5 Reasons Why Having A Travel Itinerary Is Important
Luke Iles – Uploaded 29.05.2023
Why do I need a travel itinerary?
A travel itinerary is an important aspect of going on holiday and if you are hoping to have a successful trip then trip planning is paramount to ensure your success.
A travel itinerary is a plan of action that maps out each day of your holiday with a plan of what to do on each day. This is useful because it helps you lay out the foundations of your trip so you can plan the essentials of what each day will consist of.
Planning your holiday is a lot more important than you think and as travel experts who have backpacked across the globe, we can tell you from experience that planning your trip using a travel itinerary is a lot more important than you might think.
Using an itinerary planner to lay out the details of your trip there are plenty of benefits that you can attain from simply just being prepared. This is something we have learned the hard way when travelling so take it from us, use a travel itinerary and you will see far more positives than negatives from using this simple travel plan.
Five reasons why you need a travel itinerary on your next trip
There are plenty of positive reasons that you should create a travel itinerary for your next trip and we have narrowed it down to five of the best reasons why you need to create a travel itinerary for your next holiday abroad.
The five advantages of creating a travel plan include:
- You can prioritize activities and go at your own pace
- You can purchase tickets ahead of time
- You can save money
- You can optimise and save time
- You can keep track of everything
Throughout this article, we will discuss the five reasons why you need to create a travel itinerary on your next trip and hopefully, we can persuade you to put pen to paper and plan the best holiday of your lifetime.
You can prioritize activities and go at your own pace
One of the major benefits of creating a travel itinerary is the fact that it allows you to plan all of the logistics and timings so you have full control of the pacing of your holiday. There is nothing worse than being stressed when travelling. That is one of the main reasons you go on holiday is to de-stress from everyday life.
However, we know the feeling when you are travelling around a specific destination and everything feels like 1000 miles per hour because you have limited time and want to cram everything into your trip.
We know this feeling all too well and was one of the issues we had when we travelled to Dubai but only had one day in the city. There was so much we wanted to do and see but little time to do it. Therefore, we created a travel itinerary so we could understand our logistics and plan the day in a timely manner so we could visit everything in a logical order and not have to rush around either. Using the travel itinerary we could plan it to our timings and include breaks so that we didn’t have to worry about missing out on anything as it was all planned in for.
The trouble with not planning your holiday means that you are rushing around, wondering if you can fit everything in. Often leading to a miserable time that is full of panic and disappointment.
However, if you create a travel itinerary you can plan the most important attractions that you want to see and have a good idea of the timings for each thing you want to do that day so that you don’t go over and have plenty of time to see and do everything without the panic and rush. It is the perfect tool to use and one of the many advantages of creating a travel itinerary. It allows you to see all the sights, visit all the attractions and let you have a hassle-free vacation, it’s perfect.
You can purchase tickets ahead of time
Another benefit of creating a travel plan just a few days or weeks before your holiday means that you can purchase tickets ahead of time. This means that you can avoid the disappointment of not being able to visit a certain attraction or take part in a certain activity because it has sold out when you have arrived.
One of the worst feelings is planning to see numerous attractions when you are on your holiday however when you turn up it is super busy. You spend hours in a queue to purchase a ticket and when you get there it turns out it has sold out!
There is nothing worse especially when you are limited in time. Not only do you lose out on half a day of your holiday but you also don’t get into an attraction you wanted to see. Furthermore, even if you do purchase a ticket on the day, it is often far more expensive than pre-booking online.
Therefore, by booking tickets online in advance you can ensure you purchase a ticket at the best time on the best day for yourself. In addition to this, tickets online are often cheaper and allow you to skip the long queues.
An example of a situation where this happened was in Rome, we managed to pre-book tickets for the Colosseum a few months in advance so that we could get it cheaper, skip the queue and book at a time and date that was convenient for our travel plans.
Travel itineraries help save money
Following on from pre-booking tickets when looking to visit attractions, it can often help you save money. On top of this planning out an entire itinerary can also help you save more money than you think.
More often than not, when travelling you can get caught up in the heat of a moment and purchase something you quite possibly could have gotten cheaper, however, because you are in a new area you are unfamiliar with and haven’t done any planning, it leads to you falling into the convenience trap and just paying whatever you can for an item because it is easier.
However, with a full travel plan, you can be reimbursed with confidence and peace of mind because you have a full idea and plan of how much things cost and where you will be able to find these items.
In addition to this, pre-booking tickets and having a good idea of costs can help you save money because everything has been pre-booked meaning you do not have to go out of your way to spend extra on things.
For example, when we went on a spontaneous trip to Milan, we didn’t have time to create a travel plan and thus had to purchase tickets on the day and even search around Milan on foot for the best hotel prices. Therefore, we ended up spending more on a hotel than we had wished. If we had pre-planned, booked tickets and the hotel online and had a good understanding of where we can get necessities such as food and drink, we would not have had to of spent money on a bed and breakfast hotel. However because we did not plan, we had no idea where we would find another hotel in the centre at that price, nor did we have any idea where we could buy food and drink or book attraction tickets. Therefore, we paid the price, quite literally for not pre-planning. Overall we spent over double the amount we could have, if we had just pre-planned the trip and created a travel itinerary.
Use travel itineraries to optimise and save time
Travel itineraries are a great way to help you save time and optimise your time in a specific location. When travelling time is at the essence and no matter if you are looking to plan a holiday that is action-packed or fairly relaxed, it is still vital that you plan your time accordingly.
Even if you are planning on having a lazy holiday full of relaxation by using a travel itinerary and planning it accordingly, you can look to optimise and save time, letting you do the things you want to on holiday without the risk of losing and wasting time.
By adding rough time estimations to each part of your travel plan when creating it, you can look to optimising your time by allocating parts of the day to each activity you want to do.
You'll be able to keep track of where you're staying and what you're doing
Travel itineraries are important because they also help you to stay organized and in line with everything on your travel adventure. Not only can they do all the things that we have mentioned but they also work as a great option to refer back to and use as guidance.
We recommend that when using a travel itinerary you only use it to a certain degree. If you follow it by the letter of the law, you cannot risk any unforeseen circumstances such as bad weather or an attraction closure. However, if you use it as a mere reference point and guide, you can still freestyle your holiday and do what makes travelling so special, which of course is exploring new places.
If you simply strictly follow a travel plan you have created, it can make travel seem dull, boring and too intense. If you simply use it as a way of keeping track and on top of things, you will be able to have a holiday that gets everything you want done in a timely manner without the stress of going off track.
We have had instances when travelling when you may notice a coll attraction or want to divert off plan for a break and that is fine. Simply use your travel itinerary as a reference point and as a guide, rather than a letter of the law which you need to follow at all times.
How do I plan a travel itinerary?
Now you may be thinking that these benefits are too good to miss out on and that you want to jump right in and plan your travel itinerary. However, it is first important to understand how you actually go about writing and creating your own travel itinerary.
There are two typical ways someone can go ahead with planning a travel itinerary and that includes either using a travel itinerary template and creating the travel plan yourself or you can use an artificial intelligence tool which can help create a travel itinerary for you in less than five minutes.
If you would like to create a travel itinerary the traditional way using pen and paper, your own research and a travel itinerary template, we have created a step-by-step travel itinerary guide that includes a FREE template you can download to create your very own travel itinerary.
Alternatively, you can create a travel itinerary containing all of your trip essentials and certain numerous attractions with all the details using a free AI travel itinerary tool. Our guide on how to use AI to create a travel itinerary provides you with a walk-through guide on three different ways you can create a travel itinerary for FREE using AI tools!
Conclusion
Overall, planning a travel itinerary is something that we do on every trip we now take to ensure that we maximise the benefits of creating a travel itinerary for our trip. Hopefully, this breakdown of the advantages of why you should create. travel itinerary has helped persuade you, to create one for yourself and do your own research.
By planning for your holiday you can ensure that your logistics are sorted so you don’t have to rush around and are clueless. It can let you pre-book tickets so that you avoid disappointment by not being able to visit on the day if tickets have sold out. It helps you save money and time by not wasting it when in the heat of the moment and it also helps you keep track of everything and reference points.
By creating a travel plan we guarantee that you won’t be having any more disappointing trips where you feel rushed or that you feel that you have wasted your time and money and still didn’t get to see everything. With a travel itinerary, you can avoid disappointment and all you have to do is create one. Not only is creating a travel itinerary super easy and free but it can also be good fun researching and learning about the place you are about to visit.
Some of the best trips we have had when travelling across the globe have been when we have created a travel itinerary so we couldn’t recommend creating one anymore!
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Luke Iles
Luke is a leading travel writer within the travel niche and is also a co-founder of HandL Blogs one of the UK’s leading travel blogging websites. Luke has a love of all things travel.
Initially becoming friends with his other co-founder, Harry, at the age of four years old, they let their love for travel evolve, making it their mission to visit every country in the world!
Today they want to share their passion and experiences of travelling across the globe with written blogs on topics that are most important to them. From travel, cooking, fitness and tech blogs!
Whether that be trying new food in a new country and sharing it in a cooking blog; visiting a new gym in a certain city and reviewing it in a fitness blog or learning about the newest tech within the travel industry.
Disclosure: Some links in this article may be affiliate links, which can provide compensation to HandL Blogs at no cost to you if you decide to purchase through these links. These are products we have personally used and stand behind. This site is not intended to provide financial advice and is for entertainment only. You can read our affiliate disclosure in our privacy policy.
