Plan a trip in one workbook: days, money, and the bag

Trip plans fall apart in three separate apps: a doc for the days, a note for the budget, and a photo of a packing list from the last trip. The day you need them, you are in a hallway with bad service. One workbook is enough if it answers four questions: when you are going, what happens on each day, what you planned to spend versus what you spent, and what is actually in the bag.

Here is that setup. Names and prices are an example.

Trip facts on one header

Write these before the itinerary, because the day numbers depend on them.

• Trip name
• Start date and end date
• Who is going
• Home currency (the one you earn in)
• Local currency, if it is different
• The exchange rate you are willing to plan with

The rate is a planning rate, not a live market feed. Type 1.08 or whatever you choose and use it for the whole plan. When you come home you can type what the card actually charged. Do not pretend the sheet watches the market.

If two people are going and you will settle shared costs later, this workbook is the trip plan, not the roommate settlement. Shared dinners can still be a budget line. Who owes whom after the trip is a different sheet.

The itinerary is a list of days, not a mood board

One row per block of the day, or one row per day if the trip is simple.

Day number should be a formula: the date minus the start date, plus one. If you insert a rest day, the numbers below should move without you retyping “Day 4” on every line. A row with a date outside the start and end dates is a mistake. Fix the header or the row. Do not leave orphan days that the budget does not know about.

Booked means you have a ticket or a reservation, not that you “want to.” Wanting lives in the plan text with Booked set to No. That single distinction is what you read the night before.

Planned versus actual money

Give each cost a category you will still understand later: lodging, transport, food, tickets, shopping, other.

Two amount columns:

• Planned, in home currency, before you go
• Actual, in home currency, after you pay

If you pay in local currency, type the local amount and let a formula multiply by your planning rate to fill a home-currency column. Keep the local number. When the card posts 4 percent worse than your rate, put the real home-currency actual on the row and leave the planned rate alone so you can see the gap.

A chart of planned versus actual by category is the only chart you need. A trip that is “a little over” in total and double on food is a different lesson from a trip that is over because the flight changed.

Example, two travelers, four nights, home currency USD, local EUR, planning rate 1.10:

Before departure, actual can be blank except for what you already paid. The point of filling planned first is so “we’ll figure food out there” has a number attached. If you refuse to type a food number, type a ceiling you are willing to notice when you cross it.

Log a spend the day it happens, in one line. Reconstructing four days from a banking app in the airport is how the actual column becomes a shrug.

The packing list is a percent, not a vibe

One row per item. Columns: item, category (clothes, toiletries, documents, kids), quantity, packed yes or no.

Percent packed is packed rows divided by rows you intend to take, not divided by a fantasy list of forty items you always delete. If you are not taking it, delete the row or mark it out of the count. A list at 40 percent the night before is useful. A list at 40 percent because it still contains “snorkel” for a city break is not.

Documents deserve their own rows: passports, the lodging address offline, the insurance note, any tickets that are not only in an app. Check those first. Socks can be late.

The night-before pass

1. Header dates still match the tickets.
2. Every booked row has a confirmation somewhere you can open offline.
3. Day numbers still run from 1 without a gap you did not intend.
4. Planned total is a number you recognize. Actual-so-far is only what you have already paid.
5. Packing percent is not being propped up by rows you will not take.
6. One person owns the sheet if you are traveling together. Two editors on a plane Wi-Fi connection will fork it.

The trip workbook that matches this layout holds the dates and travelers, an itinerary with an automatic day number, a budget of planned versus actual with a chart, spending in local or home currency with a conversion, and a packing list with percent packed. Formulas only. Excel and Google Sheets. It will not book anything, and it will not watch the exchange rate for you. The link is in the box below.