In this impromptu planning series started in January, we talked about planning time off, budgeting for trips, and making a packing list. To finish it off, it’s time to talk about a way to combine all of those results together. A great way is to have a travel journal or planner.

Travel Planners vs Travel Journals

Travel planners are more for those that are a Type-A personality. You can concisely organize your thoughts in set categories with a monthly and/or weekly calendar and a note section.

Digital vs physical planners are based on preference. There’s ease in portability with digital planners but sometimes having something tangible in front of you that you can write in just scratches a certain itch.

Planners are the best way to go for someone who wants more organization for their trips. Someone like me.

That being said, I also want to reflect more on my travels.

Travel journals give way to be more of a freeform format where you can write what you want, draw where you want to go or where you’ve been, and reflect.

My sister was making a scrapbook for the year in 2023 and that made me want to do the same but specifically for my trips. I thought a travel journal would be perfect.

As much as I love organizing and planning, I like crafts, too. There’s something calming about putting physical thing together. Pasting clips of tickets or brochures and printing out pictures from the trip just seem like a fun way of keeping those memories alive.

There’s a benefit for both the planner and the journal. The two could be used by different people but both can be useful together.

Travel Journals

I’m not an artist in the drawing sense but I’ll post a picture or a sticker in a heartbeat. Like I said before I want to reflect on my travels.

I have this blog where I’m sharing my travels but I realized that I’m doing surface leveling sharing. I’m not really getting into how I felt while I was there. Maybe the blog doesn’t need that but I’d like that for myself.

I don’t journal on my day-to-day life but I want to journal during my travels because I’m always learning something new. Whether it’s about the places I’m traveling or about myself, I’m learning and I don’t want to forget what I’m learning so easily.  

I’m mostly talking about reflection but the journal can also be used to house your time off plans, budget, and packing list. You’d just have to create or draw those compartments yourself.

A planner may make it easier.

Travel Planners

I haven’t used a planner since college but now that I’m traveling more, a travel planner seems perfect to keep things in check. I don’t know why I didn’t immediately go back to using one.

For most of my trips I make my own spreadsheets and documents with a list of costs, activities, itineraries, and so on. All of them are together yet still separate. It makes sense to put them all in one organized place.

I want to create my own digital planner. I’ve been creating mobile itineraries for my trips so far, but those are made after everything is planned (for the most part). I figured that I could try my hand at making a planner that I can use digitally or print out. Right now it’s just a thought but I’m hoping to make it something real soon.

Using either of these tools will help put the dates that you’ve chosen for your different trips, the budget you created for them and your packing list in one place.

They are tools you can use for multiple trips and you can use one or both of them however you want.

I thought this would be a perfect way to wrap up this particular planning series.

For more travel planning tips, check out the Travel Tips category on the blog.

I’m hoping to do more planning posts to help you with your future trips and will let you know when I create my travel planner.

Until the next post, I’ll see you later my fellow overthinkers!