do
For each of your planned destinations, head back to Wikivoyage to get an idea of the top-level attractions to See and Do. Most likely some of your ideas are already listed, but it’s nice to get some confirmation from other travelers.
Take a look at the “Go next” section as well for some potential day trips.
Travel Books
Although most travel planning has shifted to digital, there is still a decent demand for travel books. It’s handy when traveling to have a quick reference about attractions, addresses, restaurants, or translation help when mobile data may be unavailable.
Head to your local library to find an assortment of great brand options – Lonely Planet, DK, Fodor’s, Rick Steve’s. You may even find different types of books – Top 10s, Self-Guided Walks, Best Hikes, or Foodie Guide, and specific for a city, region, or country. Borrow several books and if you find some would be valuable to have on your trip, support a book publisher.
Travel books are also something nice to read when you have downtime.
TripAdvisor
TripAdvisor is the world’s largest travel planning site with millions of reviewed attractions, businesses, and restaurants. Cities, from major to tiny, have ranked lists for attractions, restaurants, and hotels. It offers a great ordered list of the best things to see or eat. You can also filter the lists for the type of attraction (museums, outdoor, etc.) or type of traveler (couple, adrenaline-seeking, budget-friendly).
TripAdvisor also has extensive lists of tours and experiences that likely won’t show up in guidebooks – things like food tours, cultural sightseeing tours, cooking classes, and all kinds of private tours dedicated to those who want a deeper dive into a destination’s uniqueness.
Each destination also has a Forum for asking questions and providing answers to like-minded travelers. If you can’t find an answer to a question through other research, search the forums or Google “site:tripadvisor.com how to I buy online tickets for [site]?”
Social Media / Blogs / Vlogs
A search for specific content could also turn up blogs related to “best bookshops in Florence”.
Popular social media sites like Instagram, TikTok, or Pinterest can present a smorgasbord of images, clips, and ideas for your travels.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/things-to-do/
Reddit/r/[destination]
Reddit will often appear in search results from a city or country’s subreddit, like “What are the best gelato places in Rome?” in reddit/r/rome. The responses are usually from local residents and the general consensus places get upvoted to the top.
Spend some time on the subreddit itself and see what local are talking about. They may have a convenient wiki for FAQs and tips about a destination like reddit.com/r/rome/wiki/index/ or there may even be a link to a similar subreddit aimed at travelers reddit.com/user/RomeVacationTips/
Check: Cruises in Port
Spreadsheet: Excursions
Hopefully, you have found some amazing excursions to include in your trip. Create a new tab in your spreadsheet to figure out which one(s) and when to book them.
You may find several options for a tour to a specific place. Write down the most important info for you decide to reserve or not – what’s included in a tour, the price, the duration, the departure time, availability, or reviews.
Research: Excursions/Tours
With your new Excursions tab, TripAdvisor has a great list of tours to search by destination, filterable by type, and sorted by TA’s combination of reviews and number of reviews.
GetYourGuide
Viator
Airbnb Experiences
Move “Attractions" to "Itinerary"
With a more complete list of attractions, tours, restaurants, and trails to experience, start tentatively moving things over to your “Itinerary” tab.
Tips: Move excursions to the first things in a city. If a tour needs to be rescheduled because of weather, operator issues, etc., you are more likely to substitute space later in your itinerary.
Group items by day that don’t require significant travel time between them, i.e. 1 day for that day trip tour from the city, 1 day for the city center, 1 day for the attractions to the west and north of the city.
If you already researched the dates and hours that a site was open, reference these frequently as you fill in spots like a jigsaw puzzle
Fill in as many things as you can, but be conservative about how long an attraction may take and have backup plans if an event runs long, it’s closed for unseen reasons, or getting to an attraction takes longer than expected.
Schedule food breaks as well
Spreadsheet: Accommodations
Now with a general idea of what areas of a city you’ll be in each day, find the perfect location within your budget. Consider hotels that are convenient to how you will arrive and depart a destination too. If you’re leaving from the same airport you flew in on, accommodation near public transportation to/from the airport will save time and stress, especially if you’ll be tired from a long flight.
If your stay is more than 4 days in a region, consider booking separate hotels and take advantage of the attractions near each hotel while you stay there, reducing travel time between activity.
AirBnB and Vrbo are alternatives for travel, though (no hotel perks like dropoff).
Book a place that has a washing machine that is close to the center of the trip (or around the ⅓ and ⅔ intervals) so you can do laundry and save a lot of space in your luggage. Hotels also have laundry services as well if washing machines are not available.
Research: Restaurants
If you’re more of the foodie traveler, you’ve probably already looked at some great spots or a food tour through your research so far. Treat them like attractions and schedule them around your other plans. For filling in other spots on the Itinerary, try searching for restaurants, cafes, or food trucks that are near your attractions or along your walking/driving routes.
Pay close attention to business hours and have at least a couple ideas per meal. Pin them to your Map with a different icon or color. If you want the detail, you can even create separate icons or colors for “must try”, coffee shops, desserts, or specific for an allergen or cuisine type.
Google, TripAdvisor, Blogs
Book: Transportation
With a solid itinerary of attractions, events, tours, restaurants, and accommodations all mapped out, now you can begin to make the plan a reality.
Book the trains, buses, ferries, and any shorter flights that connect your dots.
If transportation you had scheduled is no longer available at that time or significantly more expensive, feel free to revamp the Itinerary as needed. Book an earlier train and then cut out that last attraction in the new city.
Book: Accommodations
With all of your major transportation connections in place, you can now book your hotels, hostels, BnB’s, etc. Like transportation, is the place you had in mind is no longer available or significantly more expensive, hopefully you can go with your second or third option from your research.
If any of your excursions are overnight, you can book those also.
Book: Excursions/Tours
The larger pieces of your Itinerary can now be finalized. The two-hour to all-day excursions can be booked.
If the excursion is one where they pick you up from your hotel, you can now provide that information while booking.
Book: Car Rental
If your trip includes attractions that are not accessible by public transportation, renting a car may be the most practical means of getting there. Hopefully, availability and cost hasn’t changed too much since your initial check.
Many countries have lower availability for Automatic drive vehicles, so make sure you are comfortable being able to drive what you reserve. Former British colonies also drive on the left side of the road, so there is a learning curve for switching sides.
Book: Ticketed Attractions
Many attractions get quite busy and it’s recommended that you book in advance.
Pre-booking tickets for museums, shows, archaelogical sites, etc., helps to avoid lines when you arrive, often has lower online costs than at the ticket booth, and avoids the possibility of being sold out.
The tradeoff is that it gives your schedule less flexibility if you need to move things around. If you’re unsure whether to book in advance, try to check availability for the time that you are there. If certain hours or timeslots start disappearing, book what you need.
Occasionally, there are credit card issues while booking international tickets.
Book: Restaurants
Most restaurants won’t require a reservation, and it’s good to have flexibility around when you have meals, so use your best judgement about which places will be too busy to walk in when you plan to be there. Dinners at restaurants in the city center are more likely to be fully booked.
Google has restaurant and business “crowdedness” graphs to help with this estimate.