Hello everyone!
I recently started going abroad again. This is an indescribable feeling ❤️ Once again I felt the joy of planning a trip and anticipating the beauty of the places I want to see.
I promised to tell you how I use Google Sheets for different needs. Let's start with the benefits of Google Sheets for travel. Perhaps there are geeks like me among you who like to plan and structure information carefully. If you are, then this post is for you 😂
Today I'm going to share how I structure my future travel information in Google Sheets so that everything goes smoothly. I will also share my template (feel free to copy and use). I love it when everything is under control and not a single opportunity to visit interesting places is missed.
How do I prepare for the trip
1 - I google everything interesting by the name of the country I am going to. Thus, there is a large number of names of cities and attractions that do not mean anything to me.
2 - I am building a route in Rome2Rio and forming a final list of places to visit. It is important here to compare the dates of your trip with the time required for the trip. I leave only the most interesting places, taking into account the logistics.
3 - I am looking for hotels on services such as Booking.com and planning overnight stays. Sometimes you want to stay overnight in one place, but taking into account the cost of housing, the plan is adjusted. As a result, I plan the places to visit, taking into account the logistics and affordable accommodation for the night.
4 - I fill in the table according to the already selected list of places to visit. I am looking for places where you can take beautiful photos, what restaurants and cafes to visit, what to do in this city and other travel details.
5 - After booking accommodation, I also add information about this to the table. I ask if there is breakfast in the hotel and if not, I am looking for interesting cafes for breakfast outside the hotel.
This is how my Italy travel template looks like. From the link below you can open it in Google Sheets, copy it to Google Drive and use it for your travels.
Each line in this template is a separate city or place that you want to visit. The columns describe the details of your stay at this location, as well as a short description.
My travel planning template has columns like:
1 - Dates of stay in each city / place
Here it is convenient to prescribe the dates and time of arrival in the detail that is convenient for you. It is important to clearly plan the entire route and have time to visit all the places in the right sequence and without the stress of daily planning.
2 - Comments
In this column I mark the distance from the previous place and comments about lunch, dinner, passing through here or staying overnight.
3 - Photo of the city
It is very important for me to visually remember the place so as not to get confused in the amount of text information.
Column D contains a direct link to the photo based on your research. In column E, the IMAGE formula displays this photo.
4 - Accommodation & Breakfast
To control overnight stays, I provide links to hotels booked on sites like booking.com and comments on the cost and details of accommodation.
On a busy trip, it is important to plan all the little things, including breakfast spots. Sometimes breakfast can be provided by the hotel and sometimes not. I often look for interesting breakfast spots in advance and link to TripAdvisor or Google Maps. This allows me to be at ease and enjoy my trip.
5 - What to do here & Photo points
It is very important for me to spend time constructively while traveling and see the most significant sights of the city. It is also very important to take the most beautiful photographs. That is why I make notes about this in my spreadsheet in advance.
6 - Description of the city
To remind the atmosphere and to make it easier to explain where we are going to all the travel participants who were not involved in the planning.
How I use Rome2Rio for travel planning
Rome2Rio is an incredibly convenient service for travelers who want to plan their trip and find ways to get from point A to point B.
Rome2Rio is an incredibly convenient service for travelers who want to plan their trip and find ways to get from point A to point B. Here you can see the approximate travel times by different types of transport, find transport companies that sell tickets for buses, trains and ferries. By clicking on the indicated links to the websites of transport companies, it is even possible to buy tickets for specific dates in advance. For many European countries, this is incredibly convenient. Especially, it came in handy on my trip to Spain and Portugal.
Conclusion
As a result, Rome2Rio helps me to arrange the order of movement between cities, to plan the dates and the number of days depending on the transport schedule. In Google Sheets, I arrange all the details for easy access for every day of travel.
As a result, my travels are calm and I don't miss anything interesting.
Travel wisely ❤️
Cheers Gally