Everyone likes to plan, don’t they? Well ok not everyone but I do.
When I was planning my last trip, I was nervous, but good nervous. All the times I travelled abroad before as a small group leader paid off as it was ‘hope for the best but plan for the worse’.
For most people this is hoping a hotel, air carrier or travel agent doesn’t go bust or into administration. We’ve seen Thomas Cook, Monarch and others implode for different reasons but that means we need to plan ahead. I love my job and the opportunities it can bring to apply my skills to travel as I work within an agile organisation. This means I need to be both proactive and reactive to change and this results in keeping a track of everything doesn’t always work on paper.
I’m a bit of a geek when it comes to using agile techniques now for things like travel to minimise the need to take ‘paper’ and to ensure I can do the things I’ve set out to do. That’s why I use Trello.
Trello is free and allow me to keep a track of everything, from the big picture to the play by play details. So much so this is the first holiday where I will properly apply agile techniques and Trello into its planning. Trello inspiration gives you boards like the one above to organise your trips but you can modify them. You can have your own Lists and put whatever you want in the cards under them. ‘Reservations’ above is an example of a List whilst ‘Packing list’ is a card.
I have a ‘Trip Backlog’ for things I want to do including restaurants, bars, events, places to visit, etc. An ‘Essential Information’ for flights, hotels and transfers. The other lists I use are for itineraries for each date I’m on holiday, which I would pull for example a Restaurant card from the ‘Trip Backlog’ and drop it under the relevant date.
For the more adventurous, and if you’re like me, there are Add-ins that can be used from Calendars to Checklists, Social Media to Marketing. I think that’s why I like it. Although I should disclaim there are others out there like Asana.
If you want to explore more on Agile Planning and Travel check out the dummy guide here or Paddy Corry’s Travel Planning is a nice metaphor to help explain many agile ideas.