I would be utterly remiss if I did not do a post on the infamous spreadsheet (not to mention, I might be drop kicked down to Australia by my fellow travelers). I mentioned in my first post that I am an uber-planner and that may be putting it lightly. So, when putting the details of this trip together, I resorted to my good ol' pal, Excel to help us organize everything (did I mention I was anal and an engineer?). Originally when discussing the trip, this organizational tool didn't really have a name...sometimes it was referred to as "the cost" or "the itinerary;" however, it eventually became to be known as THE SPREADSHEET. The main purpose of THE SPREADSHEET was to quickly explore the different combinations of destinations, flights, hotels, activities, cars, etc. while making sure there was a common, written, and referable way of communicating our thoughts on what we were doing and how much it was costing. <<WARNING: nerd alert>> If you were to assume that for each day of the three week trip there are five possible flights, five possible hotels, five possible activities, and five possible cars for each day of the trip means there are 5^22 = 2.38419 x 10^15 combinations of options...and that is conservative for the real number of options! <<nerd alert over>> During the major planning phase of the trip (from February through June) THE SPREADSHEET was bombarded on an almost weekly basis to my fellow travelers as we planned our itinerary and I believe (maybe foolishly so) that it really did help in the organization of the trip. Of course, there were also conference calls with minutes, action items, etc. that also helped with the planning while pretending that we were all working for Brad, Inc. :oP
There were three major different versions of THE SPREADSHEET, each with increasingly levels of fidelity--from somewhat simplistic to the masterpiece that is the final spreadsheet. (Note: financial and specific details of the trip are blurred out...sorry).
THE SPREADSHEET V1 (early February - late February 2011)
This was the most simple version of THE SPREADSHEET. It provided a very cursory overview of the perceived major trip costs: flights, lodging, car rental, and food. As with all versions of the spreadsheet, it required identifying the destination, flights, hotels, and rental cars but enabled quick trades of where we should go while keeping the bottom line ($$$) in consideration. In addition to destination trades, it also provided a way to quickly trade the trip duration assuming an average lodging + sustenance + car rental cost for the trip
 |
| THE SPREADSHEET V1 |
THE SPREADSHEET V2 (late February - late March 2011)
This version evolved the V1 version of THE SPREADSHEET to include activities that we would be doing as well as a more detailed cost breakdown.
THE SPREADSHEET V3--The Pièce de Résistance (late March 2011 - present)
 |
| THE SPREADSHEET V2 |
As the time to book components of our trip neared, THE SPREADSHEET was evolved into its final form, a reasonably sophisticated, very flexible tool that allowed for real-time changing of the hotels, rental cars, activities, and included meals that integrated our previous research. It utilizes cross-linked tabs and data validation for an integrated planning environment. In addition, this final version also accounts for the current exchange rate, foreign transaction fees, and credit card surcharges. THE SPREADSHEET in its final version has seven main tabs:
- Cost Summary: A breakdown of the cost estimates including everyone's favorite, a pie chart and bar graph!
- Itinerary: A detailed day-by-day breakdown of the major activities for the day, including any flights, all the driving, activities, hotels, rental cars, and meals. In addition, it also has the cost estimate for the day. This is really the core of the spreadsheet and drives the budget and cost estimation portion of THE SPREADSHEET.
Itinerary Tab - Flights: Information regarding the flights that we will take. Things like the airline, flight number, confirmation number etc., pretty much anything we would need to know about our crazy number of flight (we are taking 10 flights from our US gateway until we get back to our US gateway).
Flights Tab - Hotels: Information regarding the hotels that we will stay at during our three weeks in Australia and New Zealand. The hotel, address, sleeping accommodations, and confirmation numbers (the standard stuff...) are all on this tab.
Hotels Tab - Cars: A list of rental car options throughout our journey. Again all of the standard type things: car rental company, car type, price, etc. One unusual feature is recording the miles per gallon of the rental car. This is used in the cost estimating based on the miles traveled in the car in the Itineraries Tab.
- Activities: The Activities Tab provides a list of the different activities that we will be participating in while south of the Equator. These activities are populated based on the Activity List Tab which has a compiled list of 100+ activities that we could take part in across a variety of cities in Australia and New Zealand.
Activities Tab - Budget: The financial center of the trip planning and the tab which required the most mathematical work. This tab breaks all of the major components of the trip, who uses them, and who bought them then breaks out the financial responsibility for the trip. In addition, there is a real-time update of the amount spent and the amount remaining to be spent including purchases committed to buying but not actually paid for (e.g., car rentals, etc.).
Budget Tab
 |
| Cost Summary Tab |
 |
| Cars Tab |
The other four tabs of THE SPREADSHEET are really supplementary. One has the meal cost estimates city by city (which were assumed to be half that of the government MI&E rates), a list of assumptions and exclusions for the cost estimating, a list of activities and their associated details which a ton of people contributed to (travelers and non-travelers alike...THANKS!), and a time history of the cost estimate.
So that is it, the main way that the trip planning came together and it is all thanks to THE SPREADSHEET (not really, but it is infamous, so I thought it was worthwhile sharing with y'all). In reality, to date there have been 254+ e-mails exchanged and 10 conference calls to help pull all of the various aspects together (and we are still five months away from leaving!). My fellow travelers must be saints for putting up with this!