The best travel bullet journal layouts

When I started bullet journaling, it changed the way I looked at my daily life. For one thing, it helped curb the anxiety I had around getting all my tasks and goals completed. For another, I actually started to feel more productive and less like I was letting things fall through the cracks. Freeing up your brain from struggling to remember nitty gritty details can truly do wonders. So, it’s no surprise that, a year or so after adopting a bullet journal practice – and about a year into our blog! – I started using bullet journal layouts for travel. And let me tell you, as long as I have my bujo in my carryon, I feel much less stressed when I travel. At least, I feel less stressed after we FINALLY get through security and I know we won’t miss our flight…

Table of Contents

Reasons to use a bullet journal for travel

Provide peace of mind
- Giving yourself a formula and a framework makes it difficult to forget any important aspects of your upcoming trip. Plus, god forbid your phone doesn’t have service in your destination of choice, you’ll have printed copies of your documents AND a written record of your plans. It’s the perfect backup plan.
Exercise your left brain AND your right brain
- Possibly my favorite part of bullet journaling is that I get to think critically while making it look lovely and appealing. While I’ve never been a doodler in lectures, there’s something very satisfying and soothing about making things you’ve worked hard to plan or aspects of the plan you’ve felt anxious about look beautiful, orderly, or some combination of the two.
Reduce travel anxiety
- Considering my brain doesn’t like to change the topic or even entertain the idea of relaxing when I have something on my mind (hellooooooooo chronic, general anxiety), anything that can put order to my racing thoughts is a godsend. That goes for the actual planning process, as well as once I’m finally in the thick of an actual trip. Knowing that forgetting plans, overlooking things, or otherwise messing up is exceedingly unlikely lets me sit back and relax a little more easily.
Provide inspiration anytime, anywhere
- Most of us can’t just pick up and travel whenever we want. So, we need coping mechanisms for when we’re stuck at a desk 9 hours a day. And what’s better than finding inspiration in dreaming about the places you want to go, reminiscing about the places you’ve been, and seeing the words of other travelers? For all this, a bullet journal just can’t be beat.

Travel quotes and journaling layouts

Every planning process has an aspirational, inspiration phase, right? That moment when you’re looking at Pinterest and Instagram and reading… yes, travel blogs, (I’m so meta)… and finding all those beautiful sights and exciting places you want to make sure you visit.

Or maybe a trip just isn’t in the cards for awhile, but you want to indulge your sense of wanderlust in another way. Personally, I use all kinds of quotes – travel and otherwise – as part of my monthly layouts. On the first page, I always do an artsy thing with a quote to set the month’s theme, then move on into my month at-a-glance layout. However you choose to do it, using quotes, journaling about past experiences, or following dreamy journaling prompts are all great ways to add a little travel-centric fun to your bujo.

Travel trackers and bucket lists for bujo

Speaking of aspirational, whether you’re dreaming of where you want to go, or fondly remembering all the places you’ve been, bullet journals have a layout for that. While our travel tracker hangs on the wall in our family room in the form of a large, pinnable map, my own personal travel bucket lists live squarely in my bujo.

I have one list of things to do just in our home state (complete with a map), and another for places to visit outside of Virginia. Whenever we get to the point of choosing a destination for our next trip, I always flip to that page. Otherwise, the same thing happens that happens when you ask me where I want to go for dinner – every desirable option completely disappears from my head!

Vacation countdown layouts

I love my day job, I really do. Great people, challenging work. But when I have a trip coming up, it always feels like it’s about 15 years away. Countdowns have helped me feel less lime I’m stuck in a time warp where 1 of my years equals 1 of everyone else’s days, because I can actually visualize myself moving closer to my travels.

On the flip side, trips can also kind of sneak up on me from time to time – do you ever have that problem? It feels like you’re stuck in that same old time warp, and then BAM! You’re leaving tomorrow, you haven’t touched your suitcase, and you don’t have any travel-sized toothpaste or shampoo.

With a countdown tracker, you can stay grounded in reality – nothing seems too unreasonably far away, but you have realistic visibility into how close your trip is actually getting. It gives you the best of both worlds!

Trip savings bujo layouts

A little piece of every one of my paychecks goes into a savings account each month so I can fund my half of our joint travel bug. And since the advent of super friendly mobile banking apps, it’s ridiculously easy to track my progress towards my goals. Plus, I keep a finance log on my monthly spread that helps me track all my beginning and end of month account balances. Then, we plan our trip based on how much we can both spare.

But that’s just me – not everyone’s finances work this way. In fact, some folks like tiered approaches to saving, while others prefer to stash spare change away, and still others like to save towards a specific trip instead of picking a trip to fit their budget. Everyone’s finances are as unique as they are. The good news is, your bullet journal can easily be personalized to match. I love looking at some of the creative ways folks have come up with to track their savings!

Trip planning bullet journal layouts

When I’m planning a trip, I have a hard time keeping all the details straight in my head. That’s 7 days of traveling and doing things! So, I make a list. But sometimes things change, and the list ends up getting really damn messy, which stresses me right back out. However, I’ve found that getting all my notes and odds and ends together to create a planning layout in my bullet journal is a lifesaver.

Usually, I’ll write out all of our flight info, hotel info (including check-in times and reservation numbers, if possible), and then start on a daily grid to outline all the activities – or lack thereof – we have planned for the trip. Adding places at the end, or on the grid, for photos to go once you get back is also one of my favorite ideas. Then, your proactive plan can actually double as a travel diary after the trip ends.