Nearly half the days in the 33 plans we publish include a stop that shuts at least one day of the week, and we think a plan that can't warn you about a locked door isn't finished. So the travel itinerary template below has a Closed on column, which none of the 18 others we read about mentions, and a Getting there column beside it.
Copy the two tables into Google Docs, Word or Sheets. Drag across a table, copy it, paste it, and the columns stay put. There's nothing to download and no email to give us.
Start with the whole trip
Paste this once, at the top of the document.
| What | Yours |
|---|---|
| Dates and number of nights | |
| Where you're sleeping, with the address and phone number | |
| How you get there and back, with times and reference numbers | |
| Who's coming, and who at home has a copy | |
| What you'll spend in a day | |
| Your insurance policy and the local emergency number |
Then one table for each day
Copy this table once per day and write the date and weekday above each copy, because the weekday is what you'll check the Closed on column against.
| Time | Stop and area | How long | Getting there | Closed on | Book by | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9:00 AM | ||||||
| 11:00 AM | ||||||
| 1:00 PM | ||||||
| 3:00 PM | ||||||
| 7:30 PM |
Five rows is the typical day in our plans, which run from about 9:30 in the morning to about 9 at night. Add a row when you need one.
Under Getting there, write the minutes from the stop before and whether you'll walk, ride or drive. Closed on takes the weekdays or dates that place shuts. Book by is the last day you can still get a ticket or a table, and once you have one it's a good spot for the confirmation number.
Where those two columns came from
We counted our own plans first. The 33 add up to 163 days, and we have opening hours for at least one stop on 162 of them. On 78 of those days a stop or a restaurant closes at least one day of the week, so nearly half of them can't simply be moved to whatever date suits you.
Then we read what Stippl, Vertex42 and Spreadsheet Daddy say their templates hold, along with the 15 in ClickUp's Google Sheets list. None of them mentions a place for closing days. One lists opening hours, two list travel times, and Vertex42 suggests relabeling a column if you want to note a museum's hours. A day falls apart over whether a place is open and how long it takes to reach, so here each one gets its own column.
A real day from Paris, filled in
This is Day 1 of our 3-day Paris plan. That day is free to read there, and the other two come with the $5 plan. The times are the plan's own, rounded to the nearest five minutes. The closing days and ticket prices come from the venues' own websites, checked on November 10, 2026, and restaurant prices use the plan's $ to $$$ scale.
| Time | Stop and area | How long | Getting there | Closed on | Book by | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8:30 AM | Notre-Dame Cathedral, Île de la Cité | 1 hour | Start of the day | Open daily | Optional free slot, opens close to the day | Free |
| 10:00 AM | Sainte-Chapelle, Île de la Cité | 1 hour | 8 min walk | January 1, May 1, December 25 | Timed ticket online | €22, or €16 for EEA citizens and residents |
| 11:30 AM | Berthillon ice cream, Île Saint-Louis | 30 min | 16 min walk | Monday and Tuesday | No booking | $ |
| 1:00 PM | Lunch at Le Fumoir, by the Louvre | 1 hr 15 min | 14 min by transit | Open daily | Book a table | $$ |
| 2:45 PM | Louvre Museum | 2 hr 30 min | 4 min walk | Tuesday, and January 1, May 1, December 25 | Timed ticket online, recommended | €32, or €22 for EEA citizens and residents |
| 5:30 PM | Tuileries Garden | 30 min | 14 min walk | Open daily | No booking | Free |
| 6:10 PM | Place de la Concorde | 20 min | 10 min walk | Always open | No booking | Free |
| 7:30 PM | Dinner at Bistrot Vivienne | 1 hr 30 min | 24 min walk | Open daily | Book a table | $$ |
Read down the Closed on column and you can see when this day works. Berthillon shuts on Mondays and Tuesdays and the Louvre shuts on Tuesdays, so it only holds together from Wednesday through Sunday. Put it on a Tuesday and two of the eight stops are gone, and you'd find that out at the door.
