How to Create the Perfect Travel Itinerary

Last updated: December 22nd, 2024 | Originally published: September 29, 2024
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A legendary vacation is not an accident, but the result of extensive research and thoughtfulness. In this article we explain our planning methods so you can make you dream vacation come true with the perfect travel itinerary.

These methods have manifested through trial and error over a decade of travel mistakes. We’ve used this system to plan road trips in excess of 60 days, as well as a vast array of one and two-week excursions.

These are not stagnant skills. Our process of designing itineraries continues to evolve as we discover what works best for us as a family and individuals over the years.

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The following 11 steps are written in the order we believe gives the most logical flow to the process. That said, you’ll likely find yourself shuffling back and forth between steps as your perspective broadens with each new piece of information.

The path forward isn’t always linear, but we can streamline it to avoid confusion and wasted time.

Before we begin we should mention that this process may come off as dogma. The truth is we fool around quite a bit in our lives, yet we create travel itineraries with a significant level of seriousness. When it comes to planning a journey away from home, the best plan is to plan best.

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If you prefer to fly by the seat of your pants, more power to you. And while we agree that spontaneity is imperative for a roaring good time, our ultimate objective is to imbue each day with the best possible ideas and then be open to whatever impulses come our way.

Because if we leave the day wide open for spontaneity what we’ll likely find is drunkenness, boredom, shark tanks and zip lines, amongst other uninspired things.

So the following methods will help you avoid a wasted vacation, and will empower you to blow everyone’s minds with your epic tales of adventure. We honestly believe that, and we hope you enjoy learning how to create the perfect travel itinerary!

1. Decide How Much Time You Have

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Let’s start with something easy. Is this going to be a one-week getaway? A two-week excursion? A month-long adventure or more?

The answer to this question will shape the entire journey. If you’re looking at one-week breakaway it will rule out many destinations. Why fly all the way to Italy for one week? You’ll be headed home right as you’re settling into the vacation.

If you’re looking at two-weeks or more you can consider most anywhere. And the longer the trip, the more locations you can include in the itinerary.

Our Example: In this article we will plan a three-week vacation.

2. Decide What Your Budget Will Be

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The longer the vacation, the more expensive the vacation, and some locations are more expensive than others. For example, two weeks in Switzerland could easily cost more than a month in the Philippines.

Your budget will influence the destination and the excursions you plan, therefore when you choose your destination (the next step) be sure it can fit within your budget.

Furthermore, you should always have a budget! Money management is a sound practice. If you want to learn how to budget money for travel, check out How to Save Money for Travel.

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Sometimes, if you want to go somewhere bad enough, you’ll need to increase your budget one way or another. And if the destination calls for it, you’ll also increase the length of the trip.

You might end up dropping an extra five grand or postponing the trip until funds can be gathered, but we believe you’ll be happy you didn’t cheap out down the road.

Our Example: We have $8,000 for this vacation.

3. Decide on the Location

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Where in the world do you want to go? Make a list of the places that sound good. Ask your friends where they want to go. Do some basic internet searches for ideas. Whittle down the list to your top few choices.

Let’s say you’ve narrowed your list to Japan, New Zealand, and Bali. Now dig in a little bit further. What are the ultimate draws to each place? Weigh those things against each other.

Now is also a good time to consider how expensive is the location. Do hotels/VRBO cost $300/night or $50/night? Are you willing to endure austere lodging to keep the cost down? How much are airline tickets?

If you subtract the cost of flights, lodging, and transportation from your budget is there enough left over for food and fun?

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Often times you’ll research a destination and realize you’re going to need more time to properly experience the place. Do a cursory dive into New Zealand and you’ll see it deserves three-weeks minimum and closer to 8-weeks.

In Fact: We’re going to New Zealand for 38-days in February. And I honestly wish I could add another 20 days. So this is where you might decide to spend more on a longer getaway (if you can get the time), or begin a long-term plan to save your money and visit at a later date.

Our Example: Three-weeks in Bali makes the most sense for our $8,000 budget, as Japan and New Zealand would stress our finances. We could have gone to Japan for a shorter visit, but decided three-weeks of beaches sounded crucial. We’ll check out Japan the following year.

4. Research the Location

So you’ve settled on a location that you think will fit your timeframe and budget. Great! Now it’s time to dig in and research the heck out of the place.

Search the internet for all the information you can find. Type into the search bar, “Things to do in Bali”, or “Best Things to do in Bali”, or “What to do in Bali”, and scour the first five pages of search results. We recommend reading at least 10-20 different articles to get a solid grasp on your options.

Fun Fact: The internet has changed with A.I. and nowadays many of the travel blogs are buried in the Google search results. Therefore, be sure to dig past all the media conglomerate publications — they are often tainted by advertising dollars and are inferior resources in general — to the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th pages of the search results. If you find a site you trust, like Hofftoseetheworld.com, milk it for all you can.

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The points of interests that appear on everyone’s list are pretty good bets to deliver a memorable experience, which means the bulk of your adventure could be spent doing these things. However, don’t discount the random recommendations that appear further down the lists.

