This step will be crucial to check the feasibility of your travel itinerary, whether you are going on a road trip or by public transpor trelation to travel times.
Knowing if you want to stay 1, 2 or 3 days in a place you don’t know is not the easiest thing. This is also why I avoid booking all the accommodation in advance (when possible). In this way, I can adjust once there according to my crush or on the contrary my disappointment with a place.
travel itinerary, how long?
If you want to book your accommodations in advance, then you will have to set this exact time limit. To help you, once again look for information by location to get a better idea of what you can see, do and experience. Depending on what tempts you, this will allow you to refine the duration.
Compare the duration of your itinerary to that of your trip
By adding up the stay times by place, you will quickly see if it matches or on the contrary exceeds the total duration of your stay. If you have not yet booked transport from home to the destination, this may allow you to refine your travel time by adding a few days, or to revise your travel / road trip itinerary by removing one or more places, see to refocus your trip on a region or a more precise perimeter.
In general, I list the information of my travel itinerary in a simple excel file where I mention the stages, the expected duration, the transport between the stages, the accommodation envisaged (if I plan to book) and ideas for activities in each place.
For those who like to plan very precisely and spend a lot of time on this exercise, I recommend a tool that allows you to create your travel itinerary, anticipate your budget and organize the different stages of your trip.
This is the A Contresens planner . Once you have created an account, you have many features to create your travel or road trip itinerary. You enter the different places (you even have suggestions for nearby places), the mode of transport, the duration in each stage, etc. You can then view your map which also includes indications of budget, carbon footprint, duration etc.
With a premium account you can then download the detailed travel itinerary, the map and even your schedule with a to do list of things to think about for the organization. Several formats are available (excel, KML, etc.).
travel itinerary planner
Example of a travel itinerary created by a user of the A Contresens planner
What steps to follow once you have made your travel itinerary or road trip yourself?
With these different stages, you will have made a road trip or travel itinerary that suits you and is realistic! But that does not signify the end of the preparation of your trip…
The rest will be the subject of other articles so as not to overwhelm you with information. In broad outline, the different stages of organizing a trip that we recommend:
Check the administrative formalities necessary for your trip
Depending on the destination, more particularly abroad outside the euro zone, you may need a visa, compulsory vaccinations may be necessary and some destinations require a return plane ticket for example, or to have a minimum amount in their bank account. You can check these formalities on the website of the embassy of the country of destination (more reliable and updated compared to blogs and merchant sites).