9 Reasons Why I Think Notion Is The Best Tool For Making Travel Planning Stress-Free
And it's totally free to use, and I've even included a free travel for your to use.
I’ll admit, I’m a Notion junkie.
For the last 5 years, I’ve been using Notion to organise my life, manage my side businesses and various aspects of my career.
It’s a super powerful (and totally free) productivity and organisation tool that’s has crossed over the 100 million user mark in 2025.
After spending hundreds of hours binging on Notion Youtube videos, reading how to guides and learning from Notion creators, I’ve built a ton of personalised systems in Notion to help me boost my productivity, organisation and time management.
I’ve tried and tested a bunch of travel planning apps and tools in the past.
But none even come close to the customisability and flexibility of using Notion to plan my travels and manage my points and miles.
If you know Notion, you’ll know why.
But if you don’t, here are 9 reasons why Notion is the best app for travel planning:
1. Central Hub for All Things Travel
Self-planned trips involve a lot of personal organisation and logistics.
It’s the biggest reason people get put off travelling or planing their own trips.
Notion solves that problem.
It tracks all your travel to-do’s and centralise all your travel plans—flights, accommodations, itineraries, packing lists, and research—into one organized dashboard.
Instead of juggling multiple apps, emails, and notes, you have everything in one place, making it easier to access and update.
This cut down the stress of searching through scattered information through your laptop or phone when you need it most on the go.
2. Fully Customisable Travel Plans and Itineraries
Unlike rigid travel apps, Notion lets you build and design your Travel Dashboard exactly the way you like to use it
You can create and insert your itinerary as a table, calendar, checklist etc.
You can add links, images, and notes for each location, making sure you never forget anything important when you’re travelling.
It’s almost like you’re creating your own travel app!
This flexibility means you design something you like, without feeling stuck with the fixed format or structure of proprietary travel apps.
3. Collaborative Travel Planning
If you travel with a significant other, friends or family, Notion makes it easy to collaborate with them by simply sharing your Notion trip page with them.
Everyone can contribute to the itinerary, add recommendations, and update plans in real-time.
This avoids endless back-and-forth messages and ensures everyone stays on the same page.
4. Expense Tracking and Budgeting
Travel expenses can easily and quickly make a big dent to your wallet if you’re not careful about where your money is going.
Notion makes it easy to manage travel expenses and set a travel budget before you leave your home, and while on the go.
You can create a simple budget tracker with categories like flights, accommodation, food, and activities to help you stay on track.
You (and your travel buddies) can log costs in real-time and calculate totals to stay within budget.
This prevents overspending and makes it easier to split costs with travel companions.
5. Reusable Packing Lists
If you travel at least once a year, it’s handy to have a basic packing list ready to go and is automatically inserted into your travel plans.
So you can stop wasting time figuring out what to pack every single time.
You simply update and customise your packing list to your travel destination based on the weather and activities your plan to do.
This solves the common problem of last-minute packing stress and forgotten essentials.
6. Central Hub for Travel Research and Inspiration
Whether you already have a trip in mind or are collection travel inspiration for your next trip, Notion makes it easy to save articles, photos, travel guides, videos, maps, and recommendations that you find along the way.
This removes the hassle of bookmarking pages and saving resources across different platforms and struggling to find them later.
Having all your research in one place means you can easily access your favorite recommendations, attractions, and local tips, when you are ready to plan your next dream trip.
7. Streamlined Booking Management
These days all our travel confirmation emails, ticket details, and hotel reservations etc. drop into our email inbox.
You very rarely need to bring a paper copy.
But it can be frustrating to search through our emails for exactly what we need when we’re on the go.
That’s where Notion databases come in—you can save the exact PDF file, jot down the confirmation number or linking directly to the booking site.
Centralising it all in Notion saves time by eliminating the need to dig through emails when checking in or managing reservations.
8. Travel Journalling Makes Travel More Memorable
Notion can serve as a travel journal where you document experiences, attach photos and reflect on each day of your trip.
Notion makes it easy to jot down these thoughts while it’s still fresh in your mind, on your laptop, tablet or mobile device.
It also makes it easier to share your travel stories later or plan future trips based on past experiences.
9. Easy Post-Trip Review & Recommendations
If you’ve planned everything in Notion, you now have a record of your itinerary, ratings of your experiences, and recommendations for future reference.
Having a record of your trip in Notion is extremely helpful when friends and family ask for your personal recommendations and tips for a destination you’ve visited.
You can quickly pull up the specific Notion trip page and rattle off the highlights and recommendations in a few minutes.
This has come to my rescue so many times!
Just last week, an expat friend asked if I had any recommendations on what to do in New Orleans for a long weekend. I pulled up my New Orleans trip page and sent her a quick message of the things my husband and I enjoyed from our trip there.
I honestly can't recommend Notion enough for travel planning.
Want to plan your next trip in Notion?
I created a totally free Notion travel planning template to help you get you started. If you don’t already have a Notion account, create a free account to get started.
This Travel Hub Template System has been downloaded by more than 824 people.
So if you want to make travel planning easier, download my free Travel Hub Template System in Notion.
And if you have any questions about it, feel free to reach out.
What do you use to plan your travels?
Okay- will definitely be checking out. I haven't actually used Notion at all...ever. All of my travel planning happens on my notes app and probably only makes sense to me lol.
Love this - fantastic tips!! Thank you!