Ultimate Travel Planning Guide

Start Making Your Perfect Trip A Reality

The ultimate guide to planning the perfect trip.

This guide has got everything you need to plan the perfect trip, from choosing a destination to packing your bags.

Make sure you print out the checklists so you don’t forget anything!

Grab your free travel planner full guide for solo travel over 50, plus the printables you never need.

This guide has everything you need to plan your next trip and make it the best one yet!

I created this guide as the first step in your journey to planning and having a stress-free holiday.

I’m so excited to share this with you so that you get the most from your adventures.

“Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.”
~ Dalai Lama

It will walk you through every step – from choosing your destinations, to planning your itinerary.

Everyone is different, so I have designed it to cover lots of different options. You can use as little or as much as you like.

Just use the parts that appeal to you the most.

Your Travel Doc

Think of this as a digital file where you keep all those fabulous ideas that you don’t want to forget. A simple word document or google docs is all you need – keep it simple.

This is a must for any trip, and if you’re like me at all, there are so many different areas that you want to visit you’ll have several of these – one for every country/region/goal that you can think of.

As you research and organise your trip, you will take everything you find and copy/paste it all into this document. Really, you just copy/paste it into there. My travel doc always includes:

Things to Do: All the things you’ve found as you’ve been searching, including what you need to know, including costs, when they are open, how to get to them.
Things to Eat: All the delicious dishes you plan to eat, so you can search for them while looking at a local menu.
What You’ve Booked: Whatever you’ve booked: your plane tickets, accommodation, tours, transport etc. The goal is to make it easier in order to organise everything into one spot. The easiest way to do this is just to past screenshots into your document.
Important Things To Know: Do you need your passport, any vaccines, visas, currency, do you need to tip?
Travel Tips: Any handy tips you’ve found along the way such as where the best coffee is, best time of year to go, conversion rate if travelling overseas, any basic words etc.
Photography Locations: This is a big part of my planning so I include as much information as I can – where to shoot, best time of day, seasons and even some composition ideas. Instagram is fabulous for this

While travel planning can get messy it’s definitely fun!

Where To Go

The first and most important step in your travel planning is deciding WHERE you want to go.

I love searching for travel destinations – it can be so much fun!

Here’s some ideas to help you figure out where you want to go –

If you haven’t decided this yet, get your ideas down so that you can research them. For more ideas start with Instagram and Pinterest. then you can google for more information.

If you’re like me at all you will have lots of ideas, so to help you narrow it down, think about what kind of holiday you would like.

Are you looking to chill out at the beach or a resort?

Do you want it filled with adventure and hiking?

Or maybe like me a bit of both with lots of photography in between?

Once you’ve got more of an idea you can start researching locations that have what you are looking for.

When To Go

Once you know where you want to go, the next thing key thing in your travel planning is to decide is when to go.

This will come down to a number of factors –

The activities you want to do eg. skiing, surfing
Seasons – locations can vary widely depending on the season. This affects not only the activities you want to do, but things you may want to photograph, road closures etc.
Tourist seasons – you may want to avoid the known busiest times of a place if that’s possible.

Snow Gums In The Snow – this wasn’t in the usual snow season but you can get lucky!

Type Of Trip

With each trip there are different decisions to be made. Your travel planning will be different for an overseas trip than a road trip for example.

Things to consider here include –

Who will be going – solo or group? Friends or family
Purpose of trip – is it primarily a business trip with extra holiday time added?
Will you be planning everything yourself, going with an organised tour, or even a combination of these?
Length of time available – this will obviously impact how much you get to see and the type of travel.
If it’s a road trip will you be using your own vehicle? Car hire may come into consideration here.

Activity Research

Now that you know where, when, who and how; it’s time to plan the what.

This is all about finding the amazing things you’ll do on your trip.

Dump all of your ideas into your travel doc. It will be messy for now, but don’t worry, you will clean it up later once you’ve mapped out your itinerary.

Start with any of the things you know you want to do, then it’s time to research those you don’t know about yet.

Top places to research activities –

1 – Google. Search for “best things to do in …” and check out what comes up. You should find heaps of helpful blog articles and travel publications

2 – Pinterest. Search for the destination and save whatever takes your fancy. Make a dedicated Pinterest board to save all of these so you can find them again later.

3 – Tripadvisor. This can be a great resource for specific, actual experiences, reviews and suggestions, so spend some time digging here.

Keep copy/pasting into your travel doc and you will soon have more than enough things in there to plan an amazing trip.

Make sure you note the details of any costs, opening times and locations etc. as you go to make things easier when you get to the finer details.

It’s worth spending a few hours doing this, as I’m sure you’ll uncover some real gems you never knew existed.

My girls helping me with my travel planning – where are we going now?

Budgeting

Ok, it’s time to talk about the dreaded dollars – unfortunately it is really a key component of travel planning.

It’s easy to get into holiday mode and spend way more than you intended. If you do your planning, and include everything you can think of, you will most likely stick to your budget.

I tend to set a budget for my accommodation, booked activities and fuel, and the rest I put down mostly to daily living costs.

Things to include when calculating your road trip budget –

Accommodation
Transport – Fuel/Flights/Car Rental
Meals
Activities
Tolls
Parking
Souvenirs
Coffee and Cabernet of Course!

I’m not great at setting an actual budget but I’m a numbers girl so I like to know what a trip costs. I do record how much I’ve spent on accommodation and transport. This gives me an idea what to expect on the next trip.

Map It Out

It’s time to start looking into your transport and accommodation.

If you are going to be spending all of your time in one area, this can be as simple as booking flights and accommodation.

For good flight deals the two best I have found are Google Flights and Skyscanner. These both show you options (including costs) of flying anywhere you want to go and when. You really can get some great prices.

