How to Make the Perfect Vacation Plan in 5 Easy Steps

Updated January 3, 2024

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It’s the beginning of the year, all the holiday celebrations are done. So what’s next? Before the winter doldrums hit, it’s time to start thinking about traveling and making vacation plans. Just going through the motions of planning a trip makes us happy. There was a study done in which the results showed how planning a trip can elevate your mood.

San Francisco International Airport (SFO) air tower as seen from the airplane as we take off on a pre-pandemic trip. — San Francisco International Airport (SFO) air tower as seen from the airplane as we take off on a trip.

How to put together your next travel itinerary, or maybe you’ve never put a trip itinerary together before and are not sure where to start. The 5 steps outlined below will help you plan the best vacation.

Why do you even need a travel plan? It will make your traveling and sightseeing go easier and less of a chance of turning into a nightmare. You will be able to save time and expense by planning ahead. Also traveling in the post-COVID there are some changes from before, there may be certain requirements to travel to your destination, and the sights and activities you want to do may be closed or have different operating hours. More restaurants are busier which make reservations more important than ever before. With a vacation itinerary in hand, you will just be able to go out and start exploring once you arrive at your destination.

The following 5 steps for creating the best vacation plan starts with the assumption that you know where you want to go. If you haven’t picked your final destination yet, check Destinations for some inspiration.

Getting to your Destination

First let’s look at how you’re going to get to your destination. The biggest deciding factor will be how far you have to go. The farther away the destination is from home you may want to opt for flying. You could also consider other modes of transportation - train, boat or automobile - or even a combination of these. Another factor is how long it will take to reach your destination depending on the mode of transportation. Usually, we look to see how quickly we can get to the destination in the most cost effective manner. We don’t want to spend too much vacation time getting to our destination, unless the journey to get to a place is part of the trip, like road trips or special scene viewing train rides.

Some useful websites to use to find flights are Kayak, Skyscanner and Google Flights.
For train travel in Europe Rome2Rio is a useful website and they have an app as well. For train travel in Japan use the Jorudan app, which shows accurate train time tables.

You can also use Google maps and directions to figure out train travel. Find your starting point on the map, then click “Direction” in the left-side panel, and enter your end point, then selecting trains as the mode of transportation. It will give you various suggestions on how to travel along with time durations. You can adjust the time you will be traveling by clicking on the “Leave now” button and entering the time you will want to leave.

Flying into Maui Hawaii - Molokini island in front of the larger Maui island, a great place for snorkel or scuba diving trip — Flying by Maui, one of the Hawaiian Islands

As you book flights (or other means of transportation) mark down your travel details on your itinerary sheet for easy reference. As you build your itinerary, you will have all your information in one place.

To help with your trip planning, we’re offering a free downloadable Travel Itinerary Template in pdf form! Download the pdf and use it to write in the details as you plan your vacation. If you find the template helpful you can Buy Me A Coffee!

We also like to use Google Sheets for our travel planning, which is a great way to organize a trip with more than one person traveling because once you share it with your travel mates, they can view the plan and share with the planning by adding wish list items for steps 3 and 4 below.
And once you have a final version of the plan, you can easily share it with family or friends who might need to know your itinerary for emergency purposes. Also, Google Sheets are accessible by laptop, tablet, or phone you can easily refer to it as long as you’re connected to a network (or you can download it for offline reference).

2. Where are you Going To Stay?

Once you’ve purchased your airplane tickets (or however you’re going to reach your destination), then it’s time to look for lodgings. I usually do the flights first as fares can drastically change depending on which days you fly, so lodgings come secondary.

For lodgings there are a few options, hotels, vacation rentals (like VRBO) or other alternatives (hostels, home exchange, couch surfing). I’ll focus on hotels and vacation rentals here as they are the more typical lodgings that travelers use. If you’re heading to a big city like London, Paris, or Rome, deciding in what part of the city to stay can be tricky. How do you decide where to stay?

If you’re on a tight budget then you may want to stay out of the center of the city, which is generally more expensive. If there’s a good public transportation system, then it’s easy to hop on a metro train to go into the center of town. If your budget is a little looser, then look at your list of sightseeing locations on a map and stay in an area close to where a lot of them are, this makes it convenient to go back to your room and drop off items or take a break. Another thing to consider is to stay near a large monument. When we went to Rome we stayed near the Colosseum, which turned out to be a great decision as we got to see this amazing structure every day, first thing in the morning and at night as we returned to the hotel. On another trip to Europe, we stayed at a hotel near the train station in the center of town, it was easy to get to especially as we were dragging our suitcases, and it was convenient for day trips out of town.

