Even for a short vacation or business trip, there is a lot of data management that needs to be done – travel details, bookings details, packing, pick-up/drop, getting all the documents in place, etc. To make it easier, here are some Excel templates you can use to be more organized while planning a vacation:

Vacation Itinerary Template. Vacation Packing List Template. Vacation Shared Expense Calculator.

You’ll still need to do a lot of preparations, but this template will make it easier for you to plan/manage your vacation. The vacation itinerary template and vacation packing list template are editable and you can fill in the details and take a printout (or take a printout and then fill it).

Vacation Itinerary Template in Excel

Here is how the vacation itinerary template looks: All you need to do is fill the details in this template, and take a printout or save the Excel or PDF in your smartphone. Now you don’t need to go through all the papers or emails when someone asks you – what’s next. You’ll have it ready right there at one place. This vacation itinerary template is organized in a way that makes it easier to keep a track of everything. It begins with the travel details, pick-up/drop details, hotels details, activity details, and return trip details. It is super easy to maintain and once finalized, you can share it with everyone who is accompanying you on the vacation/trip. Download Vacation Itinerary Template

Business Travel Itinerary Template

If you going on business travel instead of a vacation, this template can be easily modified. All you need to change is the Activities section, where you may want to have your meeting/conference details. Something as shown below:

In the download file, you will get both vacation itinerary template and business travel itinerary template. Download Business Travel Itinerary Template

Vacation Packing List Template

Travel Itinerary template is just one of the templates to make your vacation more about fun & pleasant memories and less about data/details management. For some people (including myself), one of the major headaches is the packing part. I hate packing and I push it to the last minute. And as expected, it often leads to a lot of missed items that I should have been carrying. Even when people take enough packing time, they often tend to forget and miss out on a couple of items. To deal with this, here is a Vacation Packing List template in Excel that will help you be more efficient while you pack for your next vacation/trip. Again, you can either use the template in Excel or can take a printout and manually cross off items that you have packed. It’s an editable file so you can add/delete items based on the nature of your trip. If you are using this template as an Excel workbook, you can simply mark the items as packed by double clicking on the cell to the left of the item name. As soon as you do that, the item gets a check mark on the left and gets shaded in green color. Here is what I mean:

Now you don’t need to lose sleep thinking of stuff you may have forgotten. If it is in the list and marked green, you have it. Note: Since this excel template contains a simple macro, it shows a prompt when you open it (as shown below). Click on enable macro for the double click functionality to work. Download Vacation Packing List Template

Vacation Expense Calculator Template

When the fun-filled vacation gets over, you have to get down to the difficult task of ascertaining who owes whom. Since it’s not as fun as the vacation planning part, it often gets dragged and delayed. The only person who remembers this is the one who owes money 🙂 Here is a template you can use to instantly calculate who owes whom – Shared Expense Calculator Template. All you need to do is specify the names of the people among whom the expense has to be shared and the expenses made. It will instantly calculate who owes who and show it graphically. Something as shown below:

Read more about the Shared Expense Calculator Template. Download Shared Expense Calculator Some additional resources you may find useful when planning a vacation:

Check the weather before you plan any trip. I use Accuweather to quickly get a sense of the weather. You can use any online resource of App you like. Hotel Reviews on Trip Advisor. The time difference in different zones – World Time Buddy. It’s a good idea to go through some travel blogs and resources. Based on your destination, you can easily find some good resources.

Holiday Calendar in Excel (for the US only). Excel To Do List Templates. Calendar Integrated with a To Do List Template.