Daily travel itinerary: Excel or Word template

Made up my own in Excel years ago. It has several tabs. Each trip I just use the prior one as a template and start filling in the new details.

I should add, I like Excel for the superb handling of numbers, both time and money.

Hi Eric, I also have used my own Excel file template for several years and just reuse it. The first tab has the overall itinerary summary with columns for Date, Hotel, Address, Payment, Day-of-Week, Actvities, Comments. Hotel reservations that have free cancellation are color-coded green; no cancellation are red. If I’ve paid already, the Payment is green and date paid.

Each town gets its own tab. Ideas go into those tabs. The final cut goes into the first page summary. Museum tickets purchased on-line ahead of time are in Bold in that summary. If something is closed one day but open another or a Festival on one day, I place those in the summary to keep track of specific date requirements.

I really like the overall page, so I can check if I’m too museum heavy during a portion of the trip, or if I need more balance of variety.

Another tab is one that completely tracks expenses and anticipated expenses, including an overall pie chart. I’m an engineer, so I enjoy getting into details!

Another tab is Transportation with columns for train tickets: From, To, Connections, Departure time (the one I want), Arrival Time, Purchased on-line, Price.

I even create a tab for Clothing. This is to ensure I can pack 4 outfits and still have what I need for specific activities.

Until I switched to Tripit, I used a homemade Excel spreadsheet showing day-by-day which town we were staying, transportation details, planned/booked activities (and notes as to what will be closed), costs in local currency (color coded to show prepaid or pending), USD equivalent costs. One year for a May trip I also flagged holidays (LOTS of holidays in May!)
Then added to the cost subtotal an estimate of food costs @ $100/day, doggie sitter costs, looked at the total and hyperventilated. Set the details column to wrap text and row height as needed.
Added: I was budget manager for a national firm in my working life; old habits die hard.

I use either Excel or a Mac spreadsheet app (Numbers). That seems the most flexible and useful to me.

Laura B, I tried using Tripit once but it created more work than it was worth to try to piece together an itinerary. It doesn't seem to handle languages other than English very well, at least when I used it -- almost everything went into some kind of limbo that required me to manually manage it (I don't recall what it was named). I found the social media aspects of it creepy as well.

I use my own template in word for the itinerary. Then a separate Excel document for the money. Excel is great for numbers but keep in mind that the cells do have a character limit. Word is easier to format which is why I use it for the itinerary. Each day is a heading and can be easily accessed via the navigation pane. My day job is formatting documents . . . so I am sticking with what I know. :)

Gees, I have been accused of being too organized with a basic spreadsheet itinerary with typically transportation, location, accommodation and just one major activity or attraction listed daily. Maybe I’ll be more anal in the future.

@Bruce -- clearly you need to hang out with people who appreciate planning ;-)

Does anyone use any of the existing templates found in Word? In the Mac version I have, there is one called "Calendar" which you can type into by day (like a regular Word document but just formatted in monthly calendar view), but it obviously doesn't handle any calculations like Excel does.

Since everyone seems to have slightly different needs and requirements, it's probably best to build a custom template that suits your needs. To save on space, I use tables and columns so there is little empty, white space on the page.

I am not really good in Excel altho I have my packing lists in it.

I know you didn't mention this platform, but for my itinerary I use Google Docs and use a template someone here suggested years ago. I just have 4 columns Date, Place/Activities, Transportation, Lodging and then each day down the left side. I take my iPhone and iPad with me on vacation so I've got the app loaded and can access the itineraries from there.

If I am traveling with others it is easy to give them access to the itinerary - altho none of them seem to look at it, hahaha!

I just set up a day-by-day itinerary as a Word document, showing flights, hotels, any date-specific sights, etc. On some trips I have a separate Excel spreadsheet where I list expenses as I incur them for flights, hotels, and such, along with any cash withdrawals for the trip.

Obviously I have a long way to go before I achieve the heights of detailed planning some of our fellow posters have described. I know planning is part of the fun, but the documents I create just help me keep necessary information in one place. Maybe I'll improve with age. ;-)

I would be interested to see one of these spreadsheets. Can anyone post one. Im not sure that how I think of my plans would correlate well with a spreadsheet, as weird as that sounds...

I write my plans per place, and then per day, in a little notebook (!), and then keep all related documents, like tickets, in a ziplock baggie labeled with the place (so "Paris" would have all my pre-purchased tickets). Ziplock so if my pack gets rained on (or spilled on), which it has, the tickets are safe.
I also take pictures of everything with Genius-scan and load it into the cloud as back-up (including Passports, DL's, train tickets, museum tickets, rental car agreements, etc)

Pen & paper work too. Very portable; no chargers needed.

"@Bruce -- clearly you need to hang out with people who appreciate planning ;-)" Our kids claim I handed out the spreadsheet on the way to the airport for each trip. Not so. However, I'll up my game to keep up with those far more sophisticated.

I've switched to Google Docs for planning - I can do spreadsheets and text documents, even if they lack some of the wizzy features found in MS Office. The big upside, of course, is that I have all the info on all my devices - phone, tablet, laptop - automatically. I've mostly dispensed with paper for planning anyway - I don't even print out things anymore or not much. I used to print out pages and make little notebooks for myself. Not necessary for me anymore.

