River Trip Planning
River Trip Planning Tools
:: Trip Planning is one of the more stressful and time consuming aspects of river trips. A poorly planned trip is no fun and could be dangerous. We have shared some of our (and our rafting friends) experience that we hope will make trip planning smoother and less stressful.
Trip Planning Using Google Docs
:: Google docs is an excellent tool for planning river trips. It allows the trip leader to keep all the information about the trip in a single "living document" that everyone in your group has access to and can update as needed. It is much more efficient than emailing an excel or word doc around to everyone every time you make a change, then trying to keep track of which doc is the most current version. As the trip leader you can be notified and easily see what changes are made to the doc and even know who made them. We have used Google Docs for trip planning with people of all computer skill levels and so far everyone on our trips has been able to use it. If you know your way around a basic spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel you will have no trouble using a Google Doc spreadsheet. We have created a useful River Trip Planning template in Excel that you can upload to google Docs or use in Excel.
Go to the Google Docs Tutorial >>
Packing Lists
:: We have several packing lists that we have been refining over the years. We have packaged up the lists in both Excel and PDF format in a Zip file that you can use and modify as you wish. This package also includes a medical release form if you ever bring kids without thier parents. It's important to have a medical release in case you have to make emergency medical decisions for a child who's parent is not on the trip. Hospitals have been known to refuse treatment without a release if they can't get a hold of the child's parents.
Download the Packing Lists zip file >>