Sometimes travel bloggers operate in an echo-chamber and everyone follows everyone else’s recommendations. What you end up with are homogenized lists that lacks invention — we are at times guilty of contributing to this problem.

Therefore, pay close attention to the recommendations that appear on only one list. That blogger may have found the true hidden gem.

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Make your list of possible excursions as long as possible — and get excited about them. If you don’t get super excited reading about all the things to see and do, perhaps you need to plan a vacation elsewhere.

Another hint is to not rule things out at first glance, as further investigation could make the idea more fascinating. Sometimes reading a different description of a place will bring it to life. Occasionally a strong word of mouth cuts through all of the uncertainty, and what you thought was an easy skip now becomes highly intriguing.

Eventually you’ll want to prioritize the list with “can’t miss” things at the top and tier it downward by degree of interest.

Our Example: The list of things to do in Bali was over 60 items long. We put an asterisk beside the most interesting things, which was 70% of the list.

5. Map Out the Excursions

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Go to googlemaps.com, type in the points of interest and see where they land on the map. Look for clusters of attractions. You’ll typically find groupings around particular cities or parts of town.

Our Example: In Bali we find that many of the points of interest cluster in the southern peninsula near Jimbaran/Uluwatu, or are up in Ubud, the cultural center of the country. Because of this, we will strongly consider staying in these locations. If we have enough time — which we do — we will split our time between the two places for ultimate ease of transportation.

Some excursions will appear further outside the Googlemaps “scatterplot” which will give them the designation of “day trips”. Day trip excursions can sometimes be paired with small attractions by proximity to create fantastic full-day agendas.

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Some options are too far out of the way for what they are worth and are eliminated. Others are too important to be eliminated, and must somehow be accommodated. A good example of this is Milford Sound in New Zealand. You wouldn’t ever want to miss it, but it’s a 4-hour drive from the city of Queenstown (and generally in the wrong direction).

Next, take a calendar (or sheet of paper) and place your junket items on all the days you have available. Try to discern whether the event will take a full-day, half-day, or two-hours-or-less. This is especially important if you are trying to stack multiple points of interest into a single day.

This is your first attempt at an itinerary, and should give you a clearer idea of whether you’ve planned for enough time on your vacation. Often you’ll have to increase the amount of days in your vacation, or make some difficult cuts to the agenda.

And when it comes to making cuts, think long and hard about what you really want to spend your time doing on vacation. Ask yourself, “Is it really worth the time spent to do this thing?” Take it to the core of your being. You’ll find your true feelings eventually.

6. Decide on Pacing for the Travel Itinerary

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The main question to ask yourself is, What kind of a vacation do I want? Am I looking to exhaust myself sightseeing? Or is my agenda to relax in a chair with a drink? Most likely you fall somewhere in between and that’s where the nuance lies.

Good pacing is harder to achieve than one anticipates. In fact, the particulars of it deserves their own article, How to Pace Your Travel Itinerary.

The essence is this: We must balance our vacation with down days (no plans) and easy days (light plans) to off-set the days that are packed with activity.

Very few people can go full-bore for a week or longer. An experienced traveler eventually learns how to plan downtime into the itinerary because historically they have suffered exhaustion and ruined the experience they hoped would bring them joy.

You would be surprised that even a day designated as “beach day” doesn’t necessarily qualify as a down day if it requires transportation, an early start, or a late night. A down day literally means no plans.

Sometimes limiting a day’s activities to something small like a picnic dinner in a key location can feel like a down day. The artfulness lies in stacking these days opposite longer, tiring days.

Take a good, long look at your calendar and be sure you have a fair amount of down time. We used to plan a down day for every three days of activity. Now we plan a down day for every two days of activity, and if the activity is extensive we’ll go one-for-one.

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We know what you’re thinking: “What? How old are you wussies?”

The reason is this: Once you exhaust yourself on vacation you’re at risk of ruining the experience. This should be avoided at all costs for obvious reasons. Therefore, you might have to trim good plans from your travel itinerary just to keep everything copacetic.

This advice comes from much experience dealing with multiple family members for years and years. All it takes is one person to get all crackered-out and the plans go to hell.

So when you find someone’s itinerary on the internet and it’s packed with daily marathon hikes and massive amounts of travel between locations, the authors are either zealots or frauds because that doesn’t actually yield a good time when put into practice.

If you want to see everything there is to see — which you should — plan for an extra-long vacation with plenty of down days.

Our Example: Click HEREHEREHERE for a sample of a well-paced Bali itinerary.

If you love to travel, we have something we would like to give you. It is our professionally designed e-book and it is FREE of charge. We think it’s pretty great, and we’re hopeful you’ll like it, too. It’s called, “Cultivating a Lifetime of Travel”. Click HERE. and we’ll send it on over!

7. Decide on Transportation

Once you look at all of your excursions on a map and decide which ones will work best with the pacing of your itinerary, you should have a better idea if you’ll need a car. If you can get by using public transportation and Uber, great…

But some destinations require a car as the highlights are too far outside a city to use taxis and buses. Tour buses can help, but if you’re trying to have an adventure you’ll probably want a car.

