No, writing a fully fleshed out travel itinerary isn’t essential when you’re going abroad. But if you want to have control over the situation, it can help. A lot. And it doesn’t have to be as confusing as you might think. Here are 8 steps to help you create the perfect travel itinerary.

Latest update: 23 January 2022

If you only need to check one particular part of this tutorial or you only need to add a few things to your travel itinerary, click one of the links below to skip ahead to the part you’re looking for.

1. Get settled!
2. Choose your destination
3. Basic information
4. Plan your activities
5. Leave room for imagination
6. Incorporate feedback
7. Buy a map
8. Finishing touches

1. Get settled!

Planning your next journey and writing out a decent travel itinerary, when done thoroughly, is not something you can just bang out in an hour. If you really want to do this in-depth, you’ll have to get comfortable. So put on some good music, get a blanket and bring out the mint chocolate chip ice cream (Feel free to alternate these variables to your own liking).

Note: before you get on to the next step, it’s probably a good idea to decide who you’re going to be travelling with.

2. Choose your destination

This is arguably the most important and influential step of your travel itinerary. Admittedly, you might already have a destination in mind for your next trip. If you do, feel free to skip ahead to step 3 (just click the link!). If you don’t, great! That’s what I’m here for.

Now, there are a lot of ways to figure out where you want to go next. Let me introduce you to some of them.

The Internet

Yet another thing the Internet can help you with. Nowadays, there are so many people who tell the world about their travels, one way or another. You can find travel videos, blog posts, pictures and maybe even songs about their wanderlust. You can even find an entire travel itinerary for your trip online, without having to put in any work yourself!

My favourite thing to do is look at fellow travel bloggers’ websites and get inspired there. After all, if people like me enjoyed their time somewhere, why wouldn’t I?

Related: 30 Unique Travel Bloggers to Follow in 2019

Another Internet-related source for travel inspiration you could use is Instagram. Just like there are thousands upon thousands of travel bloggers, there’s a huge number of Instagram accounts dedicated to bringing you beautiful pictures of the world. (Of course, I have an account as well)

Throwing darts at a world map

The classic destination decider. Throw a dart at a world map and travel to wherever it lands. Of course, if you do this often, your beautiful world map will be ruined by dart holes. Luckily, there are alternatives that don’t involve destroying your map.

For starters, if you have a globe lying around, you could spin it around and put your finger on it whenever and wherever. Then, you travel to the location under your finger. If it’s someplace you can’t travel to (ocean, restricted countries, North Pole), you spin again until you get a viable destination.

If you don’t have a globe, there are still alternatives out there. More specifically, there are websites that replicate the effect of a dart on a world map. You click the button and the dart gets fired. All without ruining a perfectly good world map! The main problem with these websites is that you get a dart firing into the ocean quite often, but that can be fixed quickly with another click on the button.

One of my favourites is Dart On Map.

Ask your friends

If you have any adventurous friends, chances are they would be able to recommend some destinations to you. Even if you don’t have any people like that in your life, you could ask anyone else. After all, virtually everyone has a favourite place they’ve been.

For example, they might recommend you to go to Paris with your significant other. They might send you backpacking through South America. Or, if you’re lucky, they might even tell you to go on a city trip to Tokyo. There’s a whole range of places you might not even know of that opens up. I’d say it’s definitely worth a shot.

Culture

Cultural items can have a big impact on what we want to visit/see in life. For example, TV shows like How I Met Your Mother (2005-2014) and Friends (1994-2004) have always made me want to visit New York City to see if the big city life is really like that. Oldboy (2003) implored me to visit South Korea and see their beautiful culture and the way it differs from western society, while Cicade de Deus (2002) sparked my interest in Brazilian favelas.

Let someone else decide

If you’re feeling adventurous, why not let someone else decide where you’re going?

You don’t have to worry about any of the planning and you’re up for a nice surprise.

There are many websites and initiatives dedicated to this concept.

• Within Europe, the most famous surprise trip website is srprs.me. You get information about your destination (such as weather forecast and what to pack), but you only find out where you’re going when you’re at the airport.

• If you’re from Germany, consider Eurowings’ Blind Booking system. You enter your departure location and select a category and the website gives you a surprise destination at a fixed price.

• If you want the same experience, but you’re not from Germany, ask a close friend to book flights on your behalf. Let them give you hints as to what to pack and find out where you’re going at the airport.

• Not quite the same thing, but why not let a quiz decide your next travel destination? A travel quiz like Tripzard suggests destinations based on your replies to the questions.

