Planning a trip can honestly be pretty stressful, especially if you don’t know where to start! And even when you do get started, there is SO much knowledge out there, it can be overwhelming! I’ll be sharing my favorite travel resources that I use when I plan a trip, when and how to use them, and other tips along the way.

As you’ll soon notice, I am a pretty big fan of Google’s products, like Flights, Maps and Sheets. Especially if you are traveling with other people, it’s super easy to share your itinerary and links with everyone. I’ll also be covering Notion and of course, travel blogs as an essential resource.😉

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1. Google Flights

Google Flights is where I start when I’m not sure exactly where I want to go yet. What’s nice is that you don’t need to put an exact destination, but instead can use this tool to explore different flight prices. By clicking “Explore destinations” you can choose your starting airport and either specific dates, or something generic to give you alllll the options. AKA “1 week trip in April” or “Weekend in May or June.” You can also narrow down the location options by inputting certain countries, regions, or continents.

I LOVE this tool. It has helped me narrow down my options so many times and find incredible flight deals. Unless you have a very specific destination in mind, I really suggest starting here as well. You can also filter for specific airlines, travel times, etc if you don’t want to see those $30 Spirit Airlines midnight flight deals.😂

They also introduced a new feature recently, called Price guarantee. If you book certain flights using Google Flights, and the price drops before you take off, they will refund you the difference! You can read more about the policy details on Google’s website here. 

2. Google Maps

After your flight is booked, onto figuring out what you’re actually going to do once you get there! That’s where Google Maps comes in real handy for me. I like to pull up the city I’m going to, and then use the Maps to search around for cool spots. I’ll search things like “trendy restaurants” and “tourist attractions,” or just move around on the map to see points of interest. This is to get all of the basic spots that the city is known for!

If you need some inspiration to get you started, check out my Google Maps Collections! I create these every time I travel somewhere new, and am always updating the lists with new spots so make sure you add them to your Maps!

3. Notion

I then head over to Notion to get even more ideas and to begin to build out an itinerary. Notion is a newer workspace tool you can use to organize and collaborate on your trip planning, as well as a variety of other areas. 

One of their coolest features is that it is integrated with AI, which you can use to build an itinerary! When you create a new page, click on this feature called “Start writing with AI”:

Suggested prompts for the AI tool to help you build your itinerary:
– Build me a [insert amount of time (3 day, 1 week, 1 month)] itinerary to [insert location]– Give me [insert number] suggestions for things to do in [insert location]– Write a detailed itinerary for [insert amount of time] including timing to [insert location]

For example, I wrote “Build me a 5 day itinerary to Paris” and this is what it came up with in less than 20 seconds:

4. Google Sheets

Once I’ve started to get a broader sense of the spots I want to hit on my vacation, I begin to assemble an itinerary in Google Sheets. If you like what Notion produced for you, you could definitely continue to build it out there. I really like Google Sheets since I can easily share it with other people, and they can edit the itinerary as we go as well.

I also built in a budget & expense tracker, which is super useful if you’re splitting costs with other people. Make sure to sign up for my mailing list and I’ll send you my Google Sheets Itinerary template for free!

5. Travel Blogs

And of course, make sure you check out travel blogs like mine and so many others to find unique spots! What I love about travel blogs too is that they come from real people sharing their real experiences. So rather than just blindly checking out tourist attractions, you can get references from people who have been there and who may have stumbled across a hidden gem.

Plus, sometimes you can learn a bit more about the background and history of a place. Which I think makes it way more special when you actually visit!

Any questions on any of the resources I mentioned, or any spots I’ve been to, you can contact me here or on Instagram! Best of luck planning your next trip 🙂

💙mariss