10 Reasons Why You Need A Bounce Plan To Travel Like A Pro

Tressa Sanders @ Travel Star Magazine



At 41 years old, I decided to quit my IT job so I could spend the rest of my days frolicking in South America and traveling the world. It was a very scary, yet exciting, decision! I'd packed up and moved to several different states over the years but another country? Never. 

It wasn't going to be as simple as tossing everything I own into a moving truck and hitting the road. There was simply no way I was going to attempt an overseas move without a serious plan. So I busted out the Excel spreadsheet and started "planning". How 1996 is that?! 

By the end of the first month, I had a spreadsheet with about 10 tabs. Doh! I hated to even look at it. It was just 10 tabs of eye-busting, soul-sucking, mega lists; nothing more. I needed a set of real travel planning tools. So, I ended my short-lived, love affair with the Excel spreadsheet and started building Bounce Plan.

I wanted to keep track of tasks, events, expenses, things to pack; the works. Bounce Plan became a suite of travel tools ready to use right now; today with room to grow in the future. And I'm going to give you 10 Reasons Why You Need A Bounce Plan To Travel Like A Pro...

1. YOU NEED TASKS FOR EVERYTHING THAT NEEDS TO BE DONE. Each unique Bounce Plan has its own To-Do list where you can keep track of the many things that need to be done before your trip. We're all familiar with to-do lists, right? Adding a new task is as easy as typing in the task and hitting "enter" or "Go". 

2. YOU NEED TO KEEP TRACK OF TRIP EXPENSES. If you are traveling or moving with a set budget (most of us are), you need a way to keep track of your spending, before, during and after your trip. You can easily do this with a Bounce Plan. You can set a budget for each Bounce Plan and use the expenses tab to track your spending. There is a nice little budget tracker to help you see the adjusted budget amount based on your added expenses. On the expenses tab, your totals are also automatically calculated for you. This is particularly prefect for business travelers who need to submit expense reports.

3. YOU NEED A LIST OF ITEMS TO PACK SO YOU DON'T FORGET A THING. Packing everything you need for your trip is the most important aspect of traveling. I once went to Scotland to film a wedding and realized the night before the event that I'd forgotten the XLR cable for the wireless mic! Not being able to capture perfect audio is a complete disaster for a wedding videographer. My XLR cable was sitting at home half-way across the world. If I had a Bounce Plan back then, the XLR cable would have been on my item list for packing. I'm sure you may have your own travel horror story where you forgot something important. Bounce Plan to the rescue... A Bounce Plan let's you easily list and categorize all the items you need to pack for your trip. If it's on the list, you won't forget it.

4. YOU HAVE EVENTS TO TRACK OR ATTEND WHILE YOU TRAVEL. There are two parts to our event system. This first part lets you create a list of all of your events in a nice, easy-to-read, sortable table. You can use it to add any type of event such as: flight itineraries, visa expiration dates, renewals and border runs, immigration document submission dates, business meetings, lunch dates, festivals, production schedules and any other events you will attend during your trip. You will even receive email notifications 5 days before each event as well as the day of the event well in advance. 

5. YOU HAVE IMPORTANT CONTACTS YOU MUST HAVE ACCESS TO. Got a job interview or a host family to call when you get to your destination? Lost your fancy, smartphone? Guess what? You can add any and all contacts you need to your Bounce Plan. It's a great access-anywhere backup in case your phone gets lost or if you need someone else on your account to have access to your contacts as well. Are you getting the picture yet? It's all about having what you need at any time... like a Pro.

6. YOU HAVE TRIP NOTES YOU'D LIKE TO JOT DOWN. There are always things you'd like to remember for your trip that don't fit anywhere else. We have you covered. Your Bounce Plan notes allow you to jot down all of your random or not-so-random thoughts. Organized by date, you can even use it to keep a running diary of your trip!

7. YOU NEED YOUR EVENTS ON A CALENDAR.  The event calendar is the second part of the Bounce Plan event feature. The events you create on the event tab of your Bounce Plan show up on your global event calendar. The calendar shows the events for all of your Bounce Plans, not just one. It's a nice, visual way to keep track of your events and can be displayed with a Daily, Weekly or Monthly view in just one click!

8. YOU WANT DROPBOX ACCESS FROM ANYWHERE. Get anytime-access to all of your Dropbox files right from your Bounce Plan user dashboard! You can upload and download images, important documents, videos, etc. without having to leave Bounce Plan. We all know things can happen on any trip. Sometimes we lose things or they get taken. A Bounce Plan account will help you adjust to such mishaps with as little disruption as possible.

9. YOU HAVE REPEATING EXPENSES DURING YOUR TRIP OR MOVE. Some people are long-term travelers who stay in one location for more than a month or who are expatriating to a new country, like myself. Or there may be some monthly expenses you need to keep track of while you are away. With a Bounce Plan account, you can add and track all of your expenses that occur at daily, weekly, biweekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly intervals. It will even total each interval automatically so you can have a clear picture of what money you have going out, on what day and how often. 

10. YOU NEED MORE THAN ONE PERSON TO HELP WITH PLANNING. Being able to add family, friends, co-workers, colleagues and more to your Bounce Plan account gives you the extra help you need to plan your trips. They can also create their own Bounce Plans and help share the monthly subscription expense. The multi-user feature is perfect for family/group planning, companies and teams as well as budget travelers who would like to share the expense of using awesome travel tools.

There you have it! Traveling like a Pro means being well prepared and well organized. Now you have all the travel tools you need in one location and 10 solid reasons to use them.

Cheers!

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