• Bonus: watch the video below at 2x speed and pause it randomly. There’s your destination!

Okay. By now, you should have a good idea of the destination you want to go to. So let’s move on to the next step of your perfect travel schedule!

Read more: My favourite solo travel destinations in Europe

3. Basic information

The spine of your journey planning will consist of basic information. As such, it only makes sense for this part to be the backbone of your travel itinerary.

What you want to do once you’ve found your location is look up hotels, restaurants, transport, … of said location.

Transport

Let’s assume you’re going to fly to your destination. After all, if you’re driving, you won’t need to plan it out as much; just type the destination in your gps system and off you go. If you need to catch a flight, though, a little more planning goes into it.

Please consider taking a bus or a train if you’re not going far away from home. It’s a lot better for the environment and it’s probably something different than what you’re used to. That being said, let’s move on, assuming you want to fly to your destination.

Looking up flights online is all the hype now, and if you know what you’re doing, you can get some great deals out of it. Here are some tips to help you find the cheapest flights possible:

Use multiple websites. Not all meta flight search engines display all airlines, so combine them to get the best possible results. My favourite flight websites include Google Flights, Skyscanner, Cheapflights, Kayak, Momondo, Skiplagged and Cheapflightsfinder.

Set up email alerts. If you’ve found a flight you like but the price is too high, set up an email alert. This way, you’ll get an email when the price for that flight changes and you might be able to do some great deals.

Turn on incognito mode (Control / ⌘ – Shift – N) and delete your browser cache to prevent the websites from using your past browsing behaviour to increase flight prices. (This is one of the most heated debate topics in the travel industry and many people don’t believe this helps. I, however, believe it doesn’t hurt to try)

Be flexible on your dates. The more flexible you are, the more chance you have of finding cheap airfare.

Related: How to find cheap transport as a solo traveller

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Once you’ve found the flight that is right for you, you can go ahead and book that. Make sure to have a hard copy of the flight reservation as well as a digital one. You never know what might go wrong. (Also, this hard copy is the start of your physical travel itinerary. Yay!)

Note: for some people, it might be a good idea to hire a rental car from the airport to get around more quickly. I don’t know a lot about that, though. I’m just putting it out there that this is something you may want to look into.

Accommodation

As a student, my travel budget is rather limited. This is why I prefer sleeping in hostels over hotels: they’re cheaper and most of them provide similar services of high quality.

My favourite hostel booking website is Hostelworld. Click the image below to go to their website.

Another advantage of hostels is that you can get to know other travelers from all over the world. Other cheap (or free) possibilities include Couchsurfing, overnight transportation, Airbnb (get €35 off your next trip by signing up through this link!), house sitting and sleeping in public places.

Related: How to find cheap accommodation as a solo traveller

Restaurants

I probably spend most of my time working on a travel itinerary looking for restaurants that look interesting.

However, this really depends on your personal taste. Food is something you can spend as much or as little money on as you’d like to. That being said, it’s entirely possible to survive on $25 a day. One of my favourite places to look for restaurants online is Tripadvisor. Everyone knows it, everyone has used it at some time, and everyone likes it. Therefore, I’m not going to explain how it works in this post – let’s just say that’s general knowledge.

If you want to find a restaurant where you can eat like the true locals, here are some tips.

• Local food bloggers. People like these have made it their job (or if not, their hobby) to let the world know about great restaurants in their neighbourhood. These people know pretty much everything about restaurants in their home towns and they’re a great place to start searching.

• Ask around. Asking the locals in person where they would go to have dinner could help you a lot as well! Again, locals know a lot more about their cuisine than strangers do. Think about it: you can probably name five great restaurants in your home town without too much trouble.

• Local cuisine. Many restaurant finding apps and websites have an option where you can say you want to eat local cuisine. Try that option out, you might be surprised!

• Avoid the city centre. The most expensive, tourist-oriented restaurants are often in the city centre or near the big tourist attractions. Take the path less travelled and try to find a place to eat in some quirky side street or a cozy town area.

• Find lines. With this one, you have to be a bit weary. Seeing a line at a restaurant could mean one of two things. First, it could be a line of tourists, in which case you should just walk away. Secondly, it could mean that it’s a really good restaurant and people there know it. In that case, you can find out what the restaurant is called and look online if there’s a better time to come back or if they take reservations.

• Use food apps. There are so many apps out there that help you eat with locals, eat like locals, eat around locals, and more. Check out this list of travel apps that help you eat like a local.