Websites and apps that we like to use for lodgings include Hotels.com, and VRBO. If you have a hotel credit card then it's best to book directly with the hotel in order to get any special rates or perks.

Once you’ve booked your hotel or vacation rental, don’t forget to enter your lodgings details on your itinerary page/worksheet. Enter the confirmation number as well as the address and phone number. Having all this information in one place is very useful. For example, when flying into another country and filling out the immigration/customs paper, you will only need to look in one place for the information.

3. What Are you Going to do on vacation?

These next two steps are the fun parts! Figuring out what sights to see, what activity to do, and where to eat! This is where you benefit from creating your own itinerary instead of just booking a whole trip tour. Yes you can save time and effort by going on a tour, but you’ll pay a lot of money for it and by building your own plan you add to the anticipation and excitement of your trip.

You may already have some idea of what you want to see, as you chose the destination for a reason, however if you’re spending several days in one place, you will need to do some research to find other sights to see or activities to do. We often end up with a long list of possible places and activities to do, then go through and prioritize them to help narrow the list down enough to be able to add it to the itinerary. Some of the activities may require reservations in advance so having somewhat of an itinerary made will help you to know what day to make the reservation for.

How do you research sights, activities and restaurants? Here are a few of my favorite methods:

Tour books - DK Eyewitness are my favorites, but we also look at others like Rick Steve’s, Lonely Planet, Monocle, and Michelin. Check the NspireTravel Bookshop for more ideas.
Travel websites - AFAR, CN Traveler, National Geographic Traveler, travel bloggers, Trip Advisor
YouTube - search by location and see videos from various travel YouTubers, some of our favorites are Endless Adventures, Kara and Nate, Travel Beans
Google Maps - look at the location of where you’re going, often landmarks, museums, photography spots are already marked on the map or you can search for them. Once you find places you're interested in, you can bookmark them right on the map -- click on the spot and click “Save” and choose “want to go” to add a green flag to the location - once I’ve been to a place I will change the flag to “starred place”, which adds a yellow star to the site. You’ll probably end up with more green flags than you have time for, but they can remain there until the next time you have a chance to go.

You can also consider doing a short tour that takes you to the highlights of the city, or do a food tour. Some things are easier to see by tour. In Milan, we wanted to see Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper painting, you need tickets to get in, which sell out relatively quickly, but you can sign up for a half-day tour through a company like Viator, where the painting is one of the stops among others. We took this tour and for us this turned out to be the easiest way to see the masterpiece, plus we got to see the inside of the La Strada Opera House, which we would have missed otherwise.

A couple of other tips:

Check for holidays in your destination country or city and what that entails. Sometimes stores or museums will be closed for the holiday. It could also mean that there is a parade or some other festivities that you will be able to see.
Check for opening days and hours of museums or other sights that you’re planning to visit so that you pick the right day and time to visit. Some places might have one day during the week when they’re open late, which could be useful.

So now you have a list of places to see and hopefully it’s a good long list! You probably won’t be able to do everything on the list, so how do you narrow it down?

Prioritize what you want to see, have other travelers on your trip do the same. Pick the top 3 to 5 sights, depending on how many days you are traveling. Once you have your prioritized list of things you want to do, then start adding things to the itinerary - the daily plan. I divide my day into morning, lunch, afternoon, dinner, night and fill in two major sights per day.

Now that you know what days you will see sights or do activities, you can make reservations or buy tickets for the attractions. You can also see if there’s a pass you can purchase, such as a City Pass, that would cover some of the places you want to see. Not all cities have a City Pass and some cities have two different companies with city/museum passes.

We have found it very useful to have a City Pass! In the long run you will save money, especially the more places you see that are included with the pass. You can save time as well since you can skip the ticket lines at the attraction, and some places will have a “fast lane” for people with a pass. This saved us at least an hour when we went to the Colosseum in Rome.

4 Where will you eat?

Food is a big part of the culture and one of the most enjoyable aspects of traveling. Trying local foods and finding out how the food is eaten can give you a better understanding of the country you’re visiting. Also, if you’re a foodie, eating can count as an activity so the name of the restaurant and dish you want to try should be entered into your itinerary. Have you ever specifically traveled to a location to eat a certain dish or at a famous restaurant?

