PDFs for Travel Planning: Getting Ready for Your Family Holiday.

Family holidays are supposed to be a fun time. You’ll create memories that’ll last a lifetime. However, family trips can take a bit of planning! There are the logistics of how you’re going to get from A to B, how long it will take, what places to visit, travel times – and making sure you cover what everyone in the family wants to do and where everyone wants to go

Planning a family holiday may seem daunting and time-consuming, especially if it’s your first family holiday or if you’re taking children of different ages along – but it doesn’t need to be.

A travel PDF document is a great way to plan and organize your trip. They're like your very own personalized road map. Accessible on any device, including smartphones and tablets, you can create PDFs to refer to what you need to do before you leave home, while you’re on holiday, and even interactive PDFs to help keep your kids entertained on long road trips or flights.

What you’ll learn.

In this article we talk about why travel PDFs are essential for every family holiday and how to create one of your own.

• The benefits of PDFs for travel planning.
• Content to include in travel PDFs.
• Tips for creating PDF itineraries.

The benefits of PDFs for travel planning.

There are many benefits to creating travel documents and itineraries for a family holiday – whether you’re having a holiday close to home or overseas. A travel document can help you plan and efficiently manage expenses, dates, places, accommodation, transportation, and any other things to remember and keep track of.

PDFs are ideal to use for travel planning and itineraries because:

• PDFs are accessible.
  Just as the name “portable document format” says, they’re fully portable! You might sit at your computer or laptop to create the initial detail from the comfort of your own home, but you can then easily read and see your documents from your smartphone, tablet, or laptop while you’re away.
• PDFs are sharable.
  Involve the whole family in the planning and/or fun of seeing what’s up next in your holiday. Make sure everyone’s got the free PDF reader on their device, and you’re good to go. Compressed PDFs can help you save time and money on download times and data.
• PDFs are editable.
  You might want to create a master PDF with all the nuts and bolts of your trip, and then extract pages on specific places or dates for your kids to follow along on the road or later take to school as post-holiday ‘show and tell’. Not only can you edit your text in PDFs, but you can also rotate PDF pages, extract PDF pages, split PDFs, merge PDFs, and more.

Tips for creating a PDF travel itinerary.

You don't have to be an expert in digital document creation to get started on your PDF travel plan. Create your travel template or use and/or existing ones. You can convert online your Word documents to PDF or Excel files to PDF or check out some of the features in Acrobat.

Content to include in a travel PDF for a family.

Travel documents can be as simple or detailed as you wish to plan and organize a family trip. Create holiday checklists or plans to make sure nothing is missed. Some suggestions on content to include in PDF travel documents and itineraries are:

• Packing checklist.
  A packing checklist will make sure you take everything you need from home – clothing, medications, a favourite toy or activity, camping equipment, passports, travel insurance details, etc.
• Budget.
  If you’re looking for the best deals, create a document to compare prices while you are in the planning stages. Then plan and keep track of the costs of your family holiday by including a list of the costs of your transportation, accommodation, meals, and any activities you do.
• Travel itinerary.
  Include in a travel itinerary your dates, locations, times of flights and/or other public transportation, and accommodation. Keeping track of all of this information in a document is better than trying to remember it all and can help prevent any last-minute issues.
• Daily travel planner.
  When you’re expecting a busy day visiting a lot of sites, plan it out to make sure you can fit in everything that you want to do. Having this on hadn’t can help a lot with the mental preparation before you head out for a busy day!
• Fun stuff!.
  Think about creating travel PDFs that are interactive and kid-friendly. Maybe include fun facts, short quizzes, maps, and places for them to insert images of visited destinations to keep your children entertained during otherwise boring road or air travel, or at worst, a bad weather day! These can then be kept as a travel diary or they can use them to show their friends or classmates their holiday fun.
• Emergency contacts.
  It’s always a good idea to include the names of emergency contacts in your travel plans and leave a copy of your family travel itinerary with someone else.
• The fur family – don’t forget the pets!
  If your pets are coming on holiday with you, be sure to include their food and bedding items, and that any accommodation you’re staying at is also pet friendly. For any pets staying in kennels or catteries for their own ‘holiday’, include drop off and pick up times, and/or any vaccination requirements. Remember to leave food for anyone taking care of your pets staying in your home and names of emergency contacts, such as your usual vet, just in case.

Have a great holiday with your PDF travel plan.

PDFs are a great way to organize family travel plans and itineraries. They’re easy to store and access vital information on your mobile device so it is on hand while you’re on holiday. They’re also easily emailed and shared with others in your family and emergency contacts. Have a good time!

Frequently asked questions.

Can you edit PDF travel itineraries while you’re travelling?

Plans can and do change, even when you’re on holiday. Whether you’ve created your PDF travel itinerary or have a template or document that you need to change, it’s easy to edit your PDF online at any time.