4. Activities

The next step of making your travel itinerary will involve finding activities you want to do. These activites depends entirely on your personal preference and on the personalities of you and your travel buddies.

On the one hand, an advantage of travelling alone is that you get to choose everything you want to do. On the other hand, if you travel with other people, you might do things you never would have done otherwise.

The kind of activities you’re going to include in your travel itinerary depends mostly on what kind of trip you’ll be taking. If you’re camping in the wild, there’s no need to find a lot of projects to do on your vacation. By contrast, if you’re going on a city trip for three or four days, you will have to spend some time figuring out what you want to do.

That being said, there is no right or wrong choice. The point of traveling is doing exactly what you want to do and freeing yourself from the daily grind.

So if anyone recommends something to you but you don’t like it, you don’t have to do it.

Sports

There are always people who like to do sports when they’re abroad. If you’re not one of these, feel free to skip ahead to the next paragraph. If you are, though, allow me to introduce you to some kinds of sports you can do while on a holiday.

• Winter sports. Skiing or snowboarding is a great way to get away from your daily life for a while. If you live anywhere near a mountain range with ski slopes, you could even slip away for just a couple of days. Otherwise, you could spend a whole week in a ski resort.

• Running/Cycling. These are sports that you can pretty much do anywhere you go. As long as there’s some decent underground, you can run however much you’re comfortable with.

• Fitness. It might take you a while to find a gym that accepts clients for just one day or a couple of days, but once you do, you can work out as much as you like. In some cases, big hotels even have their own gyms.

• Organised sports travel. There are organisations out there that plan out an entire trip based around one or several sports. If you’re really passionate about a sport, it could be a good idea to take one of these trips. Alternatively, you could take a look at what they offer and then plan it all out yourself, as these organizations tend to have pretty hefty costs.

Food

Once again, this is a category that pretty much applies to every kind of travel out there. Food is a great way to find out about your host culture and to try and live like a local. Here are some possibilities if you want to add food-related activities into your travel itinerary.

Related: How to find cheap food and drinks as a solo traveller

• Vegetarian/vegan food trip. This works particularly well in bigger cities with a large selection of veggie products. You could look up hubs of vegetarian or vegan food online, and then find a creative way to get from one place to the next.

• Local cuisine. You can try to eat nothing but local cuisine during your stay abroad. The best places to do this are places with vastly different cultures from your own. For example, if you’re from the US, you might consider doing this in India or Japan.

• Wine tourism. This particular kind of tourism includes a vast range of possibilities. All of them have one thing in common, though: they’re all based around the appreciation of wine. For example, you could go to a wine-tasting event for one day, or you could rent a villa in the south of France for two months. It’s all up to you.

• Cooking classes. Any kind of class is a great way to spend an afternoon on holiday. Most classes offer you some kind of knowledge that you could use even when you’re back home. Cooking classes are no exception. You can learn some local recipes which you can use to impress your friends back home.

• Street food. It’s entirely possible to explore a place without getting street food, but then you might regret it later. Eating street food is a way to truly connect with locals. And isn’t that the point of travelling, after all?

Adventure

Admittedly, adventurous activities aren’t for everyone. Some people are born with the adventurous gene in them. These are the people who live for the adrenaline rush. Others, not so much. If you’re one of the adrenaline junkies, or if you want to try something that will scare you, keep reading.

• Ziplining. This is a great first-time adrenaline rush. In case you didn’t know, on a zipline, you get suspended under a steel cable and then you essentially roll down until the end of the cable. For more experienced adventure seekers, there are also zipline roller coasters!

• Cliff walking. It’s kind of hiking, but then again, it’s really not. Basically, you walk on a platform among some kind of cliff. One of the world’s most dangerous (and exciting) cliff walk routes is the Mt Huashan Hiking Trail in China.

• Skydiving. Jumping out of an airplane for fun. It has often been described as one of the most adrenaline-inducing activities you can do. I guess you’ll just have to find out for yourself.

• Scuba diving. There is nothing more liberating than swimming alongside special fish, corals, and other aquatic life.

Learning

Learning things is a great way to become richer without getting more wealthy. When you learn something, you get knowledge that you can use for the rest of your life. And isn’t that more valuable than anything money could buy?

For this one, I’m not going to make a list of things you can do, because it really all comes down to personal preference. You could take ceramics classes if that’s something that speaks to you, but if it doesn’t, great. This is where you get to be creative and do what you REALLY want to.

