I've always been a planner. It doesn't matter if I'm going away for just one night, arranging a trip to Costa Rica, or organizing a month-long bike tour, I usually spend as long planning it as doing it, if not more.

On a recent bike tour, after failing to locate some information I suddenly needed, it occurred to me that there should be a way to put all my planning details on a single webpage that I could check from anywhere I had internet access. This idea resulted in the creation of the new Bike Tour Planning pages at BikeTouringTips.com.

These pages not only help someone plan a bike tour, but provides access to all those plans from any internet connection anywhere in the world! To see what such pages look like, check out my plans for my plans for a one-month trip across the UK.

The Benefits of On-line Planning

There are several specific benefits to putting all my planning on-line:

1) It provides a single place to put all the tidbits I gather about an upcoming bike tour.

In the past, bits of information got spread around: my browser's bookmarks, post-it notes, email, among other places. It was hard to keep track of everything. In addition, I always ended up with duplicated folders, making my research less effective. The on-line planning page has simplified all this by giving me a single place to put everything.

2) All my details are now accessible from most anywhere in the world.

After collecting all this data, I had to figure out a way to take it with me. Before I left, I would sort through it all and either write everything down on paper or enter it into my iPhone. It was usually the last thing my "todo" list and I always put it off as long as possible. On every trip, I've missed something important. By storing everything on the internet in a single page, I can now access all my planning ideas and insights from any place I can get internet access and I don't have to do anything extra.

3) I can now easily share my plans with other people.

In the past, if I wanted to show someone some or all of my touring ideas, I had to cut and paste it all into an email. This was both time consuming for me and bit of a mishmash for the receiver. Yet, people often ask what my schedule is or about the route. Now, I can send everyone the same web link and give them access to everything I've got. What's more, there isn't anything more I have to send them as I add and update trip details.

4) It is much easier to get comments about my plans.

In addition to collecting information over the web, I find it beneficial to send emails out to people living near my intended route. I use resources like warmshowers to find people. While I have found this an effective way to get localized knowledge, separate emails can be hard to manage. What's more, there is no way for people I don't contact to add their thoughts and experiences. With a public web page, anyone can comment on it, greatly widening my research net.

5) Making my plans available to others, I may give them a head start on creating their own tours.

Just like route maps and journals, a page of information specific to a specific place and time can be very useful to those trying to plan similar tours. Putting everything on a single page not only helps me design my own bike tour but will help others, as well, which is the main reason I create BikeTouringTips.com in the first place!

What Makes A Good Plan?

Having the opportunity to design a planning page gave me the chance to think about how I'd like to organize things. While there are no hard and fast rules, I divided my plans into five categories: Route Maps, Web Links, Names and Places, Travel Plans, and Packing List.

Route Maps

This planning section doesn't allow me to create routes directly, but there are already lots of sites that allow that. In this section, I put links to all the specific routes I create, find or am referred to. Included in this section is a partial list of mapping web sites for people who are unfamiliar with them.

Web Links

In this section, I put tour-related information. Examples of what I put here are links to forum threads, country-specific stuff, and other things that make my planning easier. An example is a link to a map of England so I can know a town's county, which in England are used like the US's states and make finding things a lot easier there.

Names and Places

Every night on tour I'll need a place to stay, whether a campsite, family, friend or host. In this section, I enter links to hotels, couchsurf and warmshowers hosts, restaurants, and other people and places I plan to visit. It is great to have names, address, phone numbers and web links all in one place!

Travel Details

In this section, I list my traveling details like flight times and numbers, reservation codes, and other travel-specific stuff. On some trips, I use rental cars and trains. It is nice to have links to specific schedules in one place.

Packing List

Like most experienced tours, I have a general packing list that I customize for each tour. I've implemented this same idea by allowing users to enter their standard packing list and then to customize that list for a specific tour. This section starts as the standard list and can be edited as the user sees fit for the particular tour being planned.

Comments

Once the plan is made "public" (see below), others can view it and make comments. These are places in a separate section at the bottom of the page.

Public Versus Private Plans

While the bike tour planning pages are very useful for the person creating them, they will also be valuable to anyone else planning similar tour. In addition to making my bike planning easier and more effective, these pages are designed to be made public so others can benefit from them, as well.

However, to allow me the freedom to put anything I want on these pages without worrying about other people snooping on me, I've implemented a level of privacy.

First, a plan is kept private unless the owner marks it as public. When private, the only person able to see it is the one who created it. Second, if a plan is made public, each section can be made public or kept private, again at the discretion of the owner. Note that Travel Details are always kept private to prevent such information from being accidentally exposed.

How It Works

The Bike Tour Planning system can be accessed by clicking the Plan A Tour link on tool bar at the top of every BikeTouringTips.com page. This takes you to a page showing all the public plans. If you are logged in, it will also display all your plans, both public and private.

Clicking on a public plan displays the information the owner opted to make public. Comments can be added to any public plan by registered users. Clicking on one of your own plans takes you to the "tour planning" page where information can be added, deleted, and edited.

Planning A Library

While having my own customize bike tour planning system is nice, I created these planning programs with a broader purpose in mind. It is my hope that others, besides me, will create public plans and start building a library of valuable information available to bike tourists all over the world.

While the BikeTouringTips.com archive is full of indexed information, having detailed bike touring plans full of related links and other specific information will be an invaluable resource to fellow bike tourists and those who aspire to travel under their own power but don't quite know where to start.

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