Trip Planner Dashboard Spreadsheet

About this template

This trip planner builds your whole itinerary from one date, so when your flight moves by a week the entire trip moves with it. It is for travelers planning a longer trip with several stops, who want the days, the bookings, the packing and the pre-trip deadlines in one file.

Please read: This is a tracker tool only, not financial, tax, legal, medical or any other professional advice or advisory service. It records and calculates what you enter; you are solely responsible for checking all figures, rates, dates and results and for every decision you make. By purchasing, downloading or using it, you accept these terms (your statutory consumer rights are not affected).

The dashboard

Nothing on the dashboard is typed. It fills itself from what you enter.

• Days to go: a live countdown to the day you leave, with the dates underneath
• Spent on the trip: what you spent on the ground, and the average per day
• The route: every stop in order, with arrival, days, activities and spend
• Bookings: paid, deposit and to pay, and the next ones still to pay
• A stop picker: choose any stop on the route and the spending follows
• Ready to go: how much is packed and how much of the checklist is done
• Spend per day with a running total, and budget against spent for every category
• Before you go: pre-trip tasks done, still to do and overdue, by kind

An itinerary that holds no dates of its own

Unlike a typed itinerary template, day one here is the date on Setup and day two is that plus one. The demo has twenty-one days of plans, and the itinerary has room for 30, all counted from that single cell.

• Morning, afternoon and evening for each day, because that is how a day is really planned and where the gaps show
• The weekday calculates itself, so you find out the museum day is a Monday before you get there

Bookings and deadlines

• A booking tracker with 60 rows, each carrying its reference, the one thing you need at a desk with no signal
• Paid, deposit or still to pay, with the amount still owed totaled, because a deposit is not a payment
• A travel checklist of twenty deadlines counted back from departure, such as passports six months out, antimalarials a month before and check-in two days before, with overdue items flagged and counted
• A packing list by category and by person, showing how far through you are
• Fifteen budget categories and sixty budget lines, with totals per person, per day and days away
• Over budget, overdue and unpaid items color themselves

Light and dark editions

Every download includes a light edition and a dark mode template edition. Every tab is restyled, not only the dashboard, and both use the same formulas. Each comes filled with a worked trip, budgeted, booked and half spent, and as a blank copy for your own vacation planner, in Excel and in Google Sheets. Ten connected tabs count from the day you go, so nothing is typed twice.

Works with

• Microsoft Excel 2016 or later, on Windows or Mac
• Google Sheets with a free Google account. The Google Sheets version is a real workbook, not a PDF with a link in it.
• No dynamic arrays, no macros and no add-ins, so it behaves the same on Excel 2016, 2019, 2021 and Microsoft 365 and in LibreOffice
• No subscription

What you download

• Light edition: the Excel workbook filled with a worked example, and a blank one
• Dark edition: the same two files in the dark design
• The instruction guide, with one-click links to the Google Sheets versions (light and dark, filled and blank)
• The terms of use as a PDF

Your files are ready to download as soon as payment clears. Questions before or after you buy? Use our contact page and we will help.

Frequently asked questions

Does it work in Excel or Google Sheets?

Both. The Excel workbooks run on Excel 2016 or later on Windows or Mac, and the instruction guide has one-click links to the Google Sheets versions for a free Google account.

What happens if my departure date changes?

Change the date on Setup. Every itinerary day and every pre-trip deadline counts from it, so they all move with it.

How long a trip can I plan?

The itinerary has 30 days, each split into morning, afternoon and evening. The worked example uses twenty-one.

Can I keep my booking references in it?

Yes. The Bookings tab has 60 rows with the reference, cost and whether each one is paid, on deposit or still to pay.

What is the difference between the light and dark editions?

Only the look. Both have the same tabs and formulas, and both come in every download.