Welcome back to the fortnightly Weekend Traveller series where I share tips and strategies for travelling during the weekend so you can travel more using less work leave. You can find all of the previous posts for weekend end travel here.

Today, you will learn how to make your own travel guide sheets for the weekend end trip so you won’t need to bring a huge guidebook just for a 2-day journey,

Despite the abundance of travel information online, I still like reading guidebooks when I make travel plans. Guidebooks group information of sights and accommodation into areas, which helps you narrow down what to do and places to skip.

However, lugging a 1kg guidebook on a trip isn’t that fun. Plus, peering at a guidebook at the intersection of the road only makes you stand out as a tourist. That’s why it’s a lot more convenient to bring your own travel guide sheet which you can use as a reference while you traipse around.

To make your own guide sheet, you will need:

• Word processing software such as Microsoft Word
• Internet connection
• Guidebooks
• Travel tickets and hotel reservation information

My inspiration for the DIY weekend guidebook comes from Taiwanese budget travel expert 943.

Preparing the guidesheet

If you have narrowed down the places you want to see, it would make creating the guide sheet a lot easier.

What I like to include in my guide sheet are transportation information (How to get from the airport to the hotel), actual print screen of Google Maps (in case I don’t have internet connection when travelling), To-do lists etc.

This is how a completed guidesheet looks like:

For multiple-day trips, I create one large table for each day. Then I list down the order of things I need/want to do.

Useful information to include in the guidesheet include:

• Hotel address (In English as well as the local language–this helped when I was in Thailand.)
• Tourist sites/things-to-do or eat (description of the place as well)
• Address of places you want to visit (and directions to get there)
• Google Maps screenshot of how to get to the location you want to visit

Most guidebooks have online versions so you can copy the description of the sight into your sheet directly instead of typing it.

Once everything is done, you can print the  guidesheet. I find that printing 2 pages of the guidesheet into one page and folding it in half it easier to hold.

UPDATE: Download a sample of the above guide sheet: Travel Guide Sheet sample from YQtravelling.com

What other information will you include in a guidesheet? Share them in the comments below:

Missed the previous weekend travel posts?

Part 1: Pros & cons of weekend travel
Part 2: Where to go for Weekend Travel?
Part 3: Choosing transportation for weekend travel
Part 4: Travel planning for weekend trips
Part 5: Make your own travel guide for a weekend trip
Part 6: How to pack for a weekend trip
Part 7: How to use Foursquare to plan a day’s travel
Part 8: Why a weekend trip is the best time to start solo travelling
Part 9: I’m going to Melaka for a weekend trip