If you need a car, ask yourself the following questions: Does it makes sense to rent a car for the whole trip, or just for a portion of the trip? Is it affordable to just rent a car and not worry about how much you’ll use it? Can you drive safely in the city/region?

Costco has good rental car rates for their members. Otherwise, Priceline, etc. work fine. The economy class vehicle is often cheapest, but it isn’t much more to upgrade to a medium or full-size car. We will pay a few extra bucks to get a larger auto for convenience, safety, etc.

Our Example: This is an odd example because Bali is a little dangerous for driving cars. In Jimbaran we will rent a car because it isn’t as crowded as other parts of Bali. In Ubud we will go carless and walk most places, then use hired drivers for when we venture to the Temples and Mountains far outside the city.

8. Decide on Lodging

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It doesn’t get much better on vacation than having a hotel or VRBO right in the middle of where you want to be. Our walking legs can get us most anywhere within a three-or-four-mile radius.

You will always save a buck by staying outside of the city. If the savings are dramatic enough and our itinerary doesn’t demand a specific central location, we will stay as far as 15 miles away from where we want to be.

However, driving into town everyday gets very old, especially if there’s nothing great about where you’re staying except for the price. Often it’s worth it to pay the kidnapper’s ransom to stay where it makes the most sense. This will always be a case-by-case situation.

Our Example: Lodging is very affordable in Bali, especially on VRBO and AirBnB. Have a field day picking one that works for you.

9. Decide on Restaurants

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A few crucial meals can elevate a vacation. We recommend you research the best places to eat wherever you decide to visit.

Once you’ve found a few joints that sound unforgettable, map them out and work them into the itinerary.

Forget about Red Robin — you can eat there when you get home — and avoid the Margaritaville tourist hell-hole with their phony atmosphere and overpriced grub.

Root out the places locals have haunted for generations. Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives is a great resource for delicious meals in the United States.

Our Example: Eating out is affordable in Bali and your options are vast. Also, many of the VRBO rentals have kitchens if you want to hit the marketplace and prepare your own meals.

10. Review the Travel Itinerary and Make Adjustments

Once you have artfully created a travel itinerary with plenty of adventure and relaxation, and have decided on your modes of transportation, a central location, and a few extraordinary meals, it’s time to take a long look at the travel plan from a bird’s eye view.

I have been known to pour over an itinerary for months leading up to a vacation, making little alterations here and there. I have discovered that the longer I look at it, the more I recognize my true feelings about the experience (and the more the logistics stand out).

Perhaps something you’ve included all along will no longer sound good or be crowded out by more interesting ideas. Sometimes an entire segment of the journey will be axed and the days will be redistributed to other locations. On occasion you’ll catch a significant oversight in logistics! And often you’ll recognize the itinerary is overloaded or unbalanced.

Like a good writer will rewrite their story over and over to get it perfect, so will you rewrite your itinerary until it sparkles with thoughtfulness and integrity.

Our Example: So, we’re breaking away from Bali here because this is more pertinent. I reserved a motorhome in New Zealand in October of 2023 for a vacation that happens in February of 2025, and I have been tinkering with the travel plans for the past eleven months.

Honest to God, I’ve only just now got it exactly where I want it in September 2024. It took THAT LONG to create the perfect travel itinerary — and I’ve loved every minute of it.

11. Make Reservations for the Travel Itinerary

Once your travel planning is complete and you know what you will be doing on every day of the trip, it is time to place all of your reservations.

It is our best practice to look up every flight, hotel, rental car, excursion, admission, etc., before placing any firm reservations. We want to know that everything is available on the day we want it and that the price is acceptable before we start nailing things into place. We add these costs and details into the itinerary and create a budget breakdown at the bottom.

And then we start the reservation process with the biggest things first: Flight, Hotel, Car. Next we add the excursion reservations — always reserve them in advance to avoid sad faces when said excursion is sold out (and maybe look up the cancellation policy while you’re at it). Finally, make reservations at the restaurants.

We like to keep all of the confirmation emails in a folder in our account for easy reference. This way there isn’t any stress when we’re trying to find tickets, etc.

An Honest Conclusion for the Perfect Travel Itinerary

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We are married to this process because it has created so many beautiful memories for our family. Our hope is that it will resonate with you fully, or at least parts of it will be useful.

A work of art is not an accident. That sounds pretentious, but its simply true. The more we put into something the more we get out of it. The more we look forward to something, the more excited we are when it arrives.

Pour yourself into travel planning and have incredible adventures! Make it your ultimate goal to create the perfect travel itinerary every time. You are spending your money and your time on the endeavor with high expectations — why waste it?

Your future self will thank you for the memories.

Thank you for stopping by our website! We are the Hoffmann family, a full-time RV family that has split residence in Seattle, Washington and San Antonio, Texas. We have special needs children that we homeschool, and work travel assignments for the Veteran Affairs Hospital. If you would like to learn more about us, check out our Start Here and Biography pages. In the meantime, God bless and travel happy!

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