Revisualizing the Itinerary
Do people still use traditional itineraries anymore?
I’ve been to Iceland a few times and when my friends have asked me where to go, it’s usually a hodge podge of emails with notes and 5 different itineraries, not ideal. Design combines my creative side with my analytical side. What better way to show you my thought process than to reimagine the itinerary with a self-initiated project.
The Challenge
You have your tickets booked and you’re ready to plan all the things you want to see, eat and do. You ask your friends to send you their recommendations, their itineraries and you do your own research. You go down a rabbit hole on Lonely Planet, Tripadvisor and Reddit of how people organized their trips depending on length of time. You are overwhelmed.
The Goal
Make travel decision making easier. Don’t disrupt the daydreaming, develop a custom itinerary organizational tool where mile-long Google docs and excel sheets are replaced. Itinerary planning can be a cumbersome and time-consuming task. Travelers need a way to aggregate information that is scalable from a solo-traveler to a large party. Ideas and itineraries can be shared with friends in a fun, collaborative, digestible way.
“In her quest to plan this trip, Amy had 419 digital moments in just two months. She made 34 searches, watched 5 videos, and made 380 web page visits.”
How it started
I have been to Iceland 3x and it all began with Scott’s Cheap Flights. My CCO at the Atlanta Hawks in passing asked me if I had heard about this new travel site because he just took his family to Australia at a crazy price. It was the start of everything.
2017 - First deal to Iceland booked
2018 - Iceland for the first time!
2019 - Return to Iceland, Ring Road Roadtrip
2022 - Winter in Iceland, hot springs only
Because of that, I have amassed too much Icelandic information with no good way to share it with my friends.
How do you share an itinerary that’s actually useful?
How do you keep track of where you’ve been and where you’re going?
Brainstorming
How might we make keeping track of your plans fun with friends?
How might we make a non-paper travel journal?
How might we compromise on everything your friends want to do?
How might we see through the clutter?
CHALLENGING
THE NORM
TLDR, why are itineraries long and wordy documents? We hunt and gather for recommendations, but what actually happens to that mile-long list of ideas?
WE EXPAND
YOUR OUTLOOK
Visualizing the itinerary in a new way. The ability to sort and filter will enhance your perspective of what your trip could be.
WE EMPOWER YOU
TO CHOOSE
Unlock your own adventure, with the building blocks of others. Collaborate and crowdsource recommendations without the hassle.
WE ROOT
FOR YOU
Create your own game plan with confidence. Continue to seek and tweak, all while staying inspired.
Travel from your pocket
Introducing your at-a-glance view of your itinerary, your captain’s log. Follow along with your grand plan during the trip. Add notes and photos as you go along. Mark off the ones you did or didn’t do. Your itinerary becomes a pre-made travel journal without having to start fresh in a paper notebook. Remember your roses and thorns with room to add the extra things you did on the fly!
Share your travels
On social apps like Instagram, friends aren’t usually tagging every single place they are, they’re in the moment. After your trip, share your travels with your friends. See where you’ve been and where you’re going. Get inspired from where your friends have traveled and add it to your growing bucket list.
Discover personalized travel recommendations
Got a one track mind? Sort by activity like Food & Drink
Set trips to public or private
Add notes and reviews
Make your bucket list
Boldly go where you’ve never gone before. Toggle between where you’ve been to where you’re going. These are your sights unseen.
Make a bucket list of where you want to go
Explore friend’s travel recs; see what influencers are up to
Bookmark your favorites and add it to a future trip
Build own itinerary or take a quiz to generate an optimized plan from your saved favorites
Are you a maximalist or a minimalist traveler? Do you want a packed schedule or leave time for jet-lagged naps.
“We have a tendency to try to do everything all at once because we want to experience all the place we’re visiting has to offer.”
Itinerary vs Reality
How many times have you overestimated what you could do vs. what you ended up doing. Have the flexibility to play around with your schedule as you go. You’ll always have your bucket list to pull from if you need more!
Collaborate with Friends
Before I started this whole process, I wanted to put into practice how my friends and I could have planned our first Iceland trip. Instead of dumping every sight and link in a Google Doc, what if we tried a Kanban method. This type of drag and drop sorting would allow you to take your bucket list and flip it into your itinerary, allowing your thoughts to flow and flex in an organized way. For a future iteration of this idea, I would love to explore saving multiple itinerary versions to see what arrangement your group likes best.
“Social media had the greatest influence on leisure travelers’ travel destinations, with 75% of travelers saying social media posts inspired their trips to a specific destination in 2023.”
- Travelperk.com
“Mobile searches for “things to do/activities” + “near me” have seen a 6X increase over the last two years”
- Google Consumer Insights
“Business travelers spent 52 days getting inspired and planning their trip, and 43 days between booking and starting their trip.”
- Travelperk.com
“In the 12 weeks leading up to a trip, there are 3X more experiences searches than hotel searches.
- Google Consumer Insights
Invite the Unexpected
Of course I’m one in a million of people who love to travel, but for me, I’m doubly obsessed with the planning. Nothing brings me more pleasure than to scour and curate recommendations for when my friends come to visit me in New York or when I travel.
It’s my favorite ritual, my greatest addiction.