Travel planning in a bullet journal

Since I was trying bullet journal weekly spreads for a month, I also opted to try it for lists, blog post planning, monthly planning and travel planning!

Travel planning in a bullet journal

Instead of using structured planning pages (printables), I created the spreads ‘freehand’

First I started with a timeline which was much easier to do with the dot grid pages. I used to be very ‘I don’t like dot grid pages’ but after having used dot grid for a while I can see why it’s growing so popular. The design doesn’t end up busy and the dots are close enough together that you can keep you’re writing straight and not crooked.

I used the frixion erasable pens to easily make changes to the itinerary. I kept the timeline as just an overview – where we would be on each day without going into too much detail. Since I was planning a 10 day New Zealand road trip there wasn’t that much detail as there’s usually only 1 thing each day e.g. Hooker Valley track then drive to the next destination. However, I don’t think I could plan this way for a bigger trip.

I get very paranoid when booking anything (especially accommodation) that I’m going to get the dates muddled up and make a booking on the wrong date. So I write out the check in and check out dates to refer to when booking.

Next I noted the tours I wanted to book and drew a checkbox to tick off once I’d booked it. I ended up adding the dates of each tour after I’d finished finalising the itinerary.

I also noted the pickup and drop off dates for the hire car and listed the car company’s to get quotes from.

Lastly I set up a simple budget page. I added an extra column to tick off when I’d paid for it (which also helped to work as a master overview trip planning check).

Would I plan this way again?

I don’t mind doing a ‘freehand’ layout for planning small trips, but for big trips (usually 3+ weeks & overseas) I like to use structured planning pages and the Visit a City tool.

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