When it comes to a road trip, however, much more planning will need to be undertaken.

Google Maps really is my number one recommendation for this. Google Maps allows you to share your route with others and you can sync it with other devices. On top of that you can access it offline as needed. All for free!

Mapping it out can be challenging, but coffee always helps

Using your destinations list (where to go in your Travel Ideas printable), map out your route just starting with your ‘must do’.

Take note of the travel times and distance between your locations so you can plot where you’ll be staying each night. This will guide how many hours you will need to be driving each day. It’s incredibly important to know your own limits here to manage driver fatigue.

This is where you will sort through all that ‘stuff’ you saved in your travel doc and make some decisions about exactly what you’re going to be doing and where you will be visiting.

Accommodation

Where are you going to sleep each night?

I usually stay in a combination of motels and cabin parks when doing a solo road trip. AirBnB can be more suited to couples in regards to price if you also want privacy.

TIP – Check if there’s any events happening in the area when you want to visit. This can have both a positive and negative impact on your trip.

It can mean there’s plenty happening when you want to go. BUT, it also means that accommodation can be expensive and the location crowded.

I try to book outside of school and public holidays if possible for the same reasons.

Booking.com is my go to for this and I tend to book in advance for security. Do check their cancellation policy so you have some flexibility if needed.

Motels don’t have to be fancy to do the trick

Also check your accommodation for parking. In smaller towns it’s mostly included I have found. In larger cities it can be an additional cost, so don’t be surprised.

AirBnB and Booking.com are both great to get you started to find places to stay. Make sure you google to find out more about your locations before booking. Just copy/paste any interesting places into your travel doc so you won’t lost them.

It also pays to try the accommodation themselves as they will often also offer great rates.

Activity Planning

Once you’ve booked your transport and accommodation, it’s time to fill those itineraries with all your activities.

Knowing where you are staying each night you can narrow down your lists and fully plan your activities and locations.

these will of course go into your travel doc, and each activity/location should include the following information –

How to get to each location, including travel times and maps (from your Google Maps research)
Costs
Opening times and days
Tips and any additional information you found from your research

Once that’s all sorted, you won’t lose time on your actual holiday wondering what to do each day, or waste time figuring it all out on the go – winning!

My go to travel planning apps – more on that below

Having said all of that, don’t plan activities for all day every day.

Plans might change due to the weather or how you’re feeling, but that’s okay! Leave some room for when things may go wrong, or you find something totally different to do.

Striking a balance between over and under planning can be a challenge, so that’s why you created your lists of must, can and might do – make sure you lock in all your must activities, and leave the rest flexible.

Book It In

Your budget is critical when it comes to booking your trip.

Once you have worked out what your budget is, it’s time to look at your options. If you’re on a tight budget, you may need to restrict the amount of flights and look into alternatives such as driving or catching a bus or train.

With accommodation, there are usually lots of different options ranging from budget friendly to totally luxurious.

You should have lots of options in your travel doc, so go through them and start booking – how exciting!

Booking in advance really is one of the most important aspects of planning an awesome trip. This applies to everything wherever possible – flights, car rentals, accommodation, activities, even parking and some restaurants.

Whenever you book anything, screenshot it and add it to your planning doc. This will keep all your confirmations in one place.

As you map out your itinerary, you can delete the activities that you won’t end up visiting. Remove any doubles, places that are out of your range, or anywhere you’ve just decided not to go to. You’ll be left with just where you are actually planning to go.

Your trip is now really starting to take shape – I hope you’re excited!

Home Sweet Home

Make sure you leave everything in order at home so you don’t have to think about it on your trip.

There is a full printable below, but here are some essentials to consider –

Bills

Set up automatic payments and cancel any subscriptions.

Pet/House Sitters

House sitters can save valuable dollars on boarding your pets and it helps keep your house safe while you’re travelling.

If you don’t have a house sitter, try to organise someone to do an inside check at least once a week in case your power has gone off. Trust me on this, I came home to a fridge full of rotten food once due to a fuse tripping.

Lawns and Gardens

Organise this in advance if you’re travelling for more than a week or two.

You really don’t want your house looking like no one lives there while you’re away.

Documentation

Always leave a copy of your itinerary and any contact details with someone ‘at home’ just in case they need to contact you at any time.

Making sure they are well cared for while I’m away lol

Documentation

You can skip most of this section if you’re staying local, but it’s absolutely essential if you’re planning to travel overseas.

Number one is to make sure you’re passport is current and you have any required visas sorted well in advance of your trip.

Also check if you’re required to have any vaccinations at your destination(s).

Also, now is the time to investigate and purchase travel insurance to cover any hiccups while you’re away.

Packing Time

Finally, it’s time to get those suitcases out and get packing!

It can be tricky finding the balance between packing too much stuff you don’t use, to not packing enough and having to buy things.

My free downloadable printables include packing lists covering all seasons, but here are some things to consider to also help –

Weather of your destinations
How long you are staying at each accommodation and what laundry facilities they have
Research where you are staying and what facilities they have there – it may be easier to take some extra first aid items for example, if where you are going is a bit remote

Travel Planning Tools

There are many websites and apps to assist with your travel planning – here they are all in a handy list for you –

Flights & Accommodation

Location & Activities

Photography

The Photographer’s Ephemeris

That’s it!

Now you don’t have any excuses to not get moving on your next trip.

Looking for more travel planning tips, inspirations and itineraries?

I truly hope you’ve enjoyed this post.

Discover useful free travel planning printables for solo travelers.

Let me know in the comments below.

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Note – This post does not contain any sponsored or affiliated links. All suggestions and opinions are mine. Unless otherwise stated, all photos are mine and remain my copyright images – Sam Wilson Photography.