When Luke and I first started planning our trip to Scotland it seemed very overwhelming. We decided against doing a guided tour, preferring to travel completely independently. You may decide that adding in guided tours or guided day trips to your itinerary is how you prefer to travel, either way is great! We have friends that book their trips entirely through Expedia (which, by the way, have great flight/hotel deals) and they have a great time! It certainly takes away a lot of stress if planning isn’t your thing.
However, Luke and I prefer to be on our own schedule on trips and customize it completely to our liking. It takes a lot of extra work, but for us it is so worth it. We use several different tools, blogs and resources to put this together (you can also use our itineraries as well!).
The first tool that we used to put our trip together was TripIt and its related app. This is a free site (although you can pay for an upgraded version) that can link to your email and automatically import any trip related items into your schedule. For example, when you book a flight, it imports the information and creates a new trip. So say you booked a flight to Dublin flying out June 1st and coming back June 10th. It will create a new Dublin trip with your fight times, confirmation numbers and companions, and notify you if there are any changes to your flight. If you rent a car in Dublin, TripIt will import the email with all the details and place it within your Dublin trip. The same goes for hotels. From there, you can edit the trip and fill in the blanks! Say you don’t pick up your car until day 3- you can add in any activities you want to do, the times you would like to do them and any additional details.
When you do pick up your car, you can add driving directions into your itinerary. If you decide not to get the GPS and don’t want to use international data, the Google Maps app is a great alternative. You can download multiple maps to use offline. We recommend downloading the TripIt app as well- you can use it while you are traveling (regardless of cell signal) to make sure that you are on schedule and have access to all of your confirmation codes/additional details.
We prefer to use TripIt in conjunction with Google Maps- you can create your own trip map and share it with others that are traveling with you. To do this, make sure you are signed in to your Google Account. Go to Google Maps , click the Menu (three lines) on the top left hand corner and click on Your Places. Click on Maps, then Create Map. This allows you to place pins in places you want to go, create different layers (such as Activities, Restaurants, or different destinations) and insert driving directions. This lets you visualize your destination to make it more efficient and determine whether you can walk or should take the subway or a car.
Another tool that we use frequently is Sygic. This site allows a more visual look into your trip, along with site suggestions in the area you are staying in and a bird’s eye view of driving directions. We signed up for the Sygic Travel Premium, which allows us to use the navigation while we travel, however we recommend using the free Sygic Travel and then downloading your maps on Google Maps to avoid paying. Sygic is great for recommendations and a better visual of your trip, as it maps out where you are walking/driving, the route you are taking and any stopping points along the way.
When putting your trip together, we have found that our first idea on how we want the trip to go isn’t always the best. For example, we thought in Scotland that we wanted to go to Inverness. However, through additional research we discovered that Inverness may be a little too touristy for our taste (obviously this is just our opinion, as Inverness may be a wonderful place for you to visit) and discovered Isle of Skye in the process. Although Isle of Skye was certainly full of tourists, there was a reason for that as it was one of the most beautiful places we have visited. A few sites that we use for our research are:
Fodors
– The Forums on this site are wonderful, and the individuals that answer your questions are incredibly helpful
TripAdvisor
– This is a great way to search for the cheapest hotel, the best ratings on destinations and fantastic restaurants
A Google search!
– You would be surprised at how much information you can get by simply searching it through google. When we were in Italy I needed to find an area that we could park our car in Cinque Terre (to put into our Tripit!). From there, I found that I needed to purchase a parking reservation ahead of time. Boy am I glad I did, because the lots were sold out when we got there.
The Facebook Travel Community
– This site is wonderful to ask others for recommendations- you can either post your own question or search through the questions that others have asked. This way you can connect to others with a passion for Travel!
Whether you choose TripIt, Sygic, Google Maps or another travel assistance, be sure to download the corresponding app to your phone so that you can access everything while you are on your trip. We recommend being open minded when putting together your itinerary- you never know what amazing destination you will find by doing a little research!
