A road trip itinerary template that holds up on the road.

Get the blank template

Download the road trip itinerary template (CSV). It has seven day columns and the rows below, and it opens in Google Sheets (File, then Import), Excel, or Numbers. Add day columns to the right as the trip grows, and freeze the first column so the row names stay put when you scroll.

Why the days go across the top

Most free itinerary templates list days down the page, one row each. That's fine for a weekend. On a trip of a week or more, each day holds too much for one row, and the details you need to compare end up far apart.

Flip it. Each day becomes a column, and each kind of detail gets a row. Read down a column to see everything about Thursday. Read across the Sleep location row and you can see the whole route, one town per night. To add a rest day, insert one column.

The nine rows, and what goes in each

These rows come from the family trip spreadsheet WanderCrew's planner was modeled on. A row for the date sits above them. The examples are from the first days of the 16-day Vegas to Denver road trip we're planning.

Wake location

Where the day starts. Day 1: "Las Vegas (fly in ~10am)."

Transit

The mode, in a word or two. Rental car, flight, park shuttle, ferry.

Transit info

The day's travel in one line, with rough times. Day 1: "Land ~10am, pick up car, then ~35 min to Hoover Dam, ~2.5 hrs to Springdale."

Baggage notes

Mostly for flight days: checked bag limits, what has to be in the carry-on, what lives in the cooler.

Activities

Hikes, sights, and stops along the way, in the order you'll reach them. Note anything that needs a permit. Angels Landing in Zion, for one, requires a permit from a Recreation.gov lottery.

Hotel / stay

The name of the place, plus the confirmation number and check-in time.

Sleep location

Just the town, separate from the hotel. Read this row on its own and it's the route: Springdale, Springdale, Bryce Canyon City or Tropic.

Cost (per person)

What the day costs each person, with a total in the last column. Splitting it per person early settles most money conversations before they start.

Links

Bookings, permits, trail pages, and the bakery's hours. One link per line.

The first three days, filled in

Here's how the start of the Vegas to Denver plan reads in this layout. Baggage, stay, and cost rows are left out to keep it narrow.

Day 2 has no driving at all, and the plan says so. That's worth writing down. A day with no drive is a day nobody has to be the driver.

Habits that keep a road trip sheet readable

• One row per question. A catch-all Notes row grows until nobody reads it. If a note keeps showing up, it probably deserves its own row.
• Write drive times as rough ranges. "~1.5–2 hrs" is more honest than a single number, and it reminds everyone that stops add up.
• Follow a long drive with a short one. Day 5 of our plan is short on purpose, mostly dirt spurs off Highway 12.
• Put permits on the day you need them. A permit filed under "research" gets forgotten.
• Keep cells short. Long write-ups belong behind a link. The grid is for scanning.

Where a spreadsheet stops being enough

On a laptop at the kitchen table, this template is hard to beat. The trouble starts once the trip does.

• It's hard to read on a phone. Sixteen columns on a six-inch screen means a lot of pinching and scrolling from the passenger seat.
• It needs signal unless you prepared. Google Sheets only works offline for files set up ahead of time, while you still had a connection.
• There's no "today." The sheet can't tell you what's next or where you're sleeping tonight. You have to find the column.
• The packing list has no names on it. A checkbox in a shared sheet doesn't say who is bringing the thing.
• There's no map. You can read the route in the Sleep location row, but you can't see it.

Using this template with WanderCrew

WanderCrew starts every new trip with these same nine rows, and you can add your own for text, notes, money, links, or places. On the web, import a filled-in XLSX file or paste cells straight from Google Sheets. On your phone, you edit one day at a time with the same rows.

On top of the grid, WanderCrew adds a route map, a Today screen that shows what's next, a packing list that shows who's bringing what, and offline access to the whole plan. The beta opens in fall 2026 on iOS and Android. See how importing a spreadsheet works.