Planning your itinerary – tips and tricks

Planning your own trip can be a lot of fun and gives you the opportunity to design everything according to your own wishes , away from package tourism. However, planning must be carried out carefully and always involves effort, so this part of holiday planning is often postponed for as long as possible. In order to get the most out of your free time, it is important to start calculating routes early; there are various tools and online programs to help with this. Regardless of whether it is going to be a larger trip in your own car or a short trip by bike , there should be at least a rough draft of your personal route before you start , and the intermediate stops along the way can be added afterwards.

Planning the route

The rough route can always be created quickly using digital maps, which can be adjusted at any time depending on your mood. Areas and attractions worth seeing are usually already known before planning. If you are looking for highlights beyond these points, you definitely need to find out more in advance so as not to miss anything.

The actual travel destination serves as the destination as part of the entire travel planning . If you have saved additional nearby highlights in advance, you can add them to the route. Digital route planners help here; they automatically calculate the distances between the locations.

Errors in planning routes

When planning your travel route, it is particularly important to always plan for breaks and rest areas. If you inform yourself in advance, you can filter out the best restaurants and plan these stops along the way, which also ensures that there are always sufficient breaks. In addition, gas stations must be located and marked in advance so that you always have them to hand. The actual planning of the trip should not only be based on a single main goal. Ideally, you should look for several destinations that you definitely want to visit and plan the trip accordingly. For longer trips with overnight stays , it makes sense to check and book nearby hotels and accommodations in advance; it is easier to check the price online in advance. The digital organization of the routes not only helps to calculate the distance to the highlights, but you can also find lots of information online about the destinations you are looking for as well as reviews from other holidaymakers. This information supports you in designing the route.

Support and approach

The Internet is a source of inspiration for many , and this also applies to travel destinations and route planning for such trips. With the help of digital maps on the Internet, not only is the actual destination displayed, but you can also display all the important locations in the area; sights, hotels or restaurants can be easily found and saved in the area. If you want to be on the safe side, you can also save these addresses in your address book in case the internet connection is poor.

Online route planner

Travel destinations discovered online can easily be found on Google Maps and saved for later trips, making route planning easier and giving you ideas for further trips. It is important that all interesting places and addresses are saved in advance in the digital route planner. If there is no internet available locally or the location cannot be found straight away, this will help quickly. These saved favorites then create your own personal map on which these locations can be found, which then results in the perfect travel route . Anyone who installs the app on their cell phone in advance can also use this personal travel planner offline and can orientate themselves perfectly to travel destinations without the internet . If the entire route is thought through in advance with such a planner, different route options can be chosen, depending on personal preference. This allows you to customize the entire trip, for example you can avoid the highway. Several small destinations can also be planned and the route planner will then suggest the best route for the journey. Some route planners for route calculation , such as Viamichelin, can determine not only the travel time, but also the travel costs , so these can be taken into account at the beginning. The resulting route planner directions can be saved on your smartphone or printed out and taken with you. With the help of digital route planners, streets, routes and paths are visible in advance in the browser , often as a satellite photo. The digital design of the route offers many options and can be flexibly adjusted during the journey, so the traveler keeps every option open.

Planning the route with social media

Social networks not only serve as inspiration for travel destinations, they also provide information about whether a particular travel destination is worth it. Using the search function, any destination in any country can be found; this image search helps you decide whether a detour to this point makes sense or is rather uninteresting.

Travel blogs can provide further support when planning your trip ; you should save interesting articles or places directly so that you always have them to hand and can incorporate them into your route planning . Your own favorites are collected on a list and can be perfectly integrated into your travel planning before you start .

On-site support

Even if everything has been planned out in detail in advance with the route planner , unforeseen problems can occur on the route and the roads. Detours and closed roads make the planned route obsolete, and the plan has to be re-planned at short notice. This is only possible on the go with digital support, for example a digital route planner.

Manual travel guides and trip planners

In addition to the digital route planner, classic travel guides can also be used for tours on site ; these are available for every city and are updated regularly. However, they have the disadvantage that they are never as up-to-date as the Internet. Digital travel guides and route planners offer the advantage that they are always up to date; new sights or restaurants are immediately available and can be visited in the digital travel guide.

GPS-Tracker

Small GPS trackers are a useful addition for orientation during the trip, especially in a foreign country. These can be carried to secure your own vehicle or luggage, and you can also carry them with you to always check your location. The tracker is networked with your own smartphone , so the current location can be displayed on a digital map at any time and used for navigation. This technology can be used to navigate to a desired destination and see the distance to the next station . If you stray from the planned route, the current position on the route can be sent to third parties using the GPS tracker.

Important tips

In order to make your own trip the best possible one, it is essential to plan some key route details in advance; a route planner can help here. Especially when traveling abroad, it is important to inform yourself in advance and look for routes, addresses and streets that lead to your destination as quickly as possible . Individual excursions offer flexibility. If you want to preserve this, you should only book the first accommodation in advance and keep other options open. The key details of the trip should be determined using a route planner , but over-planning the trip quickly causes stress. The route planning with detailed directions should be saved on the cell phone, so that the route of the planned tours can be accessed even without the Internet.