Culture

One of the main points of travelling is to get a glimpse into the lives of others. You want to know what the differences and similarities are between your home culture and the culture you’re visiting. If you’re only staying somewhere for a short time, however, it could prove difficult to see these things.

If you’re like me, incorporating culture into your travel itinerary is one of the most important things to keep in mind.

But let’s not forget culture in a more specific sense: architecture, music, art, history, customs. These are much easier to notice and look for. Here are some ideas.

• Museums. Looking for a fitting place to find out what’s going on in the art scene? Visit a museum. It’s not that hard to find a museum with free admission so that your travel budget won’t be dented too much.

• Buildings. Just walking around a city can give you an honest impression of local architecture. There are also dedicated architecture tours in some cities.

• Art galleries. These are a great way of getting a taste of art by local artists as well as international art. You might even find some like-minded people and make a few new friends!

• Historical sites. Again, an exceptional way to get some insight into the culture of the place you’re visiting. These are often crammed with tourists though, so if you don’t really like that, stay away from this.

By now, the hardest part of planning your travel itinerary is over. Congratulations! From here on out, it’s smooth sailing until the end and you can start looking forward to your next, perfectly scheduled, trip to wherever. I might even say you could stop after this step. But I suggest you don’t, because this is where the fun really starts.

5. Leave room for imagination

Though you might be tempted to schedule your journey as closely as possible, I urge you to leave some space for imagination, emergencies and flashes of spontaneity. If you don’t do that, you’ll be stuck with your timetable and you’ll find yourself not enjoying your journey as much as you could (and should) be.

Situational sketch: you’re in a hostel on your first solo trip and you’ve made some new friends. One of them asks you if you want to explore the city with them tomorrow, but you already have plans. That sucks.

I made many mistakes when I went to Dublin, and one of the biggest ones was that I over-planned everything.

The point I’m trying to make is that you lose parts of your ability to be spontaneous if you plan too much. I agree that having some kind of security blanket, or something to fall back on, can feel reassuring. However, I’ve also never heard anyone say they regret doing something spontaneous as opposed to regretting NOT doing something.

6. Feedback

This step applies mostly – if not only – to people who travel with friends, family, colleagues, … If you’re travelling by yourself (or if you’re creating your travel itinerary along with your travel companions), feel free to disregard this step and move on to the next one.

At this point, you might feel like your travel itinerary is pretty much perfect. It’s not. You’re not the only person who is going on this trip. If you’re like me and you enjoy planning everything out for everyone in advance, you should take some time to consider the feelings and needs of those people you’re traveling with.

Even your soul mate could want and expect very different things than what you’ve been crafting up. Make sure you consult them before finalising your plans and putting the final touches on your travel itinerary.

This step is also very important when you feel like you know your travel mates enough to make decisions for them. I’m not trying to jeopardize any relationships, but you don’t know enough. You really do need to keep them in mind and ask them if they’re okay with what you’ve come up with.

7. Buy a map

That’s right! Now that you know for sure where you’re going and which activities you’re going to be doing, it’s time to buy a map. Side note: this could also be a great opportunity to come together with anyone you might be traveling with. Get some coffee and food, take out a notebook and start discussing your trip and getting hyped!

A map can be an excellent way to visualize your trip. The kind of map you’re going to be using also depends on the kind of trip you’re going to be taking. If you’ll be road tripping through the USA, buying a map of the streets in New York City isn’t going to get you very far.

Getting right down to it: indicate your activities / stops / cities on the map. This will give you a better view of your schedule and it’ll make you realise whether or not your trip is actually doable. It can also help you find the best way to get from one place to the next.

8. Final touches of your travel itinerary

Yes! If you got this far, be sure to give yourself and your friends a big high-five. This is the last step of your travel itinerary. In this step, you have to carefully and thoroughly go over everything one last time. Check if you:

• Forgot anything

• Made any crucial mistakes

• Agree with your travel companions about everything

• Have a budget that can accommodate for everything you want to do

• Actually like the trip as it is

Once you’ve checked everything on that list and fixed any potential problems, there’s really nothing more to do than pack your bags and wait until you can get going. I truly hope you’ll make the best of your travels, and you’ll enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing this guide for you.

By now, you should have a pretty good idea of how to make the perfect travel schedule.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this. I hope you’re happy with the way your travel itinerary turned out and I hope you found this guide somewhat useful. If you did, please be sure to share it with your friends and to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram.

Are you someone who always plans too much or do you prefer to take things as they come without a fully fleshed-out travel itinerary?

Once again, thanks for reading!

-S

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