Restaurants in the Latin Quarter in Paris

We like to try whatever the local dishes are when we’re traveling, so we research and find places to eat based on this. It may not even be food! Before going to Spain one year, we planned to go to Jerez, the sherry wine making region. We didn’t know anything about sherry before going, so in anticipation of our trip we tried to educate ourselves and our palate regarding sherries by trying the different types — fino, oloroso, amantillado, and manzanilla— which was a fun endeavor.

If you want to go to a specific restaurant and it requires reservations then you may have to plan way ahead of time and make these reservations before you leave for your vacation. Some world famous places will require reservations 2 months ahead of time as they book up fast, so you should make the reservation as soon as you can.

Look up restaurants in Zagat, Michelin Guide, Trip Advisor, Yelp or even Google maps. Yelp and Google maps may not have as many reviewers internationally, although on our last trip to Europe we found enough people had reviews up on Google to get a good gauge. We always read the reviews in places like Trip Advisor, Yelp or Google to get an over all idea of the eatery.

How do you find the good local food? Ask around once you’re at your destination - ask the taxi driver, the concierge at the hotel, the sales clerk at the store you just purchase souvenirs at - ask where they like to eat that is good. This is a good way to find the places the locals go to.

Once you have some idea of where you want to eat, don’t forget to add it to your itinerary!

5 Transportation While on Travel

The last step to think about is how you’re going to get around. If you’re going to a place where there isn’t much public transportation and the sightseeing locations are spread apart then you might want to consider renting a car.

If you’re going to be mainly in a city or urban area see if there is a good public transportation system in place with trains, subways or buses. You might even find bike rentals or scooters to rent. In certain cities, like Copenhagen, bicycles are the main way the locals get around and there are big wide bike lanes everywhere.

The most important thing you should know even before getting to your destination is how to get from the airport to your lodgings. There are usually several options, the quickest way to find out might be to ask your hotel (or check their website) or vacation rental owner.

Here’s a list of transportation options:

Train/subway system - Generally, if you’re heading into a large city with a good public transportation system, there might be a train or subway that you can take. If you’re light on luggage then this can be convenient, especially if you don’t have to take other forms of transportation once you’ve reached the center of the city.
Bus - there could be a public bus or private bus that you can get on for a reasonable rate. In some cities there might be an express option as well.
Taxi - if there’s a group of you along with luggage, especially large luggage, then taking a taxi can be a convenient option as the taxi will take you straight to your lodgings although it will cost more than taking the train or bus.
Car service - we’ve done this in London and found it to be cheaper (for 4 people) than taking the taxi from Heathrow into the center of London. You can arrange it ahead of time before your flight and make it even easier for yourself once you arrive to your destination airport. We also arranged for the return trip to the airport as well.
Rideshare - in cities that have the service such as Über or Lyft. You will have to have the app downloaded on your phone, and find out where the pick up spot at the airport is.

Consider getting a city pass that includes a Hop On Hop Off bus. For two of our trips — Barcelona and Vienna — we were only in the city for 3 days and the passes included admission to some of the museums, castles or other sites and since the buses were taking us to the locations, we didn’t have to worry about how to get to these places. There was the added benefit of listening to explanations of some of the areas the Hop On Hop Off bus drove through. Some cities have two different passes a City Pass or the city Card (Copenhagen City Pass or Copenhagen Card for instance), you’ll have to look at the benefits of each card and see which one works for you. Some passes give you a certain number of days to ride on the public metro. In Copenhagen, you can pick up the Copenhagen Card at the airport (or download the app and activate it) and since this pass includes a certain numbers of days on the metro, we were able to use the card right away to ride the metro to go into the city. So for short stays in a city and to see the highlights I highly recommend this option of getting the city card or the city pass.

There’s a lot to think about when planning a trip, but don’t let it intimidate you. Just go through each step one by one. Deciding on the sightseeing portion of your trip will take the most time, but once you’re done you will have made the best travel plan for you!

Some Final tips for your vacation plan

Don’t fill up every minute of your day on the trip itinerary. Leave some down time to relax, take a break or just soak in the atmosphere of your location.

Remember that your itinerary is just a guideline and not set in stone, so depending on the weather or other circumstances (energy level (jet lag is a real thing!), closures, transportation strikes) you can adjust it.

Consider purchasing travel insurance. Protect your travel plans against cancellations, delays, illness and other events. You can read about our experience with travel insurance in this post - Booking a 2 Week Tour of Colorful Morocco.

Have a great trip! Bon Voyage!

Links

Travel Itinerary Template - Free download
NspireTravel Bookshop - for books, specific books or destination ideas
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