With Spring blooming and Summer on the horizon many of us our planning our vacations - myself included! For the past 4-5 years I’ve had a system for planning our travel adventures and today I’m going to share that recipe with you. As well, how to create a travel planner in Milanote.
How I Plan Our Travel Adventures
Choosing a Destination & Time
When choosing where we are going to travel some things we consider are:
How long can we go far?
What is our budget?
Do we prefer a more relaxing or adventurous vacation?
Is there a preferred season we’d like to travel in?
After we know where we want to go, we start thinking about when we want to go:
Shoulder season vs. Peak season: I love to travel during Spring and Summer, however, travelling during this time often means we might be travelling during peak season which I prefer not to do because it’s often more expensive and more crowded. Thus, I consider can we travel during the shoulder season?
Is there a preferred season? If we were to travel to Japan I would definitely want to go during the Spring season because I would love to photograph Japan during their cherry blossom season!
Are there high-risk seasons? Depending on where we’ve chosen is there a bad time of year for hurricane’s, tornadoes, wildfires, etc., If there is a bad season can we avoid travelling during that time.
Brainstorm a List of Things to Do, Where you Gotta Eat (and Places to Photograph)
When I brainstorm what we’re going to do on a trip I typically seek out four sources:
Pinterest: On Pinterest I’ll search “Things to Do in (place we’re traveling to)”. I’ll read some blog articles and if there’s anything that peaks my interest I’ll take note.
YouTube: I also like to go on YouTube and see if any of the travel creators I follow have been to the destination we’re going to and if they have any recommendations.
Instagram: On Instagram I find the best source of information is the tourism boards Instagram account. They tend to post on their feed and in their stories recommendations for restaurants and things to do in the city that are very helpful.
Talk to People: Whether it’s online or in-person I love getting recommendations from people that used to live in that place. I find they can give a different perspective on what to do or where to eat over travellers that visited a city.
Create an Itinerary
After we have an idea of everything we want to do on a trip, I like to create an itinerary. With this itinerary it’s not about creating a set schedule, it’s more about ensuring we can do everything we want to do in the time frame that we have. As well, creating a balance everyday and week between relaxing and taxing activities so we’re not exhausted by the end. For example, a taxing activity might be going on a hike and a relaxing might be taking a stroll through the local museum.
When I create our itineraries I keep it to two activities per day - one in the morning and one in the afternoon. If we finish the activities early, and we have the energy and time to do more than we can, but there isn’t any pressure to do more.
I also don’t plan out where we’re going to eat. If it makes sense to eat at a particular place because we’re in the area then I will or if we are eating somewhere special for a special occasion then I might mark it in the calendar but otherwise we play this part by ear.
Book Our Transportation & Hotel
Depending on the trip your transportation needs will vary - whether you need to book multiple ferry rides or flights. I do pay extra close attention to flight layovers now! One of the first trips we ever took and booked ourselves was to Denver, Colorado. We probably booked the cheapest package we could find, but we didn’t look at our layover time. It turned out we had 20 minutes in LAX (if you’ve ever been to LAX you know that is not enough time). Now, I make sure we have 1-2 hours layover between flights.
When we choose our hotel I have a particular process I follow now. Before we book our hotel I map out all the activities we’re going to do on My Google Maps. Then when I look on Expedia to find our hotel I like to see if there is a hotel that is within our price range and is walking distance to all our activities. If walking distance isn’t possible is it driving distance?
I’ve made mistakes in the past where we’ve chosen a hotel that is no where near the attractions we want to visit so we’re constantly taking shuttles and taxi’s to get to where we want to go.
Book Any Activities
The last step is to book any activities. Depending on the activity I will either purchase skip the line tickets the day before or in advance buy our tickets. When we went to Vancouver Island last summer I pre-booked our whale watching tour and Raptor Centre Tour tickets but when we visited the Malahat Skywalk I purchased skip the line tickets the morning of.
My rule when I’m booking activities in advance is I don’t book for the first or second day that we’re there. This is because what if we get delayed at the ferry or airport and because we’re now outside the cancellation window we can’t get a refund for our tickets. So I book these activities for the third day and on that we’re there.
I also like to keep in mind that sometimes booking the activity in-person is cheaper than buying online. This happened to us in Greece. We wanted to book a Catamaran Cruise on Santorini and it ended up being $20 more expensive per person to book online than to book in-person.
Lastly, I like to keep in mind lighting. If the activity we’re doing has a photography element to it then I like to keep lighting in mind.
Creating a Travel Planner in Milanote
See below a screenshot of what my travel planner in Milanote looks like. My travel planner is laid out in the way it is because when I’m looking at it on my computer I like to see everything at a glance. I also create arrows between the notes/columns because it will create the following order on my phone.
Hotel/Transportation Information: I like to start with writing down the check-in and check-out times of our hotels (especially if we’re staying at multiple hotels during our trip). If we have ferries or flights to catch then I will also write this information in here. This information is likely what we’re going to do need first so I like to have it handy.
Itinerary: After I have my itinerary, with the days broken down into what were roughly going to do/have planned. This is likely the next piece of information I’m constantly grabbing for.
To-do: I then create a to-do list of things I have to do before the trip (book flight, book ferry, book hotel, etc.,)
Resources: Below my to-do I have my “resources” section where I will clip any extra information. For example, if there’s a website or blog article that has helpful information I might want to refer back to I will clip it here using the Milanote Web Clipper.
Budget: Lastly, I have my budget note. I just like to keep track of how much we budgeted and are spending on a trip.
That is my recipe for planning our travel adventures and planning things out in Milanote! Let me know over on the channel if you are the type of traveler that likes to plan everything out or go with the flow!
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Beautifully Wander | Robynne MacLeod