I love Ted’s and my shared electronic calendars (we both use the default Apple calendars on our iPhones and iPads) not the least for the fact that they update directly from outside travel sites (like bookings made in our Expedia account), but also because they link directly to maps showing exactly where we need to be for any particular calendar event.

It took me a long time to become a “convert”, because I also absolutely loved my calendar books. The “month at a glance” format, with nice big lined squares, was my favourite way of planning during my pre-cellphone work life. Then, when we started our nomadic travels, I moved to a slightly smaller size “week at a glance” format, until the ease of linking my iPad and iPhone to Ted’s finally rendered the paper calendar sitting on the kitchen counter wherever we were staying obsolete.

So imagine my surprise when I realized that planning our next continuous 5-6 month travel period (January – June 2026) was going to be easier on paper – specifically by assigning a full page per day in the 5”x7” Moleskin journal that Viking gifted us on our world cruise. In the past, I’ve planned in the Notes app on my iPad, and I’m continuing to use that too… but I’m already up to 20 separate “notes” and counting, which is becoming unwieldy.

---

On each page, below the date that I’ve hand-written in, there’s room to list not only our accommodation details, but also transportation, sightseeing ideas, expenses, and reminders.

Is it a travel day? Do we need to be at the airport/train station/ferry at a specific time?

What time is check-in/check-out? More importantly, if I haven’t listed a hotel name and booking number, did I miss booking an overnight stay?

Is there a resource website I’ll want to access when we reach each destination?

Of course, I’ll update our electronic calendars once everything is confirmed, but at the PLANNING stage the journal is keeping me organized. A date above a completely blank page (no hotel or travel noted) is a visual cue that I’ve missed something, because we’re not doing any of our accommodation or transportation spur-of-the-moment. It’s enough that we know there will be times when glitches will happen and we’ll have to adjust our carefully laid plans.

Right now, there are 152 pages to be filled…. and I’ll document that process here as we go along, not the least because this blog/diary is one more place to keep information accessible as we’re on the move.

Ready….set…plan!