Travel Planning Spreadsheet & Travel Planning Aids
You have landed on one of the best travel planning websites. We assume you are looking for travel planning aids, like a travel planning spreadsheet. Well, if you are looking for travel planning tools, then you are in the right place. If you are more interested in how to plan a trip then we suggest you view our Planning a Trip Post.
Planning a trip is not an easy task without the right planning tools. We have them. The Best Travel Planning Websites offer you great tools to help you plan a great trip. Like planning to build a house or build any construction project, before you hit the first nail or take the first flight, you need to develop a plan. Travel planning a DIY trip is not an easy task without the right Travel Planning Tools. Here is the list of Cos’s favorite travel planning aids, including our recommended travel planning spreadsheet, and the order which we suggest you use them.
1. Travel Map
Unquestionably, travel Planning can be complicated. You need to have a good understanding of the Destinations that you are thinking of visiting and you need to know where they are. That is why the first thing we look at when doing high-level travel planning, is a map. The map can provide a sense of how far various destinations might be separated and how to get from point A to point B. During the pandemic (2020-2022), the map was also a helpful tool to demonstrate what countries were actually open. It also helped to understand what tests or documentation was needed. This particular map was taken in early 2021 when countries were just starting to open up from the Covid Pandemic.
2. Calendar
The second tool that is very helpful is a calendar, and not the online ones. When doing travel planning, often a trip will run over a number of weeks or months and will contain many different activities. To do a good job of planning, particularly when changing time zones and crossing continents, it is necessary to see when a flight, hotel stay, car rental, etc. begins and end. It is really helpful from a travel planning perspective to visually see the whole trip on a large desk-type calendar.
3. Travel Planning Guidebooks
Travel Guide Books are critical to making decisions about where to travel and what to do when you get there. For Europe we love Rick Steve’s books and for Hawaii there is nothing better than Andrew Doughty’s collection.
To Purchase Travel Guides, follow the link below to go to Amazon:
4. Travel Planning Spreadsheet
Having an Excel-based travel planning tool is a great way to organize all the details for trip planning. We recommend that you purchase Etsy’s Ultimate All-In-One Travel Planner.
5. Trip It, Online Travel Planning Tool
Having sketched out the trip in paper and pencil, now we put everything into an online tool that works in the cloud and lets everyone on the trip see the entire trip itinerary on their mobile devices. While there are a number of online tools that will help you do this, in our opinion, TripIt is the best. Not only are all activities, flights, lodging, restaurants, tours, cruises, rental cars, etc. clearly documented with stop and start dates, but TripIt will monitor the activities and let you know flight terminals and gates, on-time performance, etc. It is truly a great planning tool and one we use on all our trips. They also will track your reward points and can aggregate your important information such as Passport numbers, etc.
6. Historical Travel Books
We find that when we go someplace for the first time, it really helps to do some background reading on the history of the place, specially to get a feeling for the cultural background of the people. James Michener’s books are particularly helpful, and we have read them before our trips to the 49th and 50th states. To purchase any of Michener’s or others travel books, follow the link to Amazon: Michener’s books.
Cos also found Dan Brown’s books to be particularly helpful prior to visiting a city. Before he went to Rome on a trip with his daughter, he read Dan Brown’s “Angels & Demons” on the flight over to Italy and was able to follow the author’s identifications of unique clues left in various churches in and around Rome. You can get Dan’s books, including “The Da Vinci Code” and “Angels and Demons,” at Amazon as well as the audio versions:
This is really great!