Travel Planning 4 Two

• My Experience


• Questions To Ask


• Research


• Putting It Altogether


• Our Take On Itineraries

My Travel Planning Experience

Taking a vacation with your partner can help build a stronger relationship.  You get to practice communication, compromise, and problem solving skills together from the planning stage in the beginning, to the moment you get home and have to unpack.

I am very fortunate to have seen and traveled to many places with my wife.  Before we were married, we took our first major trip together to Japan and I knew it would involve a good amount of research, planning, and coordination.  To tackle this daunting task, I created a shared spreadsheet using Google Spreadsheets called Trip Planning 4 Two Template.  We used this spreadsheet to jot down places we wanted to see, allot times in different cities, and breakdown a good cost estimate.  

Questions To Ask Your Partner

Before I go into all the technical stuff, I wanted to bring up the most important questions before even touching a spreadsheet.  These questions will give you some perspective of what your partner is envisioning for your next vacation.  Talk about your answers and take some time to decide:

1. Where would we like to go? List three destinations to choose from.  Here are some websites that will help you choose:
   
   
   
   1. Trover
   
   
   2. BootsNAll
   
   
   3. Atlas Obscura
   
   
   4. TripAdvisor, search by Destinations
   
   
   
   


2. When are we both available to take this trip?  List three options to choose from.  Allow three to six months to plan your trip.


3. How much would we like to spend or can afford?


4. What kind of trip do you want to make this? Choose from any or all of the following:
   
   
   
   1. Adventurous (i.e. hike, bike, snowboarding, scuba diving)
   
   
   2. Relaxing (i.e. couples-only resort, secluded all-inclusive beach vacation)
   
   
   3. Educational (i.e. cultural, musical - following your favorite band, wine tasting getaway)
   
   
   
   

Research

After some discussion and compromise (and maybe even a little bit of arguing), hopefully you and your partner can come to an agreement on the details above.  If so, then the next step will be to research.  You can go two routes:

• Find a vacation package that suits all (or most) of your needs                             OR

 

• Put together your own customized package of transportation, lodging and attractions.

Find A Vacation Package

If you don’t have the time or patience to put together your own trip, then there are various places you can go to find vacation packages where you won’t need to worry about the details.  Here are some of my favorites:

• Travelzoo Vacations


• Exclusive Members-Only Vacations:
  
  
  
  • Costco Travel
  
  
  • USAA Travel
  
  
  • AAA Vacations
  
  
  
  


• Travel Websites - Examples:
  
  
  
  • Orbitz - i.e. Chicago Vacations
  
  
  • Expedia
  
  
  • Kayak
  
  
  • Priceline
  
  
  
  


• Many airlines offer their own vacation packages - i.e. Southwest

Create Your Own Vacation

You can use most of the same vacation package websites (above) to also customize your own vacation!  Frommer’s Guides will tell you everything you need to know for your destination. In addition, these are the tools my wife and I use:

• Transportation

1. Flights
   
   
   
   1. Google Flights - This is our go-to tool for flights.  Save potential flights and track prices!
      
   
   
   2. SkyScanner - Another great tool
   
   
   3. If you are want to track prices, make sure you read: How to Track Airfare Trends by Emily Manthei, USA Today
   
   
   
   


2. Rome2Rio - This will give you ALL available options to get from two specific locations using car, bus, train, boat, and/or plane

• Lodging

1. Hotels.com - It’s not the best website for hotels, but if you plan on travelling a lot during the year, then they have an excellent Rewards Program where you stay 10 nights and get 1 free.


2. Booking.com is another great website that's fast and easy to navigate through.


3. If you search on TripAdvisor, you can search by Rankings.  I consider this ranking system as the “Yelp for hotels.”


4. Don’t restrict yourself to the main travel websites.  I have found some hidden gems from books and other obscure travel blogs/sites.

• Attractions

1. Trover, BootsNAll, Atlas Obscura, and TripAdvisor are also excellent resources to get some ideas of what you want to see in your chosen destination.


2. TripHobo.com - The major attractions in a city can be found here.  If you put in your desired dates, it can recommend a list of attractions to you.  I will talk more about this website below.

Putting It Altogether - Research Listing

Now that you two have chosen where you want to go and you know how to do your research, you will need a centralized location to share your findings.  We do this by using this Google Spreadsheet: LINK.  Click on File, and Make a Copy to use this as a template.  Then make sure you share it with your partner so you can edit simultaneously!  



Since I was born and raised in San Diego, I will be using San Diego as our example trip.

 

List all your potential activities, flights, eats, etc., and also copy and paste any relevant websites to easily get more information.  Your partner can easily comment on new ideas by clicking on a cell and clicking on Comments on the upper right hand side.

 

Putting It Altogether - Itinerary

After you two are confident that you have adequate research, the next part is to construct an itinerary.  We usually make an itinerary based off of proximity.  It can be difficult to visualize this if you have multiple attractions to go to, especially in a city that you are unfamiliar with.  Therefore, we have two tools that we use to make sense of this madness:

1. Google My Maps - To Map out all of our desired destinations.  It is very easy to use:Click on the link and Create a new map.  
   
   
   
   1. Name the map by clicking on Untitled map and then +Share it with your partner.  
   
   
   2. In the search bar, Search for your desired location and click on +Add to map.  Do this for all your activities
   
   
   
   


2. TripHobo - To Schedule your itinerary logically, use your completed My Maps as a reference and try to cluster daily activities by proximity.  TripHobo’s interface is very intuitive and will allow you to easily create and modify a rough itinerary.
   
   
   
   1. For instance, if the Midway Museum was going to be our main attraction for the day, we would choose a restaurant in Seaport village, because it is in between a potential hotel and the USS Midway.
   
   
   2. TripHobo’s interface
   
   
   
   

You could use TripHobo’s “suggest an itinerary” feature to get an idea of what it suggests, but it’s usually more efficient to do it on your own.

Optional (Advanced)- Once you’ve created TripHobo’s itinerary, you’re technically done.  We take it one step further to:

1. Summarize the main activities for each day


2. Get a cost estimate


3. List relevant travel information, like confirmation numbers


4. Store and link all our travel receipts on Google Drive for easy reference

We try to keep everything on one page for printing. You can find all of this on the Itinerary sheet of the same Google Spreadsheet: Trip Planning 4 Two Template.  

 

Our Take On Itineraries

Everything my wife and I plan are never “set in stone,” but simply a general guideline to follow.  More than half the time, we end up not making it to all the activities listed on our itinerary because of time constraints or because we found something more interesting to do, like an impromptu Cemetery Ghost Walk Tour in Monterey.  No matter how hard you plan, life will always get in the way, but with a general direction of where you want to go- that will allow you two to keep it semi-organized with a dash of spontaneity.