A Simple Way to Create a Great Itinerary on your Own!

Create a great itinerary all on your own! It just takes a little research and organization, but I am here to simplify it! I hear a lot of people talk about not traveling because they don’t know where to begin to start planning a trip. Although it can be a bit time-consuming, it really can be simple!

We have created nearly all of our itineraries with only a handful (😜) of hiccups. The perk of creating your own itinerary: you have the freedom to do what you want when you want. Below is our process of creating an itinerary based on our Costa Rica trip, and it is easily recreated for all trips!

1. Research

Our first step in creating an itinerary is to start researching everything there is to do where we are going. My #1 go-to place is Pinterest. A lot of people have gone where you are going! AND, a lot of people have wrote about their favorite parts and recommendations on what to do. Take advantage of it!

• Start by making a random, unorganized list of all of the things you have seen on Pinterest or Instagram that you would like to do and see

2. Organize based on location

• For example, we researched all the things we would like to see in Costa Rica then organized them by locations such as Arenal area, Manuel Antonio area, the Caribbean coast, etc 
• This helps have a better idea of how much time/how many days you may need in each specific area. This can be different areas/cities of one country or of multiple countries.

3. Map out the itinerary

• Once the activities are a little more organized based upon location, you will get a better idea of the direction of the itinerary based upon where each destination falls on the map
  • This step helps to determine where you should start/end your trip
    • Sometimes you start and end in the same place- we flew in/out of San Jose this time
    • Other times we fly into one airport and out of another so we need to decide which way to go first
  • It also helps to determine travel time between each location
    • This is KEY! Don’t accidentally cram your day too full because you underestimated travel time!
  • During this step on our Costa Rica trip we:
    1. Realized we could benefit from at least one extra day once we started looking at travel time between destinations. A lot of jungle= longer travel time!
    2.  Decided to take out the places we wanted to see on the Caribbean coast. This was due to us only having 7 days and the amount of travel time it would take to drive cross-country. We decided our time would be better utilized staying on the Pacific coast and getting to do more exploring and less driving

4. Organize your info into a table

• Put all of the information into a table with day, activities for the day, travel time between locations and housing (including links) and booking confirmations
  • Having it laid out helps to visualize the itinerary.  You can more easily see if you have too much planned with too little time in certain areas. Then you can adjust the itinerary accordingly
  • Once I laid out our Costa Rica itinerary in the table, we adjusted one more time to exclude Uvita from our itinerary to allow more time in Manuel Antonio National Park 
  • We like to see a much as we can on a trip, but sometimes you have to weigh the pros/cons of less time in more places
  • The table is also a nice, organized place to go to while you are on your trip 

5. Once the itinerary is set, book accommodations

• Book your accommodations wherever they are cheapest! For Costa Rica, a couple of places were booked through Expedia, a couple through booking.com, a couple of AirBnBs. Your best option for accommodations will vary depending on your destination, amount of nights, how many travelers, etc 
• If it is offseason for travel, you don’t necessarily have to have accommodations booked ahead of time. You can likely just roll up to a place and grab a room. However, on more than one occasion we have had trouble booking housing close to travel time due to accommodations filling up and/or getting expensive due to demand
• Click here for tips on booking accommodations! 

Ready to create a great itinerary?

I honestly get excitement out of planning our itineraries! Although it normally doesn’t come without a certain amount of stress, there is fun in choosing what you want to do, what you want to see, when you want to see it and how you want to get there. I hope these tips help you create a great itinerary with a little less stress! And remember, an itinerary isn’t set in stone and if things change, just go with it and enjoy the trip!