We got the Cost column wrong ourselves. When we checked this day for the table above, our own plan had the Louvre at €22 and Sainte-Chapelle at €13. Visitors from outside the European Economic Area pay €32 and €22, so a traveler from the US budgeting from our plan would have come up €19 short on those two tickets. A template can't catch that, because a column only holds what somebody typed into it. Write down the day you checked any price or opening time, and look again the week before you leave.
Fill it in this order
- Start with what can't move, such as flights, trains, timed tickets, a show or the one dinner you care about.
- Give each day one part of town, because crossing the city twice is what makes a day feel long.
- Fill in Closed on for every stop, and only then match your days to weekdays. A blank document won't ask you to do this, and it's the step most likely to save you a day.
- Add Getting there from a map app, set to the hour you'll really be traveling. The typical day in our plans spends 55 minutes moving between stops, and 19 of the 163 days spend more than two hours, so it adds up faster than it looks.
- Count the rows last. About four days in five in our plans have three to six stops or meals. If yours has eight, like the Paris day above, make sure a few of them are short. Three of those eight take 30 minutes or less.
Where to keep it, and what each option costs
Docs, Sheets, Canva and Notion will all hold the two tables. Vertex42 is a ready-made template of its own, and the two planners at the bottom replace a template altogether. We checked these prices on November 10, 2026.
| Where | What it costs | Good for | Skip it if |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Docs | Free with a Google account | Reading and printing the plan | You want a running total of your costs |
| Google Sheets | Free, with a Travel Planner in its template gallery | Budgets, and several people editing at once | You'll mostly read it on a phone |
| Vertex42 | Free for private use, for Excel, Word and Google Sheets | A business trip | It's a vacation, since it's built around flights, hotels and meetings |
| Canva | Free, with paid Pro designs | A plan you want to print or hand out | The plan will keep changing after you've designed it |
| Notion | Free, with paid plans from $10 per member a month | One page holding the plan, notes and links | You need more than the free plan's 10 outside guests |
| Wanderlog | Free to plan, with Pro listed at $31.99 to $59.99 a year on the US App Store | A map your group edits together | You want one document to paste and print |
| Highlights | Free to make and edit your own trips | A plan built for you from one sentence | You need somewhere to store booking confirmations |
Or let Sally do the looking up
The slow part of any template is looking up the hours, the prices and the walk from one stop to the next. Sally, our balloon guide, does that part for you. Type one sentence in the box at the top of this page saying where you're going, when and who's coming, and she plans every day with real places, opening hours, the walk or ride between stops, and a map. Making and editing your own trips is free, and you don't need an account to start.
If you'd rather work through a whole week by hand, read how to plan a 7-day itinerary. There's also a list of free trip planners if you want to compare those instead. Either way, hang on to this template for your booking references, which Sally doesn't keep for you.
Frequently asked questions
What should go in an itinerary?
Your dates, where you're sleeping, how you get there and back, and a section for each day with each stop's time, how long you'll stay, how you'll get there, when it's closed, whether it needs booking and what it costs. Add your insurance details and the local emergency number, and you have everything you'd otherwise dig through your email for.
Is there a free travel itinerary template?
Yes, the one on this page, which needs no sign-up. Google Sheets has a Travel Planner in its template gallery, and Vertex42 and Spreadsheet Daddy offer free ones for Excel and Google Sheets.
How do I make an itinerary in Google Docs?
Select each table on this page, copy it and paste it into a new document, and the columns come across as a real table. Make one copy of the day table for each day, then type the date and weekday above each copy.
What does a sample travel itinerary look like?
The Paris day above is one. It runs eight stops from 8:30 in the morning to about 9 at night, each with a time, a length, the trip from the stop before, its closing days, whether to book, and the price.
How much detail does a plan need?
Pin down the things you can't move, like a train or a timed ticket, to the minute. Give everything else a rough time and an order. Most of the days we publish have three to six stops or meals, which leaves room to run late.
Sources, checked Nov 10, 2026: Louvre, Sainte-Chapelle, Berthillon, Vertex42, Spreadsheet Daddy, Notion, Wanderlog, Stippl, ClickUp, Notre-Dame, Tuileries Garden, Le Fumoir, Bistrot Vivienne, Canva.