The excitement hits — you’re going on a trip. But then comes the big question: should you plan every detail, or leave room for the unexpected? These are great questions, and I will do my best to answer them as a frequent traveler who has dealt with creating an itinerary.
Laying the Groundwork
The first step in planning your trip is picking a location you want to visit. Next you will have to decide how to get there. Will you be flying, driving, or taking a boat? You will also need to decide when you want to go. But after these three steps are complete, you have a world of possibilities.
Pros of an Itinerary
What are the advantages of an itinerary? The first advantage is not having to worry about planning activities. If you like to know what you are doing ahead of time, an itinerary may bring you ease of mind. Seeing your schedule for the entire trip can reduce the stress of travel.
It’s especially helpful if you’re not naturally spontaneous or struggle with last-minute changes. By building an itinerary you can do all of the research in the cities or countries you will be visiting months before ever arriving.
The second big advantage of having an itinerary is that you can make sure that you will not miss any major attractions. If you want to see some major attractions in a city, they may not have any tickets available. This is true especially if you are traveling during a peak season. I know that there have been a few different things that I have missed because you needed to book at least three weeks in advance and I did not have an itinerary.
But while an itinerary has its perks, it isn’t always the perfect solution for every trip or traveler.
Cons of an Itinerary
When you have everything planned out down to the last detail, you start to miss the true point of backpacking/traveling. Sometimes it is okay to get lost in a city and just wander around while learning about the local culture. Having the option to take a left or right when the road forks just to see where it leads, or getting to choose a random restaurant based on the smell as you walk by, is a huge advantage of not having an itinerary. Flexibility in your schedule gives you the chance to have a real adventure.
Imagine you meet a group of backpackers in a hostel in France that you enjoy hanging out with, and they are planning to go down the Amalfi Coast in Italy together next week. If you have your complete itinerary, you will be stuck with what you planned in advance. The biggest advantage of not having an itinerary is the flexibility to do what you want and when you want to do it.
How I Prefer to Plan
Even when I was new to traveling, I always used a mix of detailed itineraries and winging it. I took a two week trip to Australia when I was 18 and I had pretty much everything planned ahead of time. Two weeks after that trip for my 19th birthday I went to Mexico and all I had was a round trip flight and a place to stay. Everything I did in Mexico was planned the day of, and I got to experience a more relaxed trip by going with the flow. As I got older and more experienced with travel, I began mastering the use of an itinerary and deciding when it is essential.
The biggest factor for me in deciding to use an itinerary is the length of the trip. When I go on a two week trip across a few countries, I will have all of my accommodation and transportation secured. I might also do a little research on some of the cities to see if there is anything I need to book in advance. If I am going to a city for a specific reason, like when I went to the Colosseum, I will get the tickets ahead of time. Outside of that, I prefer to leave my schedule as free as possible so that I can make decisions on the fly.
When I go on longer backpacking trips spanning several months, I don’t really plan that far in advance. When you start to plan your trip several weeks in advance, you take away one of the best parts of backpacking. Being able to go with the flow, and adapt your plans as you travel, is one of my favorite parts of backpacking.
If you take a trip that is only going to be two to three weeks, then it is okay to have transportation and accommodation already booked. But I would still recommend leaving some days open in each city for spontaneous adventures.
Once you start to get past one month, you have more than enough time to plan on a weekly basis and still be back in time for your flight. Once you start to go on trips where all you have is a one way ticket and a dream, then you really open up to the world of possibilities when it comes to the types of adventures you will go on.
Two Months in Europe
Two years ago I went on a two month long backpacking trip around Europe. Before this trip started, I did not know how long I wanted to go or what my budget could afford. So I started by booking a one way flight to London. When I got onto my flight, I had nothing else booked for my entire trip.
I knew there were a few cities I wanted to see at some point during my trip, such as Copenhagen, Paris, and Berlin. But I had no real plans. I spent my first two weeks in England with friends, and it wasn’t until day 12 that I actually had my next place booked.
My mom joined me in London for a few days, and she said she wanted to visit Paris before flying back home. Two days later we were on a flight to Paris. We spent four days in Paris, and while we were there I decided that Luxembourg was going to be my next stop. I also decided that I wanted to go to Brussels after that. In total I had my next week planned out with transportation and accommodation.
For the rest of my trip I repeated the same process. I would book transportation and accommodation about a week in advance. This gave me a lot of flexibility in deciding where I wanted to go next. I only had one thing planned weeks ahead of time. I did not buy tickets for anything before arriving, and I really didn’t research what there was to do in a city.
After arriving and checking into my hostel, I would charge my phone and google what there is to do in whichever city I was in. Or I would look at the maps and see what museums, castles, historic sites, or restaurants were nearby. Then I would just walk to the nearest landmark and go from there.
One of my friends that I frequently travel with said he was going to be in Nice about six weeks after I was in Paris. I agreed to meet him so I knew I would be back in France eventually, but how or when I got there was still up for debate. Even the activities for Nice were not planned before arriving. He did select a few restaurants he wanted to try, but outside of that we could explore anything we wanted.
I also had my return flight booked one month into my trip. As long as I was back in London the day of the flight, I still had another month of exploring with no restrictions.
Planning With a Friend
Recently, a friend and I took a two week trip through Costa Rica and Colombia. He is the type of traveler who always needs to have an itinerary, and since I usually go without one, we had to compromise when it came to planning. Instead of booking excursions and making restaurant reservations weeks or months before flying, we instead created a list of things we may like to do. I focused more on researching different tours in the cities we were going to, while he compiled a list of restaurants and other food related items for us to try.
After we would arrive in a city, we looked at the list of things we had researched, and make decisions on the fly of where we wanted to go. This involved booking tours the night before, or pulling a restaurant out of a hat for dinner. This type of planning gave us all the flexibility for spontaneous adventures while still leaving us with a list of items to pull from.
Conclusion
So what is the best choice for you?
If you need to have every detail planned in your day to day life, then an itinerary may be a good fit. But, I would challenge you to leave a day open in your schedule to see what type of adventure life has to offer you.
If you are a spontaneous person, then you do not need to have an itinerary. But, just remember that it doesn’t hurt to google your next destination even if it is on the bus ride before you arrive. That way you can maximize your time by seeing famous locations right away and still leaving your schedule free for the unknown.
In the end, I think that using a mixture of both an itinerary and planning is going to give you the best end result. While you have the ease of mind of knowing where your next destination is and where you will sleep at night, you can still leave your daily activities up to the flip of a coin.
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