Pam & Bruce - I distribute the itinerary many times before the trip but seldom get feedback until I ask for specific comment and concerns. It is great because I basically get to plan the entire trip as I see fit :)

But before I go I make "the book" which contains printouts of all the pertinent papers and itinerary. They all scour the book during flight and on trip so I feel like they do appreciate the work in the end. All back-up is on phone or nook.

larlock, that's funny that you make a book because this thread jogged me to make some notes for a goody bag I'll make for my travel companions for a trip in May. I think I'll do a book or folder as well.

We have a family joke about a tour company my Dad made up when he and Mom were quite elderly and my brother and I were taking turns accompanying them to various places. I'll put the BAP Tours logo on the notebooks and maybe on (empty) water bottles. (BAP = Bob, Angie, Pam)

https://1drv.ms/x/s!Ar-VsTjHvai2gn9ZFrOGbsTyM420

Hope this link works.
Scroll across the bottom to see travel schedule.

Dreamsparis, I take off my hat. I am in awe. I am gobsmacked.

I announced at our last RS Travel Group meeting, to the general hilarity of all those present, that I was finally breaking down and making a spreadsheet. Well. Having seen yours, my poor little duckling is in the corner quivering, while I'm saying, "There, there now! You're perfectly fine! All I need is a list of what we've prepaid, what papers, tickets, numbers, etc. I need to take. It'll be fine, you'll see. Next year we'll add some new columns, maybe I'll even give you some tabs!"

Thanks for sharing. I think. :-)

I use Word since I have not experience with Excel.
Here is what I do. This is for upcoming trip to Scotland.

Scotland

Day 1 (July 20th Friday); Arrive Edinburgh at 4pm.
Take the bus airport express 100
Get off at Waverly Bridge
Go along Princes St and turn right on Castle street the 4th right
Check into Castleview B&B
Walk Royal mile and have dinner at pub

Day 2; (July 21 Saturday) Edinburgh
Edinburgh Castle (get here early)
Walk Royal Mile
Camera Obscura (open 9:30am to 8pm 15.50 euros per adult 11.5 euros per kid, two hours for your visit)
Find Greyfriers cemetery
Have dinner
O/N at Castleview B&B

Day 3; (July 22 Sunday) Edinburgh
Walk to Dean Village
Hike Arthurs Seat
Dinner at The Table (for adults)
O/N at Castleview B&B

Day 4; (July 23 Monday) Inverness
Pick up rental car at airport
Confirmation #H5481581584
Drive to Inverness
Stopping at Pitlochry for Ebradour Distillery (10 euros per adult 5 euros per kid no one under 12, one hour tour) and lunch at The Old Mill Inn
Arrive at Inverness
O/N Moyness B&B

Eric, I searched Excel for a template on travel and found one called Trip Planner. They start with tabs for Travel (flight info), Lodging, Activities, and Budget. You can, of course, edit or add tabs as needed. I have used Microsoft OneNote before, but that only really works for me for trips of a week or less.

Oh Pam, I need a logo for the Book -- gives me something to ponder tonight. We have a spiral binder at work which helps with the Book.

diveloonie - if you make Day 1 paragraph a header it is a great way to navigate. Your document is basically how I have my word document set up. Of course now I want to go to Scotland.

Thanks for all the great responses. It's interesting to see the wide range of pre-planning (or lack thereof) that people engage in.

I think I'm going to work with DreamsParis' excellent Excel spreadsheet. Very comprehensive, which is what I'm aiming for. I think the reason I'm fairly obsessed with planning is that from experience I've learned that you can't see everything and laying out the schedule helps to see the tradeoffs. The problem with 2 night stays is that you really have to cram a lot into a short amount of time. Also, on a My Way tour, the time is nearly all your own so you especially need to think about how to spend the full days in a place like Florence or Rome.

Thanks again for all the suggestions.

Eric, to maximize your time for those 2-day stops, you might want to mark your favorites on a city map of Florence and Rome from Google. Then you can see which ones fit into Day 1 vs. Day 2. Also, reserve tickets ahead for those places with LONG lines, I.e. art museums in Florence. Both of those locations have gorgeous churches, too, and those you can stop into for a few minutes along your route.

Eric,

I've been using a Word document for my detailed Itinerary, and depending on the trip it can be about 10 pages long. However it's not a template so it's a lot of work to revise for each new trip. I've found it very useful so far as as it's very detailed, and I refer to it frequently during trips.

I also use a separate Pre-Trip Checklist, which is formatted on an Excel Spreadsheet and a Trip Expenses sheet. I'm fairly comfortable with Excel, so I'll combine them when I get a few spare minutes.

I was impressed by the Dreamsparis Excel version, so I'm going to have a closer look at that.

Great advice on this topic!

I make a simple table in word, now pages, in landscape with 8 columns. One for notes and then the 7 days of the week. I just started mine for a September RS tour. I make a sort of calendar of my holiday. On a blank line at the bottom in the days of the week, I might add things like Louvre closed or louvre open late til 2100, or the days of my favourite food markets.

For the days on the tour, i started by copying the itinerary frim the website abd then shortened it up, using abbreviations. I kept info like supper on your own or free time afternoon so I can look up some plans ahead of time.

I took a class at the Apple store where they helped me make a trip planner with different pages, one for flights, booked hotel or apartment where I put all the details. One page had my packing list. I think it was in numbers and there was a template. I did print each page out for the trip.

Have a great trip.