Charting your route for the year
Charting the route for the year.
Reading that title, many might say, “What route?”
To the traveler, it makes sense.
Each year I refine the process, striving for more control, cost planning, and efficiency.
The last two years, I started with the return, a transatlantic repositioning cruise. Knowing my departure port, back planned destinations to stay, using the UK and Ireland to pad out the time which I’ve selected to be July first.
Having an idea of where and when I booked forward from the non-EU countries, followed by the EU countries.
Europe in general is so easy to travel around with excellent public transportation systems: bus, train, ferry, and planes. Being easy, I haven’t put a lot of thought on the time and cost it takes, until this year.
Last year, I learned to really appreciate the airline Aire Lingus, non-stop Minneapolis to Dublin. Then a reality short bus ride to Bangor, North Ireland. International airports are never where I want to stay, so I’m prepared for the bus ride.
Month two was in Belfast, as I was having trouble finding available affordable Airbnbs. Once I had all booked, it was just waiting for departure. I typically do the scheduling in January into February. Last May, I felt uncomfortable on the plan being so close together in North Ireland. As the cancel before date was approaching, I found a place in Exeter, Devon, England for a comparable price and the switch was made.
I don’t regret that change as I loved my stay in the Exeter area, but the location was expensive to get to and from both in time and price. Not excessive, just unnecessary.
2026
This year, the repositioning cruises were to much of the same, or in one case to many at-sea days, in a row. So, I’ve held off booking it. On January 1st the cruise was $330. per person. a few days later it rose to $440. Waiting costs. Keep in mind that traveling as a single person, you need to pay for two. When it’s all said in done, the price paid is in the $1200-1500 range. still affordable if it fits your fancy. Checking out the alternative, airfare is presently at 660. Again, seat selection and flight protection insurance add roughly $200. yet still less.
Each year, I’ve tried to find what I wanted in Scotland, and this year I booked it for August. With the selection I had the non-EU time resolved so I booked Norway for July, Poland for September, and Austria for October.
What’s different is the planning. I use an app, Standard Notes. It’s encrypted and syncs across all my devices, and its so much more than notes; it stores spreadsheets, documents, and photos. A virtual replacement for Google Drive, which while helpful is not nearly as secure.
For example, My financials are kept on a spreadsheet, note open and accessible on all devices. For this note, I chose to have a password to view it, easy and secure. As a subpage on my financial spreadsheet book is one I call Prepaid.
It’s easy to chart costs on the page, Travel to, rent, on and on. I’m not interested in cost of daily life like food as the posted as it happens and doesn’t change location to location significantly. Just location costs.
The above screenshot of a portion of 2025 is what I’m describing.
This screenshot is of the same page, only higher up for 2026. Notice I start with plugged estimates from Skyscanner for flight information, Rome2Rio for routes using trains, buses, ferries, and local flights.
Originally I thought to fly to Oslo as it’s larger and had more flight options, then I used Rome2rio and found the path was lengthy and unnecessarily costly. I switched to Bergen; problem solved.
Today, I booked the flight to Bergen, and while the price was the same as my estimate but after seat selection and trip protection insurance, it came to roughly 740. That number I posted in the “H” column totaling prepaid expenses.
it’s so easy to see what the plan is, and what has yet to be arranged. All the documents are also loaded up to a folder(note) for that destination. So handy being able to pull up on your phone at immigration, check points.
Systems like this work for me: all the information in one place, easily accessible, and a grasp on the total cost in the beginning.
Thank you, the one I use is Standard notes
Jeff,
I like your Notes spreadsheet technique. That makes it easy to keep up with a lot of details. I'm going to look into the Notes app. Your upcoming trip this year looks like you'